upwards of forty of his appellations. Some of the principal of them are, Bacchosa and Bromios, from the noise with which his festivals were celebrated; Bassareus, from the fox-skin dresses named bassara worn by the Thracians; Dithyrambos, from the odes of that name, or from his double birth (dis Oúpa); Eleleus and Euios, from the shouting; Lycos, as loosing from care; Lencos, from the wine-press.

Dionysos was also called, 1. Muse-leader; 2. Bull-headed; 3. Fire-born; 4. Dance-rouser; 5. Mountain-rover; 6. Sleepgiver, etc.

It seems probable that in the original conception of Dionysos he was not merely the wine-god, for such restricted notions are contrary to the genius of the ancient Grecian religion, in which each people assigned its peculiar deities a very extensive sphere of action, as gods of the sun, the moon, the heaven, the earth, and other parts of nature. Dionysos was therefore, it is likely, regarded as a deity presiding over growth and increase in general; and as Hermes, who seems to have been originally of coextensive power with him, was gradually restricted and made a god of cattle alone, so Dionysos may have been limited to the care of plants, particularly the vinec.

Water and heat being the great causes of growth, we find this deity closely connected with both these elements. Thus the infant Dionysos is committed to the water-goddess Ino, and to the Hyades and to Silenos. His temples at Athensd and Sparta were in places named marshes (èv Xíuvais), and he was styled Of-the-Marsh (Auvaîos), and Marsh-sprung (Aunyevns). In some places he was called the Rainer ("Tns);

a The maintainers of the Indian hypothesis observe that Bagis is one of the names of Seeva. According to Müller (Orchom. p. 384.), Bacchos (the same perhaps with Iacchos) was the rapedpos of Demeter of Thebes, and was totally distinct from the Thracian Dionysos.

• 1. μουσαγέτης: 2. ταυροκέφαλος: 3. πυριγενής: 4. ἐγερσίχορος: 5. ὀρειμανής: 6. ὑπνοδότης.

c

Among the epithets of Dionysos we meet Σukirns (from σvкos, fig, Athen. iii. 78.) and Aevôpirns (Creuz. Sym. ii. 360.).

Sch. Aristoph. Frogs, 216.

f See Passow, s. v.

his festival, the Anthesteria, was celebrated in the spring, the season of showers, and it was so named from the flowers and blossoms, of which he was the author; whence he was named the Flowerya.

The relation of Dionysos to the celestial heat is expressed in the story of his birth, and also in the dog Mæra (Maîpa), another name for Sirius the dog-starb; the name of his companion Marône also seems to refer to heat; and perhaps the true origin of the god's own epithet, Mŋpoyevǹs, usually rendered Thigh-born, lies in this word. It is not impossible that the real root of his mother's name may be σélasd.

In favour of this god's presiding over cattle is alleged the well-known circumstance of the goat being the victim offered to him; his being in his infancy conveyed to Nysa in the form of a kid, and his being worshiped under that name. He also wore the goatskin dress of the goatherds; and in Attica and Hermione he was named Meλávaryis, a name which in the former place was connected with the fabulous origin of the festival of the Apaturia. Welcker is of opinion that Dionysos was originally the object of worship to the lower classes, the goatherds, and such like (in Attica the tribe of the Ægicoreis); and that as they gradually rose in consideration, their god was associated with those of the nobles; and that thence he always appeared of an inferior rank to those with whom he was joined. This critic accounts on the same principle for the very slight mention of Dionysos in the Homeric poems, namely, that he was of too low a rank to be an actor of importance in those aristocratic verses, which only told of kings and nobles, and the gods whom they adorede.

The name Dionysos is one of the most difficult to explain

"Avētos (Paus. i. 31, 4.): 'Av0eùs (Id. vii. 21, 6.): Evavėýs (Athen. viii. 563.) : Þλavons (Eurip. Fr. Incert. 169.). A name of Dionysos was Eipapurns, which Schwenk (p. 150.) very ingeniously supposes to be equivalent to ciapopvWTNS, Spring-born. Compare Welcker, Nach. zur Tril. 187, 188.

b See above, p. 214. Icarios would seem to be connected with ixμàs, ixŵp, and therefore to denote moisture. His daughter is Erigone (Spring-born).

C

Μάρων Εὐάνθεος υἱός. Od. ix. 196.

d Schwenk, 147.

