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Dionysus Liknites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

B. C. Dietrich
B. C. Dietrich
Affiliation:
U.C. W.I., Jamaica
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Extract

In the Classical Quarterly, xlix (July–October 1955), Mrs. A. D. Ure mentions a Corinthian pyxis which had been previously published by her in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, lxix. 19 f. (Figs. 2a and 3). This vase, at first believed to be of Boeotian origin, appears to come from Corinth, as subsequently shown by Mrs. Ure in J.H.S. lxxii. 121. Its subject is quite well known, consisting of an unbearded figure dressed in a fawn-skin with two horns growing from its head, and sitting on what very probably is a heap of corn. In his right hand he is holding a staff thickened at the head, and in his left a stick terminating in forklike prongs. The figure is flanked on the right by a small animal (pig) and on the left by a basket of fruit.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 3-4 , November 1958 , pp. 244 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

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References

1 Mrs. Ure describes the object in the right hand as an oar-like ptuon, and that in the left hand as a thrinax. Unfortunately the fork-like object or thrinax is hardly discernible from the reproduction in J.H.S. lxix.

2 Hibeh Papyri, ii, no. 177, fr. i, 1. 14Google Scholar

3 Except once perhaps on an inscription, when the image of a thrinax was used as a signet, Tabulae Heraclemses i. 5 (Inscr. Graec. xiv. 645).Google Scholar

1 See Harrison, J., Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion 3 (New York, 1955), p. 530Google Scholar, for the ptuon which ‘remained a simple agricultural tool’. See generally ibid., pp. 526–30, where Miss Harrison gives a succinct account of the uses of the ptuon and liknon, together with the relevant literary sources.

2 See Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., Dithyramb Tragedy and Comedy (Oxford, 1927), pp. 8 ff., 40–45 (Bacchylides).Google Scholar

3 See Goodwin, , Greek Grammar (Macmillan, 1948)Google Scholar, par. 841: ‘a person concerned with anything may be denoted by the following suffixes: masc.; sometimes fern. masc. (nom. ) fem.’ See also Ed. Schwyzer, , Griechische Grammatik (München, 1939), ii. 1. 1, pp. 499 f.Google Scholar

4 Pauly-Wissowa, , Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, xiii. 1, cols. 536 ff., ‘Liknites’ (Kruse).Google Scholar

5 Plutarch, , De Is. Os., p. 365 a: Cf. p. 378 f.Google Scholar

6 Nilsson, M. P., The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion 2 (Lund, 1950) P. 569, where see a full discussion of the subject and literature.Google Scholar

7 Himerios, iii. 6; Nilsson, , Geschichte der griechischen Religion 2 (München, 1955), i. 579 and n. 1. Compare the which the Phrygians celebrate with Bacchic rites in summer (Plut. De Is. Os., p. 378 f.).Google Scholar

8 Nilsson, , Gesch. d. griech. Rel. i. 579 f., n. 8.Google Scholar

9 Nilsson, , Gesch. d. griech. Rel. i. 579Google Scholar; id. Min.-Myc. Rel. pp. 568 f.; Proclus, , In Plat. Timaeum i. 407Google Scholar Diehl = Kern, Orph. Fragm., no. 199. Nilsson, , The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age, Lund, 1957, p. 43, n. 23, lays emphasis on the fact that Proclus mentions only one snake. He suggests that this snake may be identical with the which to Neoplatonists is often the symbol of the world which renews itself.Google Scholar

