1 Pl., Phdr. 265 A.
2 e.g. Cael. Aurel. (i.e. Soranos), Morb. Chr. i, § 144 ff.; Aret. Chron. Pass. i, 6, p. 84 Kühn [vol. 24].
3 Even the late interpolated passages Ξ 325, ω 74, are not quite conclusive. Apart from these the statement of Sch. ι 198 applies strictly throughout both poems: τὸ μὴ παραδιδόναι Ὅμηρον Διόνυσον οἴνου εὑρετήν, Lehrs, Arist.3, p. 181.
4 Ζ 132 ff. The scene is evidently meant to be a Bacchic festival. This is shown by the θύσθλα, which the Διωνύσοιο τιθῆναι let fall out of their hands. All the rest is obscure. Even in antiquity no one knew who the τιθῆναι of Dionysos really were, and hence alternative suggestions were all the more numerous: cf. Nauck, Fr. Trag.2, p. 17. Voigt, in Roscher’s Mythol. Lex. i, 1049. It can hardly be necessary (with Sch. A on Z 129) to deduce from the reference to τιθῆναι that Dionysos himself was regarded as νήπιος ἔτι καὶ παῖς. His former τιθῆναι follow him in the Bacchic festival even after he has grown up, exactly as in h. Hom. xxvi, 3, 7–10. αἱ Διονύσου τροφοί as the frenzied mob worshipping the god, τῷ θεῷ ὀργιάζουσαι (in Thessaly), come in D.S. 5, 50, 4, in a parallel narrative to the story of Lykourgos and the Mainads. With the conception of the god as λικνίτης neither his leap into the sea (Ζ 135 ff.), nor esp. the adj. μαινομένοιο (132) are in harmony. This last word does certainly give us pause. The accounts provided by later ages of the madness of Dionysos are obviously made up from the lines of Homer and are therefore of no use to us (already ap. Eumelos in the Εὐρωπία, Schol. AD. Ζ 131; then Pherekydes, Achaios ἐν Ἴριδι: Phld., Piet., p. 36 [Nauck, Fr. Trag.2, p. 751]; E., Cyc. 3. [Apollod.] iii, 5, 1, is prob. derived from Pherec. as are also Philistos fr. 57, FHG. i; Pl., Lg. 672 B; Nic. Ὀφιακ. fr. 30 Schn., etc.). Scholastic interpreters even thought of a hypallage: μαινομένοιο = μανιοποιοῦ, βακχείας παρασκευαστικοῦ, Schol. A, Ζ 132; cf. Sch. B, p. 182a, 43 f. Bk. And, indeed, there is certainly in this case a sort of mythological or sacramental hypallage: the state of mind brought about by the god in those who surround him is reflected back on to the god himself (μαινόμενοι Σάτυροι, E., Ba. 130; cf. the mad nurses of Dionysos, Nonn., D. ix, 38 ff.). It would not be hard to parallel this (e.g. Dionys. who makes men drunk is represented as himself drunk, Ath. 428 E, etc.).
5 Ξ 460, μεγάροιο διέσσυτο μαινάδι ἴση, παλλομένη κραδίην. The evidence of this passage for the familiarity of Homer’s audience with the nature of the Mainads cannot be set aside as Lob., Agl. 285, tries to do. The word could only be used as an εἰκών if the thing were often before men’s eyes. μαινάς, indeed, is even something different from, and more specialized than μαινομένη (Ζ 389).
6 The view that μαίνεσθαι was primitive in the cult of D., the wine, etc., being added later, was definitely put forward in 1825 by O. Müller (Kl. Schr. ii, 26 ff.) arguing against J. H. Voss. But it is only in quite recent times that in tracing the origin of the religion of Dionysos occasional inquirers have taken this view as their starting point: cf. esp. Voigt in his noteworthy treatment of Dionysos in Roscher’s Myth. Lex. i, 1029 ff.
8 E.g. the Odrysai, who, however, lived further north in the Hebros valley; Mela, ii, 17, mentions distinctly the mountain chains of Haimos, Rhodope, and Orbelos as sacris Liberi patris et coetu Maenadum celebratos.
