Glossary

Aporrheta, Greek απορῥητα—The instructions given by the hierophant or interpreter in the Eleusinian Mysteries, not to be disclosed on pain of death. There was said to be a synopsis of them in the petroma or two stone tablets, which, it is said, were bound together in the form of a book.

Apostatise—To fall or descend, as the spiritual part of the soul is said to descend from its divine home to the world of nature.

Cathartic—Purifying. The term was used by the Platonists and others in connection with the ceremonies of purification before initiation, also to the corresponding performance of rites and duties which renewed the moral life. The cathartic virtues were the duties and mode of living, which conduced to that end. The phrase is used but once or twice in this edition.

Cause—The agent by which things are generated or produced.

Circulation—The peculiar spiral motion or progress by which the spiritual nature or “intellect” descended from the divine region of the universe into the world of sense.

Cogitative—Relating to the understanding: dianoetic.

Conjecture, or Opinion—A mental conception that can be changed by argument.

Coré—A name of Ceres or Demeter, applied by the Orphic and later writers to her daughter Persephoné or Proserpina. She was supposed to typify the spiritual nature which was abducted

Coré—continued. by Hades or Pluto into the Underworld, the figure signifying the apostasy or descent of the soul from the higher life to the material body.

Corically—After the manner of Proserpina, i. e., as if descending into death from the supernal world.

Dæmon—A designation of a certain class of divinities. Different authors employ the term differently. Hesiod regards them as the souls of the men who lived in the Golden Age, now acting as guardian or tutelary spirits. Socrates, in the Cratylus, says “that dæmon is a term denoting wisdom, and that every good man is dæmonian, both while living and when dead, and is rightly called a dæmon.” His own attendant spirit that checked him whenever he endeavored to do what he might not, was styled his Dæmon. Iamblichus places Dæmons in the second order of spiritual existence.—Cleanthes, in his celebrated Hymn, styles Zeus δαιμον (daimon).

Demiurgus—The creator. It was the title of the; chief-magistrate in several Grecian States, and in this work is applied to Zeus or Jupiter, or the Ruler of the Universe. The latter Platonists, and more especially the Gnostics, who regarded matter as constituting or containing the principle of Evil, sometimes applied this term to the Evil Potency, who, some of them affirmed, was the Hebrew God.

Distributed—Reduced from a whole to parts and scattered. The spiritual nature or intellect in its higher estate was regarded as a whole, but in descending to worldly conditions became divided into parts or perhaps characteristics.

Divisible—Made into parts or attributes, as the mind, intellect, or spiritual, first a whole, became thus distinguished in its descent. This division was regarded as a fall into a lower plane of life.

Energise, Greek ενεργεω—To operate or work, especially to undergo discipline of the heart and character.

Energy—Operation, activity.

Eternal—Existing through all past time, and still continuing.

Faith—The correct conception of a thing as it seems,—fidelity.

Freedom—The ruling power of one’s life; a power over what pertains to one’s self in life.

Friendship—Union of sentiment; a communion in doing well.

Fury—The peculiar mania, ardor, or enthusiasm which inspired and actuated prophets, poets, interpreters of oracles, and others; also a title of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone as the chastisers of the wicked,—also of the Eumenides.

Generation, Greek γενεσις—Generated existence, the mode of life peculiar to this world, but which is equivalent to death, so far as the pure intellect or spiritual nature is concerned; the process by which the soul is separated from the higher form of existence, and brought into the conditions of life upon the earth. It was regarded as a punishment, and according to Mr. Taylor, was prefigured by the abduction of Proserpina. The soul is supposed to have pre-existed with God as a pure intellect like him, but not actually identical—at one but not absolutely the same.

Good—That which is desired on its own account.

Hades—A name of Pluto; the Underworld, the state or region of departed souls, as understood by classic writers; the physical nature, the corporeal existence, the condition of the soul while in the bodily life.

Herald, Greek κηρυξ—The crier at the Mysteries.

Hierophant—The interpreter who explained the purport of the mystic doctrines and dramas to the candidates.

Holiness, Greek ὁσιοτης—Attention to the honor due to God.

Idea—A principle in all minds underlying our cognitions of the sensible world.

