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The Bacchic Mysteries of the Roman Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Martin P. Nilsson
Martin P. Nilsson
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University of Lund
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Extract

Some years ago mysteries were a favorite subject of research in the religion of the Hellenistic and Roman age. Scholars were almost exclusively concerned with the mysteries originating in the Near East and Egypt and the mysteries of Dionysos were mentioned only in passing. This is understandable, for the literary sources are scarce and widely scattered, the monuments are, though numerous, dispersed and very often difficult to interpret. Father Festugière included in his paper on the Dionysiac mysteries a lengthy treatment of the later ones, especially their organization, and Cumont appended to the last edition of his book on the Oriental religions in Roman paganism a discussion of the Bacchic mysteries, in which his chief purpose was to show that they were influenced by the Orient.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , October 1953 , pp. 175 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953

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References

1 I have touched upon this subject more than once, in my papers: Das Ei im Totenkult der Alten, Archiv. f. Religionswissenschaft, xl, 1908, pp. 530 ff., reprinted in my Opuscula selecta, I, 1951, pp. 3 ff., En marge de la grande inscription bacchique du Metropolitan Museum, Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, x, 1934, pp. 1Google Scholar ff., reprinted ibid., ii, 1952, pp. 524 ff.; and Dionysos Liknites, Bull. de la Société des lettres de Lund, 1952, No. i. I have summarized my results in my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii. I must here repeat something said in these papers, especially the analysis of certain passages in Plutarch in the last one, but I held it far more important to collect the dispersed materials for a better and more reasoned understanding of the Bacchic mysteries which were so widespread in the Roman age but have been too little noticed. I have tried to collect the literary testimonies completely and the monuments adduced as proving something for certain. Many, especially the sarcophagi, are monotonous and difficult to survey. The volume containing them in the great work initiated by Carl Robert has not appeared, it is prepared by Professor F. Matz. A poor and incomplete substitute is S. Reinach, Répertoire des reliefs grecs et romains, vols. ii and iii. The interpretation of many paintings and other monuments is so dubious and varied that they are more obscure than the mysteries. I do not adduce them, for my aim is not interpretation but endeavoring to work out what is certain or at least probable.

2 Festugière, A. J., Les mystères de Dionysos, Revue biblique, xliv, 1935, pp. 192Google Scholar ff. and 366 ff. F. Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, 4th ed. 1929, pp. 195 ff., Les mystères de Bacchus à Rome. H. Jeanmaire, Dionysos, 1951, ends with a chapter on the Hellenistic and Roman age; he distinguishes the old and the new forms of Bacchic mysteries and is especially interested in the political implications of the latter.

3 In the lengthy passage on the Bacchic mysteries in his last work, Cumont, Lux perpetua, pp. 250 ff., he seems to have changed his opinion, since he does not speak of their Oriental origin.

4 See my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, p. 153 with notes.

5 Published by Smyly, see ibid, ii, p. 239.

6 See my paper En marge etc., summarized in my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, pp. 343 ff.

7 Institution of orgia Inschriften von Magnesia a.M., No. 215; cf. my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, i, pp. 542 ff. Celebrated at Miletus according to a late Hellenistic epigram engraved on the base of a statue, published by Wiegand, Vierter Bericht über die Ausgrabungen etc. Sitz.-ber. der Akademie Berlin, 1905, p. 547, repeated by Haussoullier, Bacchantes milésiennes, Rev. des études grecques, xxxii, 1919, p. 256; from late Hellenistic age. As it is little known I print it.

τὴν στήλην χαίρειμ πολιήτιδες εἴπατε Bάκχαι,

ἱρείην χρηστῇ τοῦτο γυναικὶ θέμις.

ὑμᾶς εἰς ὄρος ἦγε καὶ ὄργια πάντα καὶ ἱρὰ

ἤνεικεμ πάσης ἐρχομένη πρò πóλεως.

τοὔνομα δ᾽ εἴ τις ξεῖνος ἀνείρηται᾽ Aλκμειῶνος

Ἡροδίον καλῶν μοῖραν ἐπισταμένη.

8 Anthologia palatina, vii, 485

εἰς Ἀλεξιμένην ὀργιοφάντην.