9 Lob., Agl. 289 ff.
10 Sabazios: Σαβάζιον τὸν Διόνυσον οἱ Θρᾷκες καλοῦσιν Sch. Ar., Ves. 9; cf. Sch. Ar., Lys. 388; D.S. 4, 4, 1; Harp. Σαβοί; Alex. Polyh. ap. Macr. i, 18, 11 (Sebadius: cf. Apul., M. viii, 25, p. 150, 11 Ey. The original form of this name seems to have been Savos, Savadios, Kretschmer, Einleitung in. d. Gesch. d. griech. Spr. 195 f.; Usener, Götternamen 44). Sabos, Phot. p. 495, 11–12 Pors. Hesych. s.v.; Orph., H. 49, 2, etc. The fact that others could call Sabazios a Phrygian god (Amphitheos π. Ἡρακλείος βʹ ap. Sch. Ar., Av. 874; Str. 470; Hsch. s.v.), only serves to bring out more clearly the opinion, unanimously held even in antiquity, that the Thracians and the Phrygians were closely related. Sabazios (besides being identified with Helios: Alex. Polyh. l.c.; cf. Soph. fr. 523 N.), as the supreme and almighty god of the Thracians, was even called Ζεὺς Σαβάζιος (Val. Max. i, 3, 2), esp. on inss. (a few are given in Rapp, Dionysoscult [Progr.] p. 21; cf. also ins. from Peiraeus Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1883, p. 245; Ins. Pergam. i, 248, 33, 49: from Pisidia, Papers of the Amer. School at Athens, ii, p. 54, 56. Jovi Sabazio, Orelli, Ins. 1259). We even find Ζεὺς Βάκχος, Ζεὺς Ἥλιος (BCH. vi, 189).—The name Σαβάζιος was derived from σαβάζειν = εὐάζειν, διὰ τὸν γενόμενον περὶ αὐτὸν εὐασμόν (θειασμόν): Sch. Ar., Av. 874; Lys. 388. So, too, Βάκχος was on this view only another way of expressing the same meaning; since this name also was derived by the ancients from βάζειν = εὐάζειν (it is really from the root ϝαχ (ἀχέω) Βάκχος, with “affrication”; a reduplicated form of it is ϝιϝαχος, Ἴακχος, ἰαχέω, ἰακχέω; cf. Curtius, Griech. Etym.5, p. 460, 576). Other names of the Thracian Dionysos are the following: Βασσαρεύς (Βάσσαρος, Orph., H. 45, 2), derived from βασσάρα the long dress (made of skin?) worn by the Βασσαρίδες = Θρᾴκιαι βάκχαι, AB. 222, 26 f.; Hsch. s.v. Βασσάραι and EM. s.v. (the last compiled from Orion and Sch. Lyc. 771). Other accounts (not contradicting in this point the statement of Hsch.) made it the dress worn by the god himself: Sch. Pers. i, 101. (The Βασσαρεύς was generally described as bearded and even senili specie, like the representation of Dionysos himself in the oldest Greek art: Macr. i, 18, 9.) If Βασσαρεύς means “the wearer of the long fox-skin” we should be strongly reminded of the—also Thracian—god Ζάλμολξις (Ζάλμοξις), whose name was derived from ζαλμός = δορὰ ἄρκτου (Porph., VP. 14, though this comes only from Antonius Diogenes 6), and probably means “he who is cloaked in the bearskin” (see Fick, Spracheinh. d. Indog. Europ., p. 418; Hehn, Culturpflanz. 428 E.T.).—Γίγων a name of Dionysos, EM. 231, 28: perhaps a name given to the god in the city Gigonos mentioned in the same passage, and the ἄκρα Γίγωνις at the western end of the Thracian Chalkidike.—EM. 186, 32, is too short to be intelligible: βαλιά· διαποίκιλος. καὶ τὸν Διόνυσον Θρᾷκες.—Δύαλος Διόνυσος παρὰ Παίοσιν, Hesych.
11 At any rate the people whom Thuc., Ephoros, and others call Thracians and regarded as having been once settled in Phokis, Boeotia, etc., are undoubtedly to be considered Thracians—and not the impossibly honest and exemplary people, a creation of the fancy, the “Thracians of the Muses”, alleged to be quite distinct from the real Thracian peoples, of whom we have heard so much since K. O. 269 Müller (Orchom. 379 ff.) introduced the idea. Antiquity only knew of one kind of Thracian. In the Homeric poems they are not so different from the Greeks in civilization as they were in later times, when we know them from the accounts of Herod. and Xen. For all that they are the same people. They seem in the course of time to have degenerated, or rather they have not shared in the progress made by others and so have remained backward (even behind their Phrygian relatives who wandered to Asia Minor and achieved a higher culture under Semitic influence). In fact, like the Keltoi, they were never able to get beyond a condition of semi-civilization.
