wildly around the altar where burns the life heat and divine fire of the world, or wandering wine-flushed over hill and vale, hymning the praises of the spirit of material existence. And this Dionysiak Chorus, like the daughters of Nereus who dance in the sea, generally consisted of fifty members. The kosmik dance is an illustration of what is termed in modern philosophic language the rhythm of motion," and in its mental phase it becomes the impious" dinos," [circular dance, hence dizziness, vertigo] and tumult in men's thoughts, which,' according to Professor Ruskin, have followed on their avarice in the present day, making them alike forsake the laws of their ancient gods, and misapprehend or reject the true words of their existing teachers.'? The furious dance is well described in the Bakchai, where the very mountain, the wild beasts, and all nature are said to join in it. The allusions in the Comedies of Aristophanes to the Bakchik dance are numerous, and its circular character is frequently noticed. Thus the Chorus of Mystics in the Batrachoi exclaim, the knee of the old men moves swiftly,' which is exactly illustrated in the case of Kadmos and Teiresias," and the dance itself is called the sacred circle of the goddess,' i.e., Demeter. Again, we read in reference to the Bakchik dance, 'But come, dance with head and foot like a deer, and at the same time make a noise choruscheering." Here the allusion is to the Bakchik devotee as clad in the mystic faun-skin nebris.8 So nebrizo signifies (1) to wear a faun skin, and (2) to dance at the Dionysiak Festivals. In the Thesmophoriazousai we naturally find various notices of the Demetrian and Dionysiak dance. 'Rise, come on lightly with your feet

6

5 Bak. 181 et seq.

® Bat. 441.

7 Lysist. 1316-7.

4

8 Vide inf. VIII. i. Nebriopeplos.

in a circle, join hand-in-hand, move to the rhythm of the dance, go with swift feet. It is right that the choral order should look about, rolling the eye in every direction,' i.e., lest there be a hidden Pentheus.2 Again, the poet alludes to the graceful step of the well-circled [i.e., elegant] dance; ' and the Chorus exclaim, 'Sing aloud the whole ode, and do thou thyself lead, ivy-bearing Bakchos, our lord, Bromios, child of Semele, delighting in dances. And about thee resounds the clamour of Kithairon and the mountains dark-with-leaves, thickshaded, and the rocky dells re-echo. And in a circle about thee, the ivy, beautifully-leaved, flourishes in its curl.'4 Allusion is also made to a peculiar movement called the Diple, the grace of the dance;' the term conveys the idea of doubling, and the dancers perhaps formed two combined circles like the figure 8. Hesychios somewhat obscurely defines it as the figure of a dance, or of beating time.'6 Aristophanes, the constant servant of Dionysos," might have been Pindaros, had he not been Aristophanes.

Subsection II.-The Bakchai.

5

The Bakchai of Euripides possesses a peculiar interest and importance as being the only Dionysiak Play which has come down to us entire, and I shall, therefore, enter into a somewhat detailed examination of the more remarkable passages in it. The argument is as follows:Dionysos, with his train of Asiatic Bakchants, arrives at Thebai, where Pentheus, the grandson of Kadmos, rules. The aged Kadmos and the seer Teiresias determine to honour the new divinity, but the infatuated Pentheus, despite their warnings, resolves to put a stop to the

1 Thes. 953 et seq.

2 Cf. Paus. ii. 2.

3 Thes. 968.

4 Ibid. 986 et seq.

5 Ibid. 982.

Hesych. in voc. Diple; cf. Ioul. Pol. iv. 105.

7 Platon, Sympos.

Bakchik cult, and to slay the ringleader. Dionysos, in mortal form, is brought before Pentheus, who in vain attempts to imprison him, and like the deluded Aias,1 fastens up a bull instead. In the meantime, Dionysos shakes the earth around, and a messenger freshly arrived from Kithairon recounts the wondrous doings of the Bakchai, the leaders of whom are the three surviving daughters of Kadmos, Autonoe, Agaue, and Ino. Dionysos now persuades Pentheus to dress like a woman, and promises to conduct him to the haunts of the Mainades. They depart, and a messenger arrives and recounts to the Chorus the fate of Pentheus, who is torn in pieces by the Bakchai.2 Agaue then joyfully enters, supposing in her madness that her son, whom she had slain, was a young lion, and afterwards Kadmos comes on the stage with the remains of the body of Pentheus. Agaue's reason returns, and Kadmos explains to her the vengeance of Dionysos, who, appearing, reveals the destiny of Kadmos, and asserts his own divinity. The Play, which is pronounced by some critics to be the poet's masterpiece, was finished a few months before his death in B.c. 406, and afterwards brought out by his son, the younger Euripides.