Imprudent—Without foresight; deprived of sagacity.

Infernal regions—Hades, the Underworld.

Instruction—A power to cure the soul.

Intellect, Greek νους—Also rendered pure reason, and by Professor Cocker, intuitive reason, and the rational soul; the spiritual nature. “The organ of self-evident, necessary, and universal truth. In an immediate, direct, and intuitive manner, it takes hold on truth with absolute certainty. The reason, through the medium of ideas, holds communion with the world of real Being. These ideas are the light which reveals the world of unseen realities, as the sun reveals the world of sensible forms. ‘The Idea of the good is the Sun of the Intelligible World; it sheds on objects the light of truth, and gives to the soul that knows the power of knowing.’ Under this light the eye of reason apprehends the eternal world of being as truly, yet more truly, than the eye of sense apprehends the world of phenomena. This power the rational soul possesses by virtue of its having a nature kindred, or even homogeneous with the Divinity. It was ‘generated by the Divine Father,’ and like him, it is in a certain sense ‘eternal.’ Not that we are to understand Plato as teaching that the rational soul had an independent and underived existence; it was created or ‘generated’ in eternity, and even now, in its incorporate state, is not amenable to the condition of time and space, but, in a peculiar sense, dwells in eternity: and therefore is capable of beholding eternal realities, and coming into communion with absolute beauty, and goodness, and truth—that is, with God, the Absolute Being.”—Christianity and Greek Philosophy, x. pp. 349, 350.

Intellective—Intuitive; perceivable by spiritual insight.

Intelligible—Relating to the higher reason.

Interpreter—The hierophant or sacerdotal teacher who, on the last day of the Eleusinia, explained the petroma or stone book to the candidates, and unfolded the final meaning of the representations and symbols. In the Phoenician language he was called פתר, peter. Hence the petroma, consisting of two tablets of stone, was a pun on the designation, to imply the

Interpreter—continued. wisdom to be unfolded. It has been suggested by the Rev, Mr. Hyslop, that the Pope derived his claim, as the successor of Peter, from his succession to the rank and function of the Hierophant of the Mysteries, and not from the celebrated Apostle, who probably was never in Rome.

Just—Productive of Justice.

Justice—The harmony or perfect proportional action of all the powers of the soul, and comprising equity, veracity, fidelity, usefulness, benevolence, and purity of mind, or holiness.

Judgment—A peremptory decision covering a disputed matter; also διανοια, dianoia, or understanding.

Knowledge—A comprehension by the mind of fact not to be overthrown or modified by argument.

Legislative—Regulating.

Lesser Mysteries—The τελεται, teletai, or ceremonies of purification, which were celebrated at Agræ, prior to full initiation at Eleusis. Those initiated on this occasion were styled μυσται, mystæ, from μυω, muo, to vail; and their initiation was called μυησις, muesis, or vailing, as expressive of being vailed from the former life.

Magic—Persian mag, Sanscrit maha, great. Relating to the order of the Magi of Persia and Assyria.

Material dæmons—Spirits of a nature so gross as to be able to assume visible bodies like individuals still living on the Earth.

Matter—The elements of the world, and especially of the human body, in which the idea of evil is contained and the soul incarcerated. Greek ὑλη, Hulé or Hylé.

Muesis, Greek μυησις, from μυω, to vail—The last act in the Lesser Mysteries, or τελεται, teletai, denoting the separating of the initiate from the former exotic life.

Mysteries—Sacred dramas performed at stated periods. The most celebrated were those of Isis, Sabazius, Cybelè, and Eleusis.

Mystic—Relating to the Mysteries: a person initiated in the Lesser Mysteries—Greek μυσται.

Occult—Arcane; hidden; pertaining to the mystical sense.

Orgies, Greek οργιαι—The peculiar rites of the Bacchic Mysteries.

Opinion—A hypothesis or conjecture.

Partial—Divided, in parts, and not a whole.

Philologist—One pursuing literature.

Philosopher—One skilled in philosophy; one disciplined in a right life.

Philosophise—To investigate final causes; to undergo discipline of the life.