12 μανίας ἐπαγωγὸν ὁμοκλάν. Aesch. in the Ἠδωνοί ap. Str. 470–1 (fr. 57), is the locus classicus for the music in the Thracian festival of Dionysos. Apart from this it is impossible to distinguish in the accounts given by our ancient authorities, between the strictly Thracian festival and the ideal generalized festival of Dionysos (not the mitigated ceremonial actually used in the festival in Greece). They merge completely into each other.
13 σαβάζειν = εὐάζειν, Schol. Ar., Av. 874; Lys. 388.
14 αἱ Βάκχαι σιγῶσιν. Diogen., Prov. iii, 43.
15 Complete revolution round one’s own axis, as in the dance of a dervish, is known at least only in the more fanatic dance-festivals of antiquity: στροφὴν ὁλοσώματον ὥσπερ οἱ κάτοχοι δινεύοντες, Heliod. 4, 17, p. 116, 1 Bk. δίνησις τῶν θεοφορήτων in Phrygia: Horus ap. EM. 276, 32. Crusius, Philol. 55, 565, compares besides Verg., A. vii, 377 ff.; Alex. Aphr., Prob., p. 6 Us. In the Spartan dance διαμαλέας (?) Seilenoi and Satyrs appeared ὀρχούμενοι ὑπότροχα [περίτροχα acc. to Meineke: perhaps better]. Poll. 4, 104.
16 E., Ba. 116 ff., 664 ff. Thracian: assiduis Edonis fessa choreis qualis in herboso concidit Apidano, Prop. 1, 3, 5 f.
17 Bassaris: Thracian acc. to Sch. Pers. i, 101; worn by βάκχαι Hsch. βασσάραi. Lydian, too: ὅστις χιτῶνας βασσάρας τε Λυδίας ἐχει ποδήρεις, A. ἐν Ἠδωνοῖς, fr. 59; cf. Poll. 7, 59. “Perhaps a Phrygian word that has penetrated into Lydia,” Kretschmer, Einleitung, 390. The worship of Dionysos which had also presumably come from Phrygia, was esp. popular in Lydia.
18 Familiar in the Bacchic ceremonial of Greece; but occurring already in Thrace: Aesch. ἐν Ἠδωνοί (dealing entirely with Thracian customs) mentions the νεβρίδες, and in the same place has αἰγίδας as well (fr. 64).
19 The Βάκχαι of Macedonia and the Μιμαλλόνες, in all respects resembling the Thracian Bacchants, κερατοφοροῦσι κατὰ μίμησιν Διονύσου: Sch. Lyc. 1237 (Λαφυστίας κερασφόρους γυναῖκας).
20 Mentis inops rapitur, quales audire solemus Threicias passis Maenadas ire comis, Ov., F. iv, 457 f.
21 Thphr. Ch. 16 (28, p. 141 Jebb); Artemid. 2, 13, p. 106, 9 H.
22 Snakes and daggers are found in the hands of the μιμαλλόνες καὶ βασσάραι καὶ λυδαί in the train of Ptol. Philad.: Kallixenos ap. Ath. 198 E. Snakes and θύρσοι belong to the paraphernalia of the ἔνοχοι τοῖς Ὀρφικοῖς καὶ τοῖς περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον ὀργιασμοῖς γυναῖκες in Macedonia, and of the Κλώδωνες καὶ Μιμαλλόνες who πολλὰ τοῖς Ἠδωνίσι καὶ ταῖς περὶ τὸν Αἷμον Θρῄσσαις ὅμοια δρῶσιν, Plu., Alex. 2 (in connexion with the snake of Olympias. She was especially given to the Thrako-Dionysian mysteries: cf. the letter of Olympias to Alexander, Ath. 659 F).—θύρσοι of the Macedonian Μιμαλλόνες: Polyaen. 4, 1; Sch. Pers. 1, 99.—“Even now” the thyrsos wands are decked with ivy in the Thraciae populis sollemnibus sacris, Plin., 270 NH. xvi, 144.—The νάρθηξ of the thyrsos is really a shepherd’s staff: Clem. Al., Protr. ii, p. 14 P.
