of Thrasybulus, who expelled the thirty tyrants. The prize was warmly disputed, not only amongst the musicians, but still more so among the poets; and it was highly glorious to be declared victor in this contest. Eschylus is reported to have died with grief upon seeing the prize adjudged to Sophocles, who was much younger than himself. These exercises were followed by a general procession, wherein was carried, with great pomp and ceremony, a sail, embroidered with gold, on which were curiously delineated the warlike actions of Pallas against the Titans and Giants. This sail was affixed to a vessel, which bore the name of the goddess. The vessel, equipped with sails, and with a thousand oars, was conducted from the Ceramicus to the temple of Eleusis, not by horses or beasts of draught, but by machines concealed in the bottom of it, which put the oars in motion, and made the vessel glide along. The march was solemn and majestic. At the head of it were old men who carried olive branches in their hands, θαλλοφόροι ; and these were chosen for the symmetry of their shape, and the vigour of their complexion. Athenian matrons, of great age, also accompanied them in the same equipage. The grown and robust men formed the second class. They were armed at all points, and had bucklers and lances. After them came the strangers that inhabited Athens, carrying mattocks, instruments proper for tillage.. Next followed the Athenian women of the same age, attended by the foreigners of their own sex, carrying vessels in their hands for the drawing of water. The third class was composed of the young persons of both sexes, selected from the best families in the city. The young men wore vests, with crowns upon their heads, and sang a peculiar hymn in honour of the goddess. The maids carried baskets, xamógo, in which were placed the sacred utensils proper to the ceremony, covered with veils, to keep them from the sight of the spectators. spectators. The person, to whose care those sacred things were intrusted, was bound to observe a strict continence for several days before he touched them, or distributed them to the Athenian virgins; * or rather, as Demosthenes says his whole life and conduct ought to have been a perfect model of virtue and purity. It was a high honour for a young woman to be chosen for so noble and august an office, and an insupportable affront to be deemed unworthy of it. We shall see that Hipparchus offered this indignity to the sister of Harmodius, which extremely incensed the conspirators against the Pisistratida. These Athenian virgins were followed by the foreign young women, who carried umbrellas and seats for them. The children of both sexes closed the pomp of the procession. In this august ceremony, the dafwdo were appointed to sing certain verses of Homer; a manifest proof of the estimation in which the works of that poet were held, even with regard to religion. Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, first introduced that custom. I have observed elsewhere, that in the gymnastic games of this feast a herald proclaimed, that the people of Athens had conferred a crown of gold upon the celebrated physician Hippocrates, in gratitude for the signal services which he had rendered the state during the pestilence. In this festival the people of Athens put themselves, and the whole republic, under the protection of Minerva, the tutelary goddess of their city, and implored of her all kind of prosperity. From the time of the battle of Marathon, in these public acts of worship, express mention was made of the Platæans, and they were joined in all things with the people of Athens. * Οὐχὶ προειρημένον ἡμερῶν ἀριθμὸν άγνεύειν μόνον, ἀλλὰ τὸν βίον ὅλον YEUX. Demost. in extrema Aristocratia. + Vol. III. c. 3. § 2. Feasts of Bacchus. THE worship of Bacchus had been brought out of Egypt to Athens, were several feasts had been established in honour of the god; two particularly more remarkable than all the rest, called the great and the less feasts of Bacchus. The latter were a kind of preparation for the former, and were celebrated in the open field about autumn. They were named Lenea, from a Greek word a that signifies a wine-press. The great feasts were commonly called Dionysia, from one of the names of that god, band were solemnized in the spring within the city. In each of these feasts the public were entertained with games, shows, and dramatic representations, which were attended with a vast concourse of people, and exceeding magnificence, as will be seen hereafter: at the same time the poets disputed the prize of poetry, submitting to the judgment of arbitrators, expressly chosen for that their pieces, whether tragic or comic, which were then represented