⚫ Welcker, Ueber das Satyrspiel (Nach. zur Tril. 186-211.), where much valuable matter on the subject of Dionysos will be found.

in Grecian mythology. After Voss's able exposure we may venture to reject the notion of its being the same with Devanishi, a title of the Hindoo god Seeva, and view in Dionysos a Grecian god with a Grecian name. The most probable (though by no means quite satisfactory) interpretation of it is God-of-Nysa, which last place occurs frequently in his legend. Like Tritôn, however, it has been multiplied, for we find a Nysa on Helicôn in Bœotiaa, in Thrace, in Naxos, at the foot of Mount Tmolos in Lydia, in Arabia, in India, in Africa, and elsewhereb; besides that indefinite one whence Persephone was carried away by Hades. It therefore is a matter of uncertainty which was the original Nysa.

Strabo, ix. 1. See Müller, Orchom. 89. 383: he decides in favour of this Nysa.

Sch. Il. vi. 123. Voss, Myth. Br. iv. 100. seq.

CHAPTER XV.

FOREIGN DEITIES:-CYBELE, COTYTTO AND BENDIS, ARTEMIS OF EPHESUS, ISIS.

OUR object in introducing the present chapter is to give a slight view of the manner in which the intercourse with Asia and Egypt, which had such an injurious effect on the religion of Greece, commenced. We know not how we can better open the subject, than by quoting the following just and philosophical observations of a writera for whom we entertain the highest respect and esteem.

"After that most happy age whose image we behold expressed in the poems of Homer had passed away, a great change took place in civil affairs, but a still greater in religions, in pursuits, and inclinations; and the whole of Greece was so much altered, that if any one passes from the perusal of Homer to that of those writers who lived in the time of the Persian war, he will feel as if removed to another region, and seem hardly to recognise those old Achæans, who, happy with the present, careless of the future, prompt to act, mindless of what they had done, were aloof from all the causes of anxiety and superstition. But when, as reason gradually ripened, the Greeks began to examine the involved conceptions of the mind, and to know themselves, there succeeded that more mature and solicitous age, at which when men arrive they feel more strongly and acutely the incentives of pleasure and of virtue, fluctuating alternately, with great commotion of mind, and often with extreme ennui, between what they condemn and what they desire. Hence that anxiety about hidden matters, and those presages of the future, and the various superstitions which consciousness of guilt and despair of salvation are wont to produce. The entrance and traces of this new age of Greece we are prevented from clearly discerning by the obscurity of those times, which, being illumined by hardly

a Lobeck, Aglaophamus, 312. seq.

any literary monuments, may be said to resemble a region covered with dark clouds, through which the tops of the towers and castles elevate themselves, while the ground and foundation lie concealed. But that there was a great agitation of the human mind, and some new efforts, is proved by the perfection of lyric poetry, which commenced a little after the time of Hesiod, and by the origin of philosophy and the advance of the elegant arts. We presently see magnificent temples raised to the gods and heroes, solemn games instituted throughout the towns, the number and the insignia of the priests, especially when the regal power had been abolished, increased. But that at the same time the mystic ceremonies, whose first traces appear in the Hesiodic and Cyclic poems, were diffused far and wide, and occupied the whole of life with new superstitions, is manifest from the number of jugglers who then roved through Greece, expiating by certain secret rites not only blood and man-slaughter, but also prodigies, sacrileges, and whatever piacular offences either individuals or states had committed."

Having enumerated the principal of these men, such as Abaris, Aristeas, Onomacritus of Locris, and Epimenides, our author thus proceeds:

"Meantime Egypt, the parent of superstition and sacerdotal falsehood, was laid open; and who that reflects on the long and frequent intercourse of the two nations, and the vaniloquence of the one and the credulity of the other, will hesitate to concede that the contagion had secretly insinuated itself into Greece before the time of Pythagoras? But it is not without reason believed, that during the same period the mystic poems of Musæos, Eumolpos, Orpheus, and that which was called the Minyas, were made public; in all of which were scattered new fables about the lower-world, and hopes of a more happy life and Elysian abodes promised to those who received the sacred decrees of the gods, and equal punishments threatened to the despisers of them. What! is not the religion of the subterrane deities sanctioned by those Athenian laws, which direct that those who have committed manslaughter should be brought before the King of the Sacred Compare Paus. ix. 36, 5. Ukert, I. i. 51. note.

a