their infancy in an impure and sacrilegious worship, under the name, and in a manner under the sanction, of religion itself; as we shall soon see in the sequel.

After these general reflections upon Paganism, it is time to proceed to a particular account of the religion of the Greeks. I shall reduce this subject, though infinite in itself, to four articles, which are, 1. The feasts. 2. The oracles, auguries, and divinations. 3. The games and combats. 4. The public shows and representations of the theatre. In each of these articles, I shall treat only of what appears most worthy of the reader's curiosity, and has most relation to this history. I omit saying any thing of sacrifices, having given a sufficient idea of them elsewhere.*

Of the Feasts.

AN infinite number of feasts were celebrated in the several cities of Greece, and especially at Athens, of which I shall describe only three of the most famous; the Panathenea, the feasts of Bacchus, and those of Eleusis.

The Panathenea.

THIS feast was celebrated at Athens in honour of Minerva, the tutelary goddess of that city, to which she gave her name,† as well as to the feast of which we are speaking. Its institution was ancient, and it was called at first the Athenea; but after Theseus had united the several towns of Attica into one city, it took the name of Panathenea. These feasts were of two kinds, the great and the less, which were solemnized with almost the same ceremonies; the less annually, and the great upon the expiration of every fourth year.

In these feasts were exhibited racing, the gymnastic combats, and the contentions for the prizes of music and poetry. Ten commissaries elected from the ten tribes, presided on this occasion, to regulate the forms, and distribute the rewards to the victors. This festival continued several days.

In the morning of the first day a race was run on foot, in which each of the runners carried a lighted torch in his hand, which they exchanged continually with each other, without interrupting the race. They started from the Ceramicus, one of the suburbs of Athens, and crossed the whole city. The first that came to the goal, without having put out his torch, carried the prize. In the afternoon they ran the same course on horseback.

The gymnastic or athletic combats followed the races. The place for that exercise was upon the banks of the Ilissus, a small river, which runs through Athens, and empties itself into the sea at the Piræus.

Pericles first instituted the prize of music. In this dispute were sung the praises of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who, at the expense of their lives, delivered Athens from the tyranny of the Pisistratidæ ; to which was afterward added the eulogium of Thrasybulus, who † Αθήνη.

* Manner of Teaching, &c. vol. i.

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, Salopópoι; 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, kavŋpópoi, in which were placed the sacred utensils proper to the ceremony, covered with veils, to keep them from the sight of the 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 Pisistratidæ. 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 paydoi 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 Οὐχὶ προειρημένον ἡμερῶν ἀριθμὸν ἁγνεύειν μόνον, ἀλλὰ τὸν βίον ὅλον ЯyVEVKEVAL. Demost. in extrema Aristocratia. † Vol. ii. c. 3. § 2.

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.

Feasts of Bacchus.

THE worship of Bacchus had been brought out of Egypt to Athens, where 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 Lenæa, from a Greek word that signifies a wine-press. The great feasts were commonly called Dionysia, from one of the names of that god, and were solemnized in the spring within the city.

a

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 purpose, their pieces, whether tragic or comic, which were then represented before the people.

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 dressed in suitable masquerade. Many of them were mounted on asses; others dragged* goats along for sacrifices. women, ridiculously dressed in this manner, appeared night and day in public; and imitating 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, οι Ιόβακχε, Οι Ιὼ Βάκχε.

*Goats were sacrificed because they spoiled the vines.

Men and

From this fury of the Bacchanalians these feasts were distinguished by the name of Orgia. 'Opyn, ira, furor.

This troop of Bacchanalians was followed by the virgins of the noblest families in the city, who were called ravnoópot, 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.

с

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 secrecy 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 from Rome, and afterward 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 Oɛoμopópia, and

c Liv. l. xxxix. n. 8, 18.

* Πάσαν ἐθεασάμην τὴν πόλιν περὶ τὰ Διονύσια μεθύουσαν. Lib. 1. de Leg. p. 637.

+ Nihil in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio, ubi deorum numen prætenditur sceleribus. Liv. xxxix. n. 16.

Mulla 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 verá principia vite cognovimus. Cic. 1. ii. de Leg. n. 36.

Teque Ceres, et Libera, quarum sacra, sicut opiniones hominum ac religiones ferunt, longe maximis atque occultissimis ceremoniis continentur: a quibus initia vitæ atque victus, legum, morum, mansuetudinis, humanitatis exempla hominibus et civitatibus data ac dispertita esse dicuntur. 1d. Cic. in Verr. de Supplic. n. 186.

Initia. To these first happy lessons fabulous antiquity ascribed the courtesy, politeness, and urbanity, so remarkable among 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 the month of Anthesterion, which answers to our November; the great in the month Boedromion, which corresponds to August. Only Athenians were admitted to these mysteries; but of them, each sex, age, and condition, had a right to be received. All strangers were absolutely excluded, so that Hercules, Castor and Pollux, were obliged to be adopted as Athenians in order to their admission; which, however, extended only to the lesser mysteries. I shall consider principally the great, which were celebrated at Eleusis.

Those who demanded to be initiated into them, were obliged, before their reception, to purify themselves in the lesser mysteries, by bathing in the river Ilissus, by saying certain prayers, offering sacrifices, and, above all, by living in strict continence during a certain interval of time prescribed them. That time was employed in instructing them in the principles and elements of the sacred doctrine of the great mysteries.

When the time for their initiation arrived, they were brought into the temple; and to inspire the greater reverence and terror, the ceremony was performed in the night. Wonderful things took place upon this occasion. Visions were seen, and voices heard of an extraordinary kind. A sudden splendour dispelled the darkness of the place, and, disappearing immediately, added new horrors to the gloom. Apparitions, claps of thunder, earthquakes, heightened the terror and amazement; whilst the person to be admitted, overwhelmed with dread, and sweating through fear, heard, trembling, the mysterious volumes read to him, if in such a condition he was capable of hearing at all. These nocturnal rites gave birth to many disorders, which the severe law of silence imposed on the persons initiated prevented from coming to light, as St. Gregory Nazianzen observes. What cannot superstition effect upon the mind of man, when once his imagination is heated? The president in this ceremony was called Hierophantes. He wore a peculiar habit, and was not permitted to marry. The first who served in this function, and whom Ceres herself instructed, was Eumolpus ; from whom his successors were called Eumolpida. He had three colleagues; one who carried a torch; another a heralde whose office it was to pronounce certain mysterious words; and a third to attend at the altar.

*

Besides these officers, one of the principal magistrates of the city was appointed to take care that all the ceremonies of this feast were exactly observed. He was called the king,' and was one of the nine Archons. His business was to offer prayers and sacrifices. · Δαδούχος. • Κήρυξ. 1 Βασιλεὺς. Οἶδεν Ελευσὶν ταῦτα, καὶ οἱ τῶν σιωπωμένων καὶ σιωπῆς ὄντων ἄξιων ὁπταί. Orat. de sacr. lumin.