according to the religious point of view of the Greeks, even the spontaneous joy of the vintage feast was conferred by the favor and enlivened by the companionship of Dionysos. It was upon this analogy that the framers of the Bacchic orgies proceeded but they did not the less disfigure the genuine character of the old Grecian Dionysia.
Dionysos is in the conception of Pindar the Paredros or companion in worship of Dêmêtêr[1] the worship and religious estimate of the latter has by that time undergone as great a change as that of the former, if we take our comparison with the brief description of Homer and Hesiod: she has acquired[2] much of the awful and soul-disturbing attributes of the Phrygian Cybelê. In Homer, Dêmêtêr is the goddess of the corn-field, who becomes attached to the mortal man Jasiôn; an unhappy passion, since Zeus, jealous of the connection between goddesses and men, puts him to death. In the Hesiodic Theogony, Dêmêtêr is the mother of Persephonê by Zeus, who permits Hadês to carry off the latter as his wife: moreover Dêmêtêr has, besides, by Jasiôn a son called Plutos, born in Krête. Even from Homer to Hesiod, the legend of Dêmêtêr, has been expanded and her dignity exalted; according to the usual tendency of Greek legend, the expansion goes on still further. Through Jasiôn, Dêmêtêr becomes connected with the mysteries of Samothrace; through Persephonê, with those of Eleusis. The former connection it is difficult to follow out in detail, but the latter is explained and traced to its origin in the Homeric Hymn to Dêmêtêr.
- ↑ Pindar, Isthm. vi. 3. χαλκοκρότου παρεόρον Δημήτερος,—the epithet marks the approximation of Dêmêtêr to the Mother of the Gods. ᾗ κροτάλων τυπάνων τ’ἰαχὴ, σύν τε βρόμος αὐλῶν Εὔαδεν (Homer. Hymn, xiii.),—the Mother of the Gods was worshipped by Pindar himself along with Pan; she had in his time her temple and ceremonies at Thebes (Pyth. iii. 78 ; Fragm. Dithyr. 5, and the Scholia ad l.) as well as, probably, at Athens (Pausan. i. 3,3).
Dionysos and Dêmêtêr are also brought together in the chorus of Sophoklês, Antigonê, 1072. μέδεις δὲ παγκοίνοις Ἐλευσινίας Δηοῦς ἐν κόλποις, and in Kallimachns, Hymn. Rerer. 70. Bacchus or Dionysos are in the Attic tragedians constantly confounded with the Dêmêtrian Ιacchos, originally so different,—a personification of the mystic word shouted by the Eleusinian communicants. See Strabo, x.p. 468.
- ↑ Euripides in his Chorus in the Helena (1320 seq.) assigns to Dêmêtêr all the attributes of Rhea. and blends the two completely into one.