Philosophy—The aspiration of the soul after wisdom and truth, “Plato asserted philosophy to be the science of unconditioned being, and asserted that this was known to the soul by its intuitive reason (intellect or spiritual instinct) which is the organ of all philosophic insight. The reason perceives substance; the understanding, only phenomena. Being (το ον), which is the reality in all actuality, is in the ideas or thoughts of God; and nothing exists (or appears outwardly), except by the force of this indwelling idea. The word is the true expression of the nature of every object: for each has its divine and natural name, besides its accidental human appellation. Philosophy is the recollection of what the soul has seen of things and their names.” (J. Freeman Clarke.)

Plotinus—A philosopher who lived in the Third Century, and revived the doctrines of Plato.

Prudent—Having foresight.

Purgation, purification—The introduction into the Teletæ or Lesser Mysteries; a separation of the external principles from the soul.

Punishment—The curing of the soul of its errors.

Prophet, Greek μαντις,—One possessing the prophetic mania, or inspiration.

Priest—Greek μαντις—A prophet or inspired person, ἱερευς—a sacerdotal person.

Revolt—A rolling away, the career of the soul in its descent from the pristine divine condition.

Science—The knowledge of universal, necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas.

Shows—The peculiar dramatic representations of the Mysteries.

Teleté, Greek τελετη—The finishing or consummation; the Lesser Mysteries.

Theologist—A teacher of the literature relating to the gods.

Theoretical—Perceptive.

Torch bearer—A priest who bore a torch at the Mysteries.

Titans—The beings who made war against Kronos or Saturn. E. Pococke identifies them with the Daityas of India, who resisted the Brahmans. In the Orphic legend, they are described as slaying the child Bacchus-Zagreus.

Titanic—Relating to the nature of Titans.

Transmigration—The passage of the soul from one condition of being to another. This has not any necessary reference to any rehabilitation in a corporeal nature, or body of flesh and blood. See I Corinthians, XV.

Virtue—A good mental condition; a stable disposition.

Virtues—Agencies, rites, influences. Cathartic Virtues—Purifying rites or influences.

Wisdom—The knowledge of things as they exist; “the approach to God as the substance of goodness in truth.”

World—The cosmos, the universe, as distinguished from the earth and human existence upon it.

Eleusinian Priest and Assistants.

Fortune and the Three Fates.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

DRAWN FROM THE ANTIQUE BY A. L. RAWSON.

A description of the illustrations to this volume properly includes the two or three theories of human life held by the ancient Greeks, and the beautiful myth of Demeter and Proserpina, the most charming of all mythological fancies, and the Orgies of Bacchus, which together supplied the motives to the artists of the originals from which these drawings were made.

From them we learn that it was believed that the soul is a part of, or a spark from, the Great Soul of the Kosmos, the Central Sun of the intellectual universe, and therefore immortal; has lived before, and will continue to live after this “body prison” is dissolved; that the river Styx is between us and the unseen world, and hence we have no recollection of any former state of existence; and that the body is Hades, in which the soul is made to suffer for past misdeeds done in the unseen world.

Poets and philosophers, tragedians and comedians, embellished the myth with a thousand fine fancies which were

woven into the ritual of Eleusis, or were presented in the theaters during the Bacchic festivals.

The pictures include, beside the costumes of priests, priestesses, and their attendants, and of the fauns and satyrs, many of the sacred vessels and implements used in celebrating the Mysteries, in the orgies, and in the theaters, all of which were drawn by the ancient artists from the objects represented, and their work has been carefully followed here.

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1.

Frontispiece. Sacrifice to Ceres.—Denkmäler, sculptur. The goddess stands near a serpent-guarded altar, on which a sheaf of grain is aflame. Worshipers attend, and Jupiter approves. (See page 17.)

2.

Decorating a Statue of Bacchus.—Rom. Campana. The priest wears a lamb-skin skirt, the thyrsus is a natural vine with grape clusters, and there are fruit and wine bearers.

3.

Bacchantes with Thyrsus and Flute.—Rom. Camp. Two fragments.

4.

Symbolical Ceremony.—Rom. Camp. Torch and thyrsus bearers and faun. See cut No. 40, and page 208 for reference to pine nut.

5.

Bacchus and Nymphs.

6.