Verses 1-63, Introductory Prologue, spoken by Dionysos: the arrangement of the piece is somewhat awkward, as is customary in the Plays of Euripedes. I, Dionysos, son of Zeus, whom Semele, the daughter of Kadmos, bore, delivered by the lightning-bearing fire, am come to this land of the Thebans. And I see the monument of my thunderbolt-stricken mother, here near the dwellings, and the fallen ruins of the house smoking, and the still living flame of the fire of Zeus, the deathless insult of Here against my mother.' 4 He praises the piety of

3

1 Cf. Soph. Aias, 51 et seq.

2 Cf. Paus. ii. 2.

3 Cf. subsec. iv.

4 Cf. Vs. 244, 577; Hippol. 558; sup. III. i. 1.

Kadmos, who has covered his daughter's shrine with vineleaves, and continues in what Strabo calls a boasting speech,'1 'having left the wealthy lands of Lydians and Phrygians, and having come o'er the sun-stricken plains of the Persians, and the Baktrian walls, and the dangerous country of the Medes, and Arabia the happy, and all Asia which lies by the salt sea, having fair-towered cities filled with Hellenes and Barbarians mingled together, and there having danced,2 and established my Mystic Rites in order that I might be an evident divinity among mortals, I have arrived at this city first of Hellenik cities.' Euripides, at times, somewhat arbitrarily alters the mythic legends, but he does not seem to have taken many such liberties with the history of Dionysos, who here appears in his accustomed character as the Wanderer. Why is he said to wander? Mr. Cox remarks on this phase of the god, 'In the Homeric Hymn the Tyrrhenian mariners avow their intention of taking Dionysos to Egypt, or Ethiopia, or the Hyperborean land; and this idea of change of abode becomes the prominent feature in the later developments of the wandering wine-god. When the notion was once suggested, every country, and even every town, would naturally frame its own story of the wonderful things done by Dionysos as he abode in each.' 3 But what parallel is there in the case? In the Homerik Hymn strangers meet with the god in Hellenik regions, attempt to carry him into the Outer-world, and fail. Here, having wandered at will first over the Outerworld, he at length arrives at Hellas. Even supposing that the Hymn attained an almost universal popularity, why, because it depicted a vain attempt to withdraw him from Hellas, should he therefore be supposed to have become the exact opposite, an actual, voluntary wanderer? And,

1

Strabo, xv. 1.

2 Cf. subsec. i.

3 Mythol. of the Aryan Nations, ii. 294.

further, what is the meaning of the Hymn itself? and why should men be represented as being desirous to carry him away to distant lands? How simple is the answer to such questions from the historical point of view. We need not suppose, contrary to possibility and apart from evidence, that on account of the legend of the ancient Hymn, every town invented tales about the god's travels; but just as the territorial contests of Poseidon, otherwise inexplicable, illustrate the introduction of his cult into fresh regions and the opposition which it encountered there,1 so the travels of Dionysos symbolised the progress of his worship throughout the world, until at length he arrives in Thebai, the first of Hellenik cities of the continent reached by him; and there finds himself unhonoured and his cult violently opposed. Even Mr. Cox himself admits, as we have seen,2 that the opposition of the Theban Pentheus to the cultus of Dionysos is among the few indications of historical facts exhibited in Hellenic mythology.' But while thus interpreting Euripides in an historic sense, we are not bound to accept in all its details his historical account of the Dionysiak cult; to suppose, for instance, that it was originally identical with the worship of the Phrygian Kybele, or that Lydia was the point from whence it passed over into Hellas. So, again, when he speaks of the cities of maritime Asia as inhabited by a mingled population of Hellenes and Barbarians, he is evidently thinking more of his own times than of the mythical era of Pentheus, as the earliest Hellenik colonies in Asia Minor were according to tradition, founded subsequently to the Dorik conquest of the Peloponnesos.3 Seven eastern regions are mentioned by the god as having been visited by him, Lydia, Phrygia, Persia, Media, Baktria, Arabia, and maritime Asia, and the names are not

1 Vide Poseidon, xxi.

2 Sup. II. i. 1.

3 Cf. Tyrrell, The Bacchae of Euripides, Introduction, xxxiii. note 2.