βάλλεθ᾽ ὑπὲρ τύμβου πολιὰ κρίνα καὶ τὰ συνήθη

τύμπαν᾽ ἐπὶ στήλῃ ῥήσσετ Ἀλεξιμένους

καὶ περιδινήσασθε μακρῆς ἀνελίγματα χαίτης

Στρυμονίην ἄφετοι ϴυίαδες ἀμφὶ πόλιν

ἥ λγυκερὰ πνεύσαντος ἐφ᾽ ὑμετέροισιν † αδαπταις

πολλάκι πρὸς μαλακοὺς τούσδ᾽ ἐχόρευε νόμους

† The letters are not intelligible, this may be marked by a † before them.

9 Cf. below pp. 188 f.; see my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, pp. 94 and 341 ff.

10 Th. Wiegand, Sechster Bericht über die Ausgrabungen etc., Abhandlungen der Akad. Berlin, Anhang, 1908, pp. 22 ff.; quoted in my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, p. 145, n. 2.

11 The thyrsus is expressly mentioned in the statutes of the Iobacchi, Syll. inscr. graec, 3rd ed., No. 1109, l. 139.

12 See my Dionysos Liknites, pp. 4 ff. Unfortunately the paper of F. Sartori, Il cratere della tomba 128 nella necropoli di Spina, Rendiconti dell'accademia dei Lincei, v, 1950, pp. 233 ff., came to my hands too late. He brings a detailed description and the best reproductions of the paintings. Neither his reading of the inscriptions: Bacchos, (Demeter) Chloe, nor his interpretation is acceptable. He refers the representation to the Eleusinian cult, especially to the festival of the Chloia which is attested at Eleusis. But Bacchic frenzy was foreign to Eleusis and certainly also to the agrarian festival of the Chloia, of which we know nothing but what the name indicates. His attempt to account for the lion on the outstretched arm of the goddess through equating her with Artemis is not successful. The lion belongs of course to the entourage of Dionysos. Here the liknon carried on the head by one of the women is of interest. It is wholly covered by a cloth, but there is no phallus, no protuberance in the middle.

13 Servius ad Virg. Georgica, i, v. 166.

14 A. Vogliano et F. Cumont, La grande iscrizione bacchica del Metropolitan Museum, Amer. J. of Archaeology, xxvii, 1933, pp. 215 ff.

15 They are published in the great work of H. von Rohden und H. Winnefeld, Die antiken Terrakotten, vol. iv, Architektonische römische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit, 1. Text, 2. Plates.

16 Op. cit., pl. cxxxix, 2.

17 Rostovtzeff, Mystic Italy, pl. xx to p. 94.

18 Cumont, Les religions orientales, 4 ed., fig. 13, p. 202; and in G. E. Rizzo, Dionysos Mystes, Memoria dell’ accademia di archeologia etc. di Napoli, 1915, fig. 11, p. 57; this paper has good plates of the fresco in the Villa Item and many text figures referring to the monuments treated here.

19 Enumerated in my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, i, p. 620, n. 1 at the end.

20 Cumont, op. cit., pl. xvi, 1.

21 v. Rohden-Winnefeld, op. cit., pl. 123, fig. 96; Rizzo, loc. cit., fig. 21, p. 81; also in Bieber, M., Der Mysteriensaal der Villa Item, Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, xliii, 1928Google Scholar, fig. 7, p. 308. For the mosaic see below, p. 201 with note 106. On the interpretation below pp. 200 f.

22 Cf. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funéraire des Romains, p. 284, n. 2 and pp. 344 ff.

23 Himerius, oratio xxiii. He says § 7, that the child had let its locks grow for Dionysos and asks Dionysos why he ravished the boy from his sanctuary; § 8, that the boy was initiated in the sanctuary below without his father being his mystagogue, a gloomy Bacchic feast; and asks finally, § 18, how he can trust in Dionysos who did not save the boy. It can hardly, with Cumont, be supposed that the child was initiated already, but it was intended that he should be.

24 See my Dionysos Liknites, p. 7. It is figured in J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena etc. p. 524 ff., fig. 152; the whole sarcophagus in Reinach, Répertoire etc. ii, p. 443. The long side represents the Indian expedition of Dionysos, a common subject, and the other small end two putti on whom Pan lying before a curtain looks down.