Pluto, Proserpina, and Furies.—Galerie des Peintres. The Furies were said to be children of Pluto and Proserpina; other accounts say of Nox and Acheron, and Acheron was a son of Ceres without a father. (See page 65.)

7.

Priestess with Amphora and Sacred Cake.

8.

Priestess with Musical Instruments.

9.

Faun Kissing Bacchante.—Bourbon Mus.

10.

Faun and Bacchus.—Bourbon Mus.

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11.

Etruscan Vase.—Millingen. See drawings on page 106.

12.

Mercury Presenting a Soul to Pluto.—Pict. Ant. Sep. Nasonum, pl. I, 8.

13.

Mystic Rites.—Admiranda, tau. 17.

14.

Eleusinian Ceremony.—Oest. Denk. Alt. Kunst, II., 8.

15.

Bacchic Festival.—Bartoli, Admiranda, 43. Probably a stage scene. The characters are the king, who was an archon of Athens; a thyrsus bearer, musician, wine and fruit bearers, dancers, and Pluto and Proserpina. A boy removes the king’s sandal. (See page 35.)

16.

Apollo and the Muses.—Florentine Museum. The muses were the daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne; that is, of the god of the present instant, and of memory. Their office was, in part, to give information to any inquiring soul, and to preside over the various arts and sciences. They were called by various names derived from the places where they were worshiped: Aganippides, Aonides, Castalides, Heliconiades, Lebetheides, Pierides, and others. Apollo was called Musagetes, as their leader and conductor. The palm tree, laurel, fountains on Helicon, Parnassus, Pindus, and other sacred mountains, were sacred to the muses.

17.

Prometheus Forms a Woman.—Visconti, Mus. Pio. Clem., IV., 34. Mercury, the messenger of the gods, brings a soul from Jupiter for the body made by Prometheus, and the three Fates attend. The Athenians built an altar for the worship of Prometheus in the grove of the Academy.

18.

Procession of Iacchus and Phallus.—Montfaucon. From Athens to Eleusis, on the sixth day of the Eleusinia. The statue is made to play its part in a mystic ceremony, typifying the union of the sexes in generation. Attendant priestesses bear a basket of dried figs and a phallus, baskets of fruit, vases of wine, with clematis, and musical and sacrificial instruments. None but women and children were permitted to take part in this ceremony. The wooden emblem of fecundity was an object of supreme veneration, and the ceremony of placing and hooding it. was assigned to the most highly respected woman in Athens, as a mark of honor. Lucian and Plutarch

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say the phallus bearers at Rome carried images (phalloi) at the top of long poles, and their bodies were stained with wine lees, and partly covered with a lamb-skin, their heads crowned with a wreath of ivy. (See page 14.)

19, 20, 21.

From Etruscan Vases—Florentine Museum. Human sacrifice may be indicated in the lower group.

22.

Venus and Proserpina in Hades.—Galerie des Peintres. The myth relates that Venus gave Proserpina a pomegranate to eat in Hades, and so made her subject to the law which required her to remain four months of each year with Pluto in the Underworld, for Venus is the goddess who presides over birth and growth in all cases. Cerberus (see page 65) keeps guard, and one of the heads holds her garment, signifying that his master is entitled to one-third of her time.

23.

Rape of Proserpina. Carried Down to Hades (Invisibility)—Flor. Mus. See note, p. 152.

24.

Pallas, Venus, and Diana Consulting.—Gal. des Peint. Jupiter ordered these divinities to excite desire in the heart of Proserpina as a means of leading her into the power of the richest of all monarchs, the one who most abounds in treasures. (See page 140.)

25.

Dionysus as God of the Sun.—Pit. Ant. Ercolano. Dionysus—Bacchus—symbolizes the sun as god of the seasons; rides on a panther, pours wine into a drinking-horn held by a satyr, who also carries a wine skin bottle. The winged genii of the seasons attend. Winter carries two geese and a cornucopia; Spring holds in one hand the mystical cist, and in the other the mystic zone; Summer bears a sickle and a sheaf of grain; and Autumn has a hare and a horn-of-plenty full of fruits. Fauns, satyrs, boy-fauns, the usual attendants of Bacchus, play with goats and panthers between the legs of the larger figures.

