yet even when he rises again from his discerption under the name of Dionysos, he is the colleague and coequal of his divine father.
This remarkable change, occurring as it did during the sixth and a part of the seventh century before the Christian æra, may be traced to the influence of communication with Egypt (which only became fully open to the Greeks about b. c. 660), as well as with Thrace, Phrygia, and Lydia. From hence new religious ideas and feelings were introduced, which chiefly attached themselves to the characters of Dionysos and Dêmêtêr. The Greeks identified these two deities with the great Egyptian Osiris and Isis, so that what was borrowed from the Egyptian worship of the two latter naturally fell to their equivalents in the Grecian system.[1] Moreover the worship of Dionysos (under what name cannot be certainly made out) was indigenous in Thrace,[2] as that of the Great Mother was in Phyrgia, and in Lydia—together with those violent ecstasies and manifestations of temporary frenzy, and that clashing of noisy instruments, which we find afterwards characterizing it in Greece. The great masters of the pipe—as well as the dythyramb, [3] and indeed the whole musical system appropriated to the worship of Dionysos, which
- ↑ Herodot. ii. 42, 59, 144.
- ↑ Herodot v. 7, vii. Ill; Euripid. Hecub. 1249, and Rhêsus, 969. and the Prologue to the Bacchæ; Strabo, x. p. 470; Schol. ad Aristophan. Aves, 874; Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieg. 1069; Harpocrat. v. Σάβοι; Photius, Εὐοῖ Σαβοῖ. The "Lydiaca" of Th. Menke (Berlin, 1843) traces the early connection between the religion of Dionysos and that of Cybclê, c. 6, 7. Hoeckh's Krêta (vol. i. p. 128-134) is instructive rεspecting the Phrygian religion.
- ↑ Aristotle, Polit. viii. 7, 9. Πᾶσα γὰρ Βάκχεια καὶ πᾶσα ἡ τοιαύτη κίνησις μάλιστα τῶν ὀργάνων ἐστὶν ἐν τοῖς αὐλοῖς· τῶν δ' ἁρμονιῶν ἐν τοῖς Φρυγιστὶ μέλεσι λαμβάνει ταῦτα τὸ πρέπον, οἷον ὁ διθύραμβος ὁμολογουμένως εἶναι Φρύγιον.. Eurip. Bacch. 58.—
Αἵρεσθε τἀπιχώρι' ἐν πόλει Φρυγῶν
Τύμπανα, Ῥέας τε μητρὸς ἑμὰ θ' εὑρήματα etc.Plutarch, Εἰ. in Delph. c. 9; Pliilochor. Fr. 21, cd. Didot, p. 389. The complete and intimate manner in which Euripidês identifies the Bacchic rites of Dionysos with the Phrygian ceremonies in honor of the Great Mother, is very remarkable. The fine description given by Lucretius (ii. 600-640) of the Phrygian worship is much enfeebled by his unsatisfactory allegorizing.