25 I know it only through the mention in Harrison, op. cit., p.524, n. 4.

26 v. Rohden-Winnefeld, op. cit., pl. xcix and pp. 37 ff.; British Museum, Catalogue of Terracottas, D 525, pl. 41.

27 Cf. my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, pp. 330 f.

28 See below p. 186.

29 Below p. 184 n. 42, Sarcophagi with drunken children e.g. Cumont, Symbolisme funéraire, pl. xl, 2 and fig. 102, p. 471.

30 Reinach, Répertoire etc., iii, p. 183, 6, and ii, p. 74, 3 resp.

31 K. Lehmann-Hartleben and E. C. Olsen, Dionysiac Sarcophagi in Baltimore, fig. 2; the front relief of the lid has a banquet scene. For the mosaic see below, p. 201.

32 Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, p. 365 A καὶ θύουσιν οἱ Ὅσιοι θυσίαν ἀπόρρητον ἐν τῷ ίερῷ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος, ὅταν αἱ Θνίαδες ἐγείρωσι τὸν Λικίτην.

33 Plutarch, loc. cit., p. 378 F. I have done so myself, Gesch. d. griech. Religion, I, p. 546.

34 Cf. my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, pp. 492 ff., 2n d ed. pp. 564 ff.

35 Plutarch, loc. cit., p. 364 E. ἀρχικλὰ μὲν οὖσαν ἐν Δελφοῖς τῶν Θυιάδων, τοῖς δ᾽ Ὀσιριακοῖς καθωσιωμένην ἱεροῖς ἀπὸ πατρὸς καὶ μητρός.

36 Jahreshefte des österreichischen archäologischen Institute, vii, 1904, pp. 92 ff., l. 24 ff., cf. my Gesch. d. griech. Rel., ii, p. 347, δόντα δὲ τῷ ὑδραύλῃ τῷ ἐπεγείροντι τòν θεóν τξ᾽ καὶ τοῖς τòν θεòν ὑμνήσασι καὶ [τῇ ἱερεί]ᾳ μ᾽ καὶ ταῖς τοῦ θεοῦ δὲ καθóδοις δυσὶ τον …

37 Cf. above, p. 181; Paus., ii, 37, 5 and 31, 2, resp.

38 Plutarch, Quaest. graecae, p. 293 c.

39 The last line, εὐνάζων κινῶν τε χρόνους ἐνὶ κυκλάσιν ὥραις, is difficult. I have given the translation of Professor Rose but am inclined to the conjecture of Abel, χόρους (instead of χρόνους), which gives an excellent sense.

40 See my Dionysos Liknites, p. is, n. 1.

41 So Festugière, loc. cit., p. 210. The common significance of ἐγείρειν, ‘awaken,’ is the reason why the Phrygian god awakening in the spring, has been adduced for an explanation. The word signifies also ‘arouse,’ ‘stir up,’ see the 53 Orphic hymn. In the significance ‘arouse from the dead’ it is quoted in Liddell and Scott only from the New Testament and occurs also in the Septuaginta. The only instance of awakening a god which I know is the morning hymn to Asclepios: ἔγρεο Παιήων Ἀσκλήπιε, κοίρανε γαῶν (Inscript. graecae, ii, 2nd ed. 4533; see my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, p. 364), but this belongs to a daily divine service, and as such is foreign to the cult of Dionysos.

42 [tu placidus dum nos cr]uciamur volnere victi

et reparatus item vivis in Elysiis

……………

nunc seu te Bromio signatae mystides ad se

florigere in prato congregant in satyrum,

sive canistriferae poscunt sibi Naides aequum,

qui ducibus taedis agmina festa trahas.

(1. 3 ad se, the stone has aise) Bücheler, Carmina epigraphica, 1233; Perdrizet, Cultes et mythes de Pangée, p. 96; cf. my Gesch. d. griech. Rel., ii, p. 350.

43 Aristides Quintilianus, de musica, iii, 25, p. 93 Jahn, διὸ καὶ τὰς βακχικὰς τελετὰς καὶ ὅσαι ταύταισ παρπλήσιοι λόγου τινὸς ἔχεσθαί φασι, ὅπως ἂν ἡ τῶν ἀμαθεστέρων ποίησις διὰ βίον ἢ τύχην ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν ταύταις μελῳδιῶν τε καὶ ὀρχήσεων ἅμα παιδιᾶς ἐκκαθαίρηται. The last words are reminiscent of what Plato says of the Orpheotelestae, de rep., ii, p. 364 E.