26.

Herse and Mercury.—Pit. Ant. Ercolano. A fabled love match between the god and a daughter of Cecrops, the Egyptian who founded Athens, supplied the ritual for the festivals Hersephoria, in which young girls of seven to eleven years, from the most noted families, dressed in

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white, carried the sacred vessels and implements used in the Mysteries in procession. Cakes of a peculiar form were made for the occasion.

27.

Narcissus Sees His Image in Water.—P. Ovid. Naso. The son of Cephissus and Liriope, an Oceanid, was said to be very beautiful. He sought to win the favor of the nymph of the fountain where he saw his face reflected, and failing, he drowned himself in chagrin. The gods, unwilling to lose so much beauty, changed him into the flower now known by his name. (See page 150.)

28.

Jupiter as Diana, and Calisto.—P. Ovid. Naso. The supreme deity of the ancients, beside numerous marriages, was credited with many amours with both divinities and mortals. In some of those adventures he succeeded by using a disguise, as here in the form of the Queen of the Starry Heavens, when he surprised Calisto (Helice), a daughter of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, an attendant on Diana. The companions of that goddess were pledged to celibacy. Jupiter, in the form of a swan, surprised Leda, who became mother of the Dioscuri (twins).

29.

Diana and Calisto.—Ovid. Naso, Neder. The fable says that when Diana and her nymphs were bathing the swelling form of Calisto attracted attention. It was reported to the goddess, when she punished the maid by changing her into the form of a bear. She would have been torn in pieces by the hunter’s dogs, but Jupiter interposed and translated her to the heavens, where she forms the constellation The Great Bear. Juno was jealous of Jupiter, and requested Thetis to refuse the Great Bear permission to descend at night beneath the waves of ocean, and she, being also jealous of Poseidon, complied, and therefore the dipper does not dip, but revolves close around the pole star.

30.

Bacchantes and Fauns Dancing.—Rom. Campana, 37. A stage ballet.

31.

Hercules, Bull, and Priestess.—Rom. Camp. Bacchic orgies.

32.

Fruit and Thyrsus Bearers.—Bour. Mus.

33.

Torch-Bearer as Apollo.—Bourbon Mus.

34.

Eleusinian Mysteries.—Florence Mus.

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35.

Etruscan Mystic Ceremony.—Rom. Camp.

36.

Etruscan Altar Group.—Flor. Mus. The mystic cist with serpent coiled around, the sacred oaks, baskets, drinking-horns, zones, festoon of branches and flowers, make very pretty and impressive accessories to two handsome priestesses.

37.

Etruscan Bacchantes.—Millingen. These two groups were drawn from a vase (page 7) which is a very fine work of art. The drapery, decoration, symbols, accessories, and all the details of implements used in the celebration of the Mysteries are very carefully drawn on the vase, which is well preserved. This vase is a strong proof of the antiquity of the orgies, for the Etruscans, Tyrrheni, and Tusci were ancient before the Romans began to build on the Tiber.

38.

Etruscan Ceremony.—Millingen.

39.

Satyr, Cupid and Venus.—Montfaucon; Sculpture. Some Roman writers affirmed that the Satyr was a real animal, but science has dissipated that belief, and the monster has been classed among the artificial attractions of the theater where it belongs, and where it did a large share of duty in the Mysteries. They were invented by the poets as an impersonation of the life that animates the branches of trees when the wind sweeps through them, meaning, whistling, or shrieking in the gale. They were said to be the chief attendants on Bacchus, and to delight in revel and wine.

40.

Cupids, Satyr, and Statue of Priapus.—Montfaucon. The many suggestive emblems in this picture form an instructive group, symbolic of Nature’s life-renewing power. The ancients adored this power under the emblems of the organs of generation. Many passages in the Bible denounce that worship, which is called “the grove,” and usually was an upright stone, or wooden pillar, plain or ornamented, as in Rome, where it became a statue to the waist, as seen in the engraving. The Palladium at Athens was a Greek form. The Druzes of Mount Lebanon in Syria now dispense with emblems of wood and stone, and use the natural objects in their mystic rites and ceremonies.

41.