23 Eur., Ba. 735 ff. and frequently.
24 κατοχαὶ καὶ ἐνθουσιασμοί in the Thrako-Macedonian worship of Dionysos: Plu., Alex. 2. (The Mimallones imitantur furorem Liberi, Sch., Pers. i, 99.) οἱ τῷ Σαβαζίῳ κάτοχοι: Porph. ap. Iamb. de Myst. 3, 9, p. 117, 16. βάκχος· ὁ μανιώδης, Eust. δ 249; β 16. Κλώδωνες is the name given to the μαινάδες καὶ βάκχαι ἀπὸ τοῦ κατόχους γινομένας κλώζειν, EM. 521, 50. οἱ κάτοχοι τοῖς περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον ὀργιασμοῖς, Plu., Is. et Os. 35, p. 364 F.
25 οἱ βακχευόμενοι καὶ κορυβαντιῶντες ἐνθουσιάζουσι μέχρις ἂν τὸ ποθούμενον ἴδωσιν, Philo, Vit. Cont. 2, ii, p. 473 M.
26 So too the wild shaking and whirling-round of the head, which acc. to innumerable literary and pictorial descriptions was a regular feature of the Bacchic dance and cult, must have contributed—and was so intended—to bring about the condition of ecstasy and frenzy (ῥιψαύχενι σὺν κλόνῳ, Pi., fr. 208; κρᾶτα σεῖσαι, E., Ba. 185, etc.).—How such fanatic shaking of the head, if kept up for along time, is by itself sufficient, in persons naturally predisposed to it, to bring on complete religious ἔκστασις, may be learnt from a remarkable account in Moreau du hachisch, p. 290 ff., derived from personal observation in the East.
27 The object of the trieteric festival of Dionysos (repeated every second year) held in so many places in Greece (cf. Weniger, Dionysosdienst in Elis, Progr. 1883, p. 8) was to celebrate the presence of the god. This is clearly shown by D.S. 4, 3, 2, who also attributes the trieteric festival to the Thracians: τοὺς Βοιωτοὺς καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους Ἕλληνας καὶ Θρᾷκας . . . καταδεῖξαι τὰς τριετηρίδας θυσίας Διονύσῳ καὶ τὸν θεὸν νομίζειν κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ποιεῖσθαι τὰς παρὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐπιφανείας. At this time women and maidens celebrated τὴν παρουσίαν τοῦ Διονύσου. (In the archaic song of the Elean women the Bull-god is thus called upon: Plu., QG. 36, 299 A; Is. et Os. 35, p. 364 F; whereupon the Eleans believed that τὸν θεόν σφισιν ἐπιφοιτᾶν ἐς τῶν Θυίων τὴν ἑορτήν: Paus. 6, 26, 1.)—For Bakchos amongst the dancers see E., Ba. 185 ff., 306 f., and often. At the trieteric festival at Delphi Διόνυσος . . . Παρνασὸν κατὰ πηδᾷ χορεύει παρθένοις σὺν Δελφίσιν, E., Hypsip. fr. 752. And so often in poetry: see Nauck on S., OT. 213; Ant. 1126 ff.—Thracian trieteric festival: tuo motae proles Semeleia thyrso Ismariae celebrant repetita triennia bacchae, Ov., M. ix, 641 f.; tempus erat, quo sacra solent trieterica Baccho Sithoniae celebrare nurus; nox conscia sacris, etc., vi, 587.