1 See schol. Callimachus, , Hymn i. 48; and schol. Aratus 268:Google Scholar

2 Harpocration, Baby Hermes in the liknon surveying the cattle he has stolen from Apollo, on an Attic red-figure cup of the first quarter of the fifth century, Class. Quart, xlix. 228Google Scholar n. 8. Compare also the birth of Plutus from the cornucopia represented on a 5th/4th century hydria from Rhodes in the Museum at Constantinople. This was first published and briefly discussed by Reinach, S., Revue Arch. (1900), xxxvi. 87Google Scholar. See also Svoronos, J., Journ. d'Arch. et Numism. (1901), p. 387Google Scholar, and Farnell, L. R., Cults of the Greek States (Oxford, 1907), iii. 256Google Scholar f., and fig. xxib The last discussion is in Nilsson, M. P., Gesch. d. griech. Rel. i. 317 f., with a few differences in interpretation which are unimportant to the present discussion.Google Scholar

3 The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age (Lund, 1957), pp. 3845, ‘Dionysos Liknites’, and see especially p. 40.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., pp. 39 f.

5 Ibid., pp. 41 ff. On p. 41 of this work Nilsson rejects his previous view, Min. Mycen. Rel., p. 566, that Dionysus Liknites was a figure of vegetation cult. This seems somewhat unnecessary, since he had at that time already, Min.-Mycen. Rel., p. 567, distinguished between the trieteric orgia and the concept of the divine child that is born and dies annually. To illustrate the annual birth and death of Dionysus, Nilsson quotes, Min.-Mycen. Rel., p. 567 n. 18, a fragment from a hymn to the epiphany of this god, which has been published in Mitteilungen aus der Papyrussammlung der Nationalbibliothek in Wien, N.S. i, ‘Griechische literarische Papyri’, i (1932), XXII. ii. 138:Google Scholar

6 See especially the end of the 46th Hymn to Liknites, where it is said that through Zeus' will Dionysus was brought to Persephone. See also the 30th Hymn, where Dionysus is called Eubuleus, and the 42nd Hymn to Mise in which Dionysus is the Compare the 52nd Hymn to Trieteticus.

7 See Nilsson, , Dion. Myst., p. 38. Compare his note in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. ‘Orphic Literature’.Google Scholar

8 Nilsson, , Dion. Myst., p. 44.Google Scholar

1 Ibid., pp. 43 f.; cf. id. Min.-Mycen. Rel., pp. 581 f. 2 See Nilsson, , Dion. Myst., pp. 38, 40.Google Scholar

3 Amelung, , Vatican, 1. 520Google Scholar, pl. 54; Brit. Sch. Ath. x. 146.Google Scholar

4 See above, p. 246, n. 1; P.-W. xiii. 1, cols. 538 ff., ‘Liknon’ (Kroll).

5 Hom. Od. 11. 127 ff., and schol. B.H.V. on Od. 11. 128. Cf. Horn. II. 13. 588 ff., and schol. A.B.

6 MissHarrison, J., J.H.S. xxiii (1903), 292Google Scholar f.; xxiv (1904), 241 f., see Class. Quart. xlix. 228.Google Scholar

7 Hesychius, and schol. Nic. Ther. 114. For a full discussion of these implements see P.-W. xiii. 1, cols. 539 f.

1 Nilsson, , Gesch. d. griech. Rel. i. 128Google Scholar, and Gjerstad, E., Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xxvi (1928), 183, n. 11.Google Scholar

2 Obviously the figure in question does not have the hooves of a goat, the common attribute of the satyr. Towards the end of the sixth century, however, these hooves tend to disappear in art, Jeanmaire, H., Dionysos (Paris, 1951), p. 280, and bibliogr. on pp. 495 f.Google Scholar

3 Nilsson, , Gesch. d. griech. Rel. i. 472, and pl. 39, 2.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., pl. 39, 1.

5 Ibid., p. 472. See a full discussion of satyrs and silenes in Nilsson, , op. cit., pp. 232Google Scholar ff., and similarly in connexion with Dionysus, Jeanmaire, , op. cit., pp. 278 ff.Google Scholar

6 If I am right, the object in the right hand of our figure may not be a ptuon at all, but the mallet, a more appropriate instrument in the hands of such a personage. However, without examínation of the original this must unfortunately remain a conjecture.