Apollo and Daphne,—Galerie des Peint. The rising sun shines on the dew-drops, and warming them as they hang on the leaves of the laurel tree, they disappear,

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leaving the tree; and it is said by the poet that Apollo loves and seeks Daphne, striving to embrace her, when she flies and is transformed into a laurel tree at the instant she is embraced by the sun-god.

42.

Diana and Endymion.—Bourbon Mus. Diana as the queen of the night loves Endymion, the setting sun. The lovers ever strive to meet, but inexorable fate as ever prevents them from enjoying each other’s society. The fair huntress sometimes is permitted, as when she is the new moon, or in the first quarter, to approach near the place where her beloved one lingers near the Hesperian gardens, and to follow him even to the Pillars of Hercules, but never to embrace him. The new moon, as soon as visible, sets near but not with the sun. Endymion reluctantly sinks behind the western horizon, and would linger until the loved one can be folded in his arms, but his duty calls and he must turn his steps toward the Elysian Fields to cheer the noble and good souls who await his presence, ever cheerful and benign. Diana follows closely after and is welcomed by the brave and beautiful inhabitants of the Peaceful Islands, but while receiving their homage her lover hastens on toward the eastern gates, where the golden fleece makes the morning sky resplendent.

43.

Ceres and the Car of Triptolemus.—P. Ovid. Naso, Neder. Triptolemus (the word means three plowings) was the founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and was presented by Ceres with her car drawn by winged dragons, in which he distributed seed grain all over the world.

44.

Pluto Marries Proserpina.—P. Ovid. Naso, Neder. Jupiter is said to have consented to request of Pluto that Proserpina might revisit her mother’s dwelling, and the picture represents him as very earnest in his appeal to his brother. Since then the seed of grain has remained in the ground no longer than four months; the other eight it is above, in the regions of light. In the engraving a curtain is held up by bronze figures. This seems conclusive that it was a representation of a dramatic scene. (See pp. 159, 186.)

45.

Proserpina, according to the Greeks.—Heck.

46.

Bacchus after the Visit to India.—Heck.

47.

A Roman Figure of Ceres.—Heck.

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48.

Demeter, from Etruscan Vase.—Heck.

49.

Venus, Pallas, and Diana Inspecting the Needlework of Proserpina.—Galerie des Peint.

50.

Proserpina Exposed to Pluto.—Ovid. Naso, Neder. There may have been a mild sarcasm in this artist’s mind when he drew the maid as dallying with Cupid, and the richest monarch in all the earth in the distance, hastening toward her. He succeeded, as is shown in the next engraving.

51.

Pluto Carrying Off Proserpina.—P. Ovid. Naso, Neder. Eternal change is the universal law. Proserpina must go down into the Underworld that she may rise again into light and life. The seed must be planted under or into the soil that it may have a new birth and growth.

52.

Proserpina in Pluto’s Court.—Montfaucon. As a personation she was the “Apparent Brilliance” of all fruits and flowers.

53.

Ceres in Hades.—Montfaucon.

54.

Bacchus, Fauns, and Wine Jars.—Montfaucon.

55.

Tragic Actor.—Bourbon Museum.

56.

A Group of Deities.—Heck. Pan and Dionysus, Hygeia, Hermes, Dionysus and Faunus, and Silenus.

57.

Night with Her Starry Canopy.—Heck.

58.

The Three Graces.—Heck.

59.

Cupid Asleep in the Arms of Venus.—Galerie des Peint.

60.

Prize Dance between a Satyr and a Goat.—Antichi.

61.

Baubo and Ceres at Eleusis.—Galerie des Peint. See page 232.

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62.

Psyche Asleep in Hades.—From the ruins of the Bath of Titus, Rome. See page 45.

63.

Nymphs of the Four Rivers in Hades.—Tomb of the Nasons. “It was easy for poets and mythographers, when they had once started the idea of a gloomy land watered with the rivers of woe, to place Styx, the stream which makes men shudder, as the boundary which separates it from the world of living men, and to lead through it the channels of Lêthê, in which all things are forgotten, of Kokytos, which echoes only with shrieks of pain, and of Pyryphlegethon, with its waves of fire.” Acheron, in the early myths, was the only river of Hades.