28 ἀφανισμός followed by ἐπιφάνεια of Dionysos represent, as we frequently learn, the varying relationship of the god with mankind. These are alternating and periodically repeated, and they are reflected in the trieteric period of the festivals. It is customary to explain this disappearance and return of the god as an allegorical typification of the destruction and restoration of vegetation. There is no reason at all to believe this, except for those who regard the doctrines of the Greek “Religion of Nature” as infallible axioms. The god is simply, and in the literal sense of the words, regarded as removed for a time from the world of men, during which period he is in the world of spirits. In the same way Apollo, according to the Delphic legend, is carried away from the human world for certain periods: he lives during that time among the Hyperboreans, whose land is inaccessible to mortal foot or ship. We ought not to be afraid to make use of the light thrown on these matters by parallel legends of the temporary disappearance 271 of gods among uncivilized peoples (the god may be sometimes asleep or under constraint; cf. Plu., Is. et Os., 69 fin. 378 F); cf. what we are told in Dobrizhoffer’s Gesch. d. Abip. ii, p. 63 (E.T.), about the beliefs held by the Abipones of Paraguay; or, again, what is said of the negro races of West Africa, according to whom the god normally lives in the depths of the earth, but at regularly recurring intervals comes up to visit men; whereupon the members of a mystical society build him a house, receive his oracles, etc.; Réville, Rel. des peuples non-civil. i, 110–11. Thus Dionysos, too, is for a time in the underworld, in the world of spirits and the souls. This is clearly presupposed by the festival at Lerna, in which Dionysos is called up out of the bottomless spring Alkyonia by which there was an entrance to Hades (just as the inhabitants of Kos every year ἀνακαλοῦνται Hylas out of his spring, i.e. from the underworld: H. Türk, De Hyla, p. 3 f.; Welcker, Kl. Schr. i, 12; and see Maass, Litt. Ztg. 1896, 7–8). Hence also in Lerna a lamb was offered as a victim τῷ πυλαόχῳ, i.e. to Hades himself, and was thrown into the spring (Plu., Is. et Os. 35, p. 368 F, quoting Sokrates περὶ τῶν Ὁσίων; Smp. 4, 6, 2, p. 671 E; Paus. 2, 36, 7; 37, 5–6). Because he is in the realm of the dead a pragmatical myth represented him as slain by Perseus and thrown into the spring of Lerna: Lob., Agl. 574. In Delphi, too, something was known of the death and reawakening of Dionysos, but we have in Orph., H. 53, a quite unambiguous expression of the real conception, acc. to which D. “rested in the house of Persephone”, and appears again in the upper world at the time of the trieteric festival when he ἐγείρει his κῶμον, εὐάζων κινῶν τε χορούς. We may be all the more certain that the same idea is to be attributed to the trieteric festival in Thrace, since the same belief exactly occurs again in the legend of the Thracian (Getic) god Zalmoxis (see below)—he was believed to have disappeared into his infernal kingdom among the spirits and souls and to have made periodical returns to the world of the living. The reason why Dionysos, as worshipped both in Thracian and Greek trieteric festivals, stops for a time in the underworld of the souls, is clear enough: that too was his realm. We can now understand why it is that Dionysos is also ruler over the souls and can be called Ζαγρεὺς, Νυκτέλιος, Ἰσοδαίτης: i.e. he is simply given names of Hades himself (Plu., E ap. D. ix, p. 389 A). His real character of master of the souls and spirits (ἄναξ, ἥρως), as it had been originally in the Thracian cult, was thus preserved, in spite of much alteration in its Greek form, partly in Greek local cults, partly in the Orphic cult of Dionysos.—There is a legend which is based on a reminiscence of this periodic disappearance of Dionysos to the underworld, viz. the thoroughly Greek story of his descent on a single occasion into Hades in order to bring back Semele. Elsewhere his disappearance into the realm of the spirits gave rise to the legend of his escape and flight to the Muses; this was spoken of in the Agrionia at Chaironeia (Plu., Smp. 8 Praef.).
29 Cf. Eur., Ba. 920 ff., 1020 f.
30 ταυρόφθογγοι δ’ ὑπομυκῶνταί ποθεν ἐξ ἀφανοῦς φοβεροὶ μῖμοι: A. Ἠδωνοί describing the Thracian worship of D. (fr. 57). This was “certainly intended to increase for the participants in the festival the feeling of the god’s presence and thus to add to the wildness of their orgies”, as Rapp, Dionysosc., 19, very rightly observes. The invisible bellowing bull is the god himself. (Dionysos appears as a bull to the insane Pentheus: E., Ba. 920 ff.).—“The Batloka, a tribe in the Northern Transvaal, hold a yearly festival of the dead in which 272 hidden magicians make weird sounds with flutes which the people take for the voice of spirits; they say ‘Modimo is there’.” Schneider, Relig. d. Afrikan. Naturv. 143.