before the people. purpose, These feasts continued many days. Those who were initiated, mimicked whatever the poets had thought fit to feign of the god Bacchus. They covered themselves with the skins of wild beasts, carried a thyrsus in their hands, a kind of pike with ivy-leaves twisted round it; had drums, horns, pipes, and other instruments calculated to make a great noise; and wore upon their heads wreaths of ivy and vine-branches, and of other trees sacred to Bacchus. Some represented Silenus, some Pan, others the Satyrs, all drest in suitable masquerade. Many of them were mounted on asses: others dragged goats along for sacrifices. Men and women, ridiculously dressed in this manner, appeared night and day in public; and imitating Η Ληνός. * Dionysius. * Goats were sacrificed, because they spoiled the vines. drunkenness, and dancing with the most indecent gestures, ran in throngs about the mountains and forests, screaming and howling furiously; the women especially seemed more outrageous than the men; and, quite out of their senses, in their *furious transports invoked the god, whose feast they celebrated, with loud cries ; εὐοῖ Βάκχε, ὦ Ιακχε, or Ἰόβακχε, or Ἰω Βάκχε. This troop of Bacchanalians was followed by the virgins of the noblest families in the city, who were called xampógo, from carrying baskets on their heads, covered with vine leaves and ivy. To these ceremonies others were added, obscene to the last excess, and worthy of the god who chose to be honoured in such a manner. The spectators gave in to the prevailing humour, and were seized with the same frantic spirit. Nothing was seen but dancing, drunkenness, debauchery, and all that the most abandoned licentiousness can conceive of gross and abominable. And this an entire people, reputed the wisest of all Greece, not only suffered, but admired and practised. I say an entire people; for Plato, speaking of the Bacchanalia, says in direct terms, that he had seen the whole city of Athens drunk at once. Livy informs us, that this licentiousness of the Bacchanalia having secretly crept into Rome, the most horrid disorders were committed there under cover of the night, and the inviolable secresy which all persons, who were initiated into these impure and abominable mysteries, were obliged, under the most horrid imprecations, to observe. The senate, being apprised of the affair, put a stop to those sacrilegious feasts by the most severe penalties; and first banished the practisers of them € Liv. 1. xxxix. n. 8, 18. * From this fury of the Bacchanalians these feasts were distinguished by the name of Orgia. Ogyn, ira, furor. † Πάσαν ἐθεασάμην τὴν πόλιν περὶ τὰ Διονύσια μεθύουσαν. Lib. i. de leg. p. 637. from Rome, and afterwards from Italy. These examples inform us, * how far a mistaken sense of religion, that covers the greatest crimes with the sacred name of the Divinity, is capable of misleading the mind of man. The Feasts of Eleusis. THERE is nothing in all Pagan antiquity more celebrated than the feast of Ceres Eleusina. The ceremonies of this festival were called, by way of eminence, the mysteries, from being, according to Pausanias, as much above all others, as the gods are above men. Their origin and institution are attributed to Ceres herself, who, in the reign of Erechtheus, coming to Eleusis, a small town of Attica, in search of her daughter Proserpine, whom Pluto had carried away, and finding the country afflicted with a famine, invented corn as a remedy for that evil, with which she rewarded the inhabitants. She not only taught them the use of corn, but instructed them in the principles of probity, charity, civility, and humanity; from whence her mysteries were called beopopógia, and Initia. To these first happy lessons fabulous antiquity ascribed the courtesy, politeness, and urbanity, so remarkable amongst the Athenians. These mysteries were divided into the less and the greater; of which the former served as a preparation for the latter. The less were solemnized in *Nihil in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio, ubi deorum numen prætenditur sceleribus. Liv. xxxix. n. 16. + Multa eximia divinaque videntur Athenæ tuæ peperisse, atque in vitam hominum attulisse; tum nihil melius illis mysteriis, quibus ex agresti immanique vitá exculti ad humanitatem et mitigati sumus, initiaque ut appellantur, ita re vera principia vitæ cognovimus. Cic. 1. ii. de. leg. n. 36. Teque Ceres, et Libera, quarum sacra, sicut opiniones hominum ac religiones ferunt, longè maximis atque occultissimis ceremoniis continentur: a quibus initia vitæ atque victus, legum, morum, mansuetudinis, humanitatis exempla hominibus et civitatibus data ac dispertita esse dicuntur. Id. Cic. in Verr. de supplic. n. 186. |