64.

Etruscan Vase Group.—Millingen.

65.

Dancers, Etruscans.—Millin, 1 pl. 27.

66.

Greek Convivial Scene.—Millin, 1 pl. 38.

67.

Faun and Bacchante.—Bour. Mus.

68.

Thyrsus-Bearer.—Bourbon Museum.

69.

Bacchante and Faun.—Bour. Mus. These three very graceful pictures were drawn from paintings on walls in Herculaneum.

70.

King, Torch, Fruit, and Thyrsus Bearer.

71.

Hercules Reclining.—Zoëga, Bassirilievi, 70. Here is an actual ceremony in which many actors took parts; with an altar, flames, a torch, tripod, the kerux (crier), bacchantes, fauns, and other attendants on the celebration of the Mysteries, including the role of an angel with wings.

72.

Marriage (or Adultery) of Mars and Venus.—Montfaucon. See pages 231-237. If this is from a scene as played at the Bacchic theaters, those dramas must have been very popular, and justly so. To those theaters, which were supported by the government in Athens and in many other cities throughout Greece, we owe the immortal works of Æschylus and Sophocles.

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73.

Musical Conference (Epithalamium).—S. Bartoli, Admiranda, pl. 62. Written music was evidently used, for one of the company is writing as if correcting the score, and writing with the left hand.

74.

Venus Rising from the Sea.—Ovid. Naso, Verburg. This goddess was called Venus Anadyomene, for the poets said she rose from the sea—the morning sunlight on the foam of the sea on the shore of the island Cythera, or Cyprus, or wherever the poet may choose as the favored place for the manifestation of the generative power of nature, and wherever flowers show her footprints. The loves bear aloft her magic girdle, which Juno borrowed as a means of winning back Jupiter’s affection. The rose and the myrtle were sacred to her. Her worship was the motive for building temples in Cythera and in Cyprus at Amathus, Idalium. Golgoi, and in many other places. (See engravings 22, 39, and 49, and page 230.)

75.

Jupiter Disguised as Diana, and Calisto.—Ovid. Naso, Neder. The gods were said to have the power, and to practice assuming the form of any other of their train, or of any animal. In these disguises they are supposed to play tricks on each other as here. Diana is the queen of the night sky, Calisto is one of her attendants, and many white clouds float over the blue ether (Jupiter), and are chased by the winds (as dogs).

76.

Hercules, Deianeira, and Nessus.—Ovid. Naso, Neder. The sun nears the end of the day’s journey; he is aged and weary; dark clouds obscure his face and obstruct his way, but still Hercules loves beautiful things, and Deianeira, the fair daughter of the king of Ætolia, retires with him into exile. At a ford the hero entrusts his bride to Nessus the Centaur, to carry across the river. The ferryman made love to the lady, and Hercules resented the indiscretion, and wounded him by an arrow. Dying Nessus tells Deianeira to keep his blood as a love charm in case her husband should love another woman. Hercules did love another, named Iole, and Deianeira dipped his shirt in the blood of Nessus—the crimson and scarlet clouds of a splendid sunset are made glorious by the blood of Nessus, and Hercules is burnt on the funeral pyre of scarlet and crimson sunset clouds.

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77.

The Sacrifice.—Herculaneum, IV., 13.

78.

Hercules Drunk.—Zoëga, Bassirilievi, tav. 67.

79.

Proserpina Enthroned in Hades.—Archäol. Zeit. The principle of growth rules the Underworld.

80.

Bacchante and Centaur.—Bourbon Mus.

81.

Bacchante and Centauress.—Bourbon Mus.

82.

Eleusinian Priest and Assistants.

83.

The Fates.—Zoëga, Bassirilievi, tav. 46.

84.

Supper Scene.

85.

Bacchic Bull.—Antichi.

On cover.

Supper-Scene.

The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries: Page Index

Title Page

Dedication

Fable is Love’s World, Poem by Schiller

Introduction

Section I., Eleusinian Mysteries

Section II., Bacchic Mysteries

Hymn to Minerva

Appendix

Orphic Hymns

Hymn of Cleanthes

Glossary

List of Illustrations