31 The women taking part in the trieteric festival of the god play the part of the μαινάδες in his train; D.S. 4, 3, 3. Imitation of the Νύμφαι τε καὶ Πᾶνες καὶ Σειληνοὶ καὶ Σάτυροι in the βακχεία: Pl., Lg. 815 C. What was afterwards merely a piece of traditional ritual was originally without doubt a real hallucination of the κάτοχοι.—The idea that a throng, θίασος, of wood-spirits Satyrs and Seilenoi danced about the God must also have been common in the Thracian cult (συγχορευεταὶ Διονύσου, Ael., VH. iii, 40; ὁ τῷ Διονύσῳ παρεπόμενος ὄχλος, Ath. 362 E). σαυάδαι (obviously related to Σαβάζιος; cf. Usener, Götternamen, 44 f.) was the name given to οἱ σειληνοί by the Macedonians, who in the practice of Dionysos-worship were entirely dependent upon the Thracians. Hsch. s.v., cf. Hdt. viii, 138 fin.
32 The βακχεύοντες τῷ θεῷ (i.e. Sabazios, Sabos) are called σάβοι καὶ σάβαι καὶ σαβάζιοι: Phot. σαβούς; cf. Eust., β 16, p. 1431, 46. Harp. (Phot.) s. σάβοι; Phot. παρασαβάζειν (p. 383, 16 Pors.); Sch. Ar., Av. 874. This identification of the god with his ecstatic worshippers belongs to the Phrygian cult of Kybele as well. Just as the goddess is called Κυβήβη so ὁ κατεχόμενος τῇ μητρὶ τῶν θεῶν is called Κύβηβος: Phot. Κύβηβος, κύβηβον, Eust. β 16. Thus the Greeks in calling the ecstatic worshippers of Bakchos by the name of the god were only adopting the conceptions and vocabulary of the Thracian religion of inspiration into their Dionysos-worship which was modelled on the Thracian cult. Βάκχος is their name for the ὀργιαστὴς τοῦ θεοῦ (etymologically connected is βαβάκτης [κραύγασος, ὅθεν καὶ Βάκχος Hsch.] a Phrygian word for the frenzied priest of Kybele: and therefore = Κύβηβος; cf. Ribbeck, Alazon, p. 86). It appears that the βάκχοι of Dionysos were often called by the old Thracian name σάβοι: σάβους καὶ νῦν ἔτι πολλοὶ τοὺς βάκχους καλοῦσιν, Plu., Smp. 4, 6, 2, p. 671 F (Λαφύστιοι is also a name given, after Διόνυσος Λαφύστιος, to the Βάκχοι who worship him: Lyc. 1237 with Sch.).
33 Διόνυσος ὠμάδιος (Porph., Abs. ii, 55), ὠμηστής (Plu., Them. 13), λαφύστιος, ταυροφάγος (Soph. fr. 607 N.).—At other times we catch a glimpse of the idea that the god himself is the torn and devoured bull (just as in many ancient worships the proper victim of the god is the animal most homogeneous with him): this is evidently the most primitive form of ἐν-θουσιασμός, the primeval symbolism of a mystic worship that, like all mysticism, desires to take personal possession of the God.
34 Dionysos himself also carries the thyrsos (as often in sculpture): E., Hyps. fr. 752, etc.
35 See above, n. 19 (ὁ βούκερως Ἴακχος, Soph., fr. 874, ταυρόκερως θεός, E., Ba. 100). The Greek Dionysos is often described as bull-shaped and horned: this, too, in imitation of Thracian belief. It is Sabazios whom they κεραστίαν παρεισάγουσι, D.S. 4, 4, 2; cf. 3, 64, 2. Ὕῃ ταυροκέρωτι, Euphor. fr. 14.—An allusion in D.S. 4, 4, 2, seems to suggest that the god, the μυριόμορφος, was also (like Attis) regarded as a herdsman. Something of the sort may be referred to in the unintelligible lines quoted by Cl. Al., Prot. ii, p. 14 P., apparently in connexion with the Sabazios mysteries. So Dionysos, too, is sometimes thought of as a βουκόλος: ποιμένι δ’ ἀγραύλων ταύρων, Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο υἱέι κισσοχίτωνι are words used of him in [Orph.] Lith. 260. Again, in imitation of the god himself his μύσται are βουκόλοι on the inscriptions from Asia Minor (Ins. Perg. ii, 485–8) and Thrace, of 273 which R. Schöll speaks, de commun. et coll. Graecis (Satura philol. Saupp.), p. 178 ff. βουκολικός occurs among the cult officials in the Iobakcheia at Athens: Ath. Mitth., 1894, p. 260, l. 122; archibucolus dei Liberi on inscriptions of the city of Rome. βουκόλος and βουκολεῖν occur in connexion with Bacchic worship as early as Kratinos, Aristoph., and Eurip.: νυκτιπόλου Ζαγρέως βούτας, E., Cret. fr. 472, 11 (acc. to Diels). See Crusius, Rh. M. 45, 266 f.; Dieterich de hymnis Orph. (Marb. 1891), p. 3 ff.
36 The special flute-melodies going under the name of Olympos were called θεῖα ([Pl.] Min. 318 B); κατέχεσθαι ποιεῖ (Pl., Smp. 215 C); ὁμολογουμένως ποιεῖ τὰς ψυχὰς ἐνθουσιαστικάς (Arist., Pol. 1340a 10). Cic., Div. i, 114: ergo et ei quorum animi, spretis corporibus, evolant atque excurrunt foras, ardore aliquo incitati atque inflammati, cernunt illa profecto quae vaticinantes praenuntiant: multisque rebus inflammantur tales animi qui corporibus non inhaerent: ut ei qui sono quodam vocum et Phrygiis cantibus incitantur. An unmistakable description of what was meant by ἔκστασις and Korybantic frenzy (see below).
37 i.e. those who are ἐνθουσιασμοῦ κατακώχιμοι, as Aristotle knew them; certain μανικαὶ διαθέσεις are known to Plato. Somewhat similar is the φύσις θειάζουσα which according to Demokritos [D. Chr. 36, 1] fr. 21 Diels, belongs to the inspired poet.
38 The drunkenness of the Thracians and their ancient cultivation of the vine are well known. They even brewed beer from barley: Ath. 547 BC (cf. Hehn, Culturpflanzen, p. 121 E.T.). The prophetai (prophesying in “enthusiasm”) of a Thracian oracle prophesied plurimo mero sumpto, Aristot. ap. Macr. 1, 18, 1.—Even the women drank unmixed wine in Thrace: Pl., Lg. 637 E.
39 Mela, 2, 21 (and from him Solin. 10, 5, p. 75, 16 Mom.) says of the Thracians epulantibus ubi super ignes quos circumsident quaedam semina ingesta sunt, similis ebrietati hilaritas ex nidore contingit (cf. [Plu.] de Flu. 3, 3). There can be no doubt that it was hemp-seed (κάνναβις) which had this effect. Hdt. iv, 74, says expressly that the Thracians knew hemp. It was thus with a sort of hashish that they intoxicated themselves (hashish is an extract of cannabis indica). The Scythians did something similar: Hdt. tells of their vapour-baths in tightly closed huts (iv, 75): they produced a smoke by laying hempseeds on red-hot stones and—though Hdt. does not say so—must necessarily have got into a state of wild intoxication. This may have been a religious performance. Drunkenness is generally regarded by savage tribes as a religiously inspired condition. Further, the Scythian practice has the most striking parallel in the use of “vapour-huts” among the North American Indians, in which case the religious intention is certain (see the account in Klemm, Culturg. ii, 175–8; J. G. Müller, Amerik. Urrelig. 92). Hdt. i, 202, also mentions intoxication from the fumes of certain “fruits” among the Massagetai; these last, after they had completely bemused themselves, stood up to dance and sing. The Thracians, too, may very well have used intoxication through hashish-fumes as a means of exciting themselves to their ecstatic religious dances.—The ancients were quite familiar with the practice of inhaling aromatic smoke to produce religious hallucinations: [Galen] ὅρ. ἰατρ. 187 (xix, p. 462 K) ἐνθουσιασμός ἐστι καθάπερ ἐξίστανταί τινες ἐπὶ (ὑπὸ?) τῶν ὑποθυμιωμένων ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς, <φάσματα (om. edd.)> ὁρῶντες ἢ τυμπάνων ἢ αὐλῶν ἢ συμβόλων (scr. κυμβάλων) ἀκούοντες; cf. odorum delenimento potest animus humanus externari, Apul., Ap. 43.—For the use of smoke in the 274 Korybantic ceremonies see below.—The γαγάτης λίθος ὑποθυμιαθείς is useful as an ἐπιληπτικῶν ἔλεγχος (Dioscor. v, 145); it brings on the convulsions of the victim of ἱερὰ νόσος (epilepsy) [Orph.] L. 478 ff. (cf. further Damigeron, de Lap. 20, p. 179 Ab.; Plin., NH. 36, 141; and also Gal. xii, p. 203 K.).