44 Cumont, Lux perpetua, pp. 255 ff., emphasizes this aspect, but it is not safe to adduce the famous paintings of Vincentius as a testimony. He was a priest of Sabazios, and though Sabazios was akin to Dionysos, he was considered to be a foreign god. See my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, pp. 634 ff., and my paper, A propos du tombeau de Vincentius, Rev. archéologique, xxxi-xxxii (Mélanges Picard), 1949. pp. 764 ff.

45 See my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, i, pp. 556 f.

46 Ibid. p. 345 and p. 343, n. 7.

47 Augustin, epist., 17, 4, decuriones et primates civitatis per plateas vestrae urbis bacchantes et furentes.

48 Cumont, Les religions orientales, 4th ed., p. 203.

49 Cumont, op. cit., p. 311, n. 65, quotes Müller-Wieseler, Denkmäler der alten Kunst, ii, pl. xliv, No. 548; Reinach, Répertoire etc., iii, 69, 6; cf. Anthologia latina, ed. Riese, 319.

50 Origenes, contra Celsum, iv, 10, διόπερ ἐξομοιοῖ ἡμᾶς τοῖς ἐν ταῖς Bακχικαῖς τελεταῖς τὰ φάσματα καὶ τὰ δείματα παρεισάγουσι.

51 Plutarch, Consol. ad uxorem, p. 611 D, καὶ μὴν ἃ τῶν ἄλλων ἀκούεις, οἳ πείθουσι πολλοὺς λέγοντες ὡς οὐδὲν οὐδαμῇ τῷ διαλυθέντι κακὸν οὐδὲ λυπηρὸν ἔστιν, οἶδ᾽ ὅτι κωλύει σε πιστεύειν ὁ πάτριος λόγος καὶ τὰ μυστικὰ σύμβολα τῶν περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον ὀργιασμῶν, ἃ σύνισμεν ἀλλήλοις οἱ κοινωνοῦντες. These seem to be strange words in a letter of consolation, they must be understood in their context. Plutarch begins saying that little Timoxena was content with little. The sentence quoted follows. He proceeds stating that the soul is imperishable and if it lives for a long time in a body is soiled by the contact with it and is invested anew (in a body). Little Timoxena who died at a tender age was free from such a stain, he means, and will have a happy afterlife. These are Plutarch's own speculations. Metempsychosis was probably foreign to Bacchic ideas of afterlife although Orphism knew it.

52 See below, pp. 197 ff.

53 Rostovtzeff, Mystic Italy, p. 48 etc.

54 Loc. cit., pp. 68 and fig. x.

55 A similar symbolic intrusion of Charon in a scene of real life is seen on a white lekythos; Charon in his boat is put at the side of the tomb monument, on the other side a woman with offerings is standing, W. Riezler, Weissgrundige attische Lekythen, pl. 89.

56 See my Dionysos Liknites, p. 13.

57 Reinach, Répertoire etc., iii, p. 326, 5; the sarcophagus in Baltimore, see p. 180, n. 31.

58 Pergamene coins, widely circulated in Asia minor, called κισταφόροι because the reverse shows a cista from which a snake creeps forth, refer to Dionysos, for they are surrounded by an ivy wreath, but perhaps to the cult of Sabazios who was identified with him; see my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, p. 163, n. 5.

59 v. Rohden-Winnefeld, op. cit., pl. cxxii, 1, text pp. 54 ff.

60 Described below, p. 200. I am not certain that a relief in the Louvre refers to Bacchic mysteries, Rostovzeff, op. cit., p. 80, fig. xv, better in Rizzo, loc. cit., fig. 13, p. 59. A naked boy approaching an altar carries on his head a low basket filled with fruits; it is no liknon and there is no phallos.

61 Syll. inscr. graec, 3rd ed., 1109 11. 65 and 121 ff.

62 Greek inscriptions in the British Museum, No. 600; G. Quandt, De Baccho ab Alexandri aetate in Asia Minore culto, Diss. Halle 1913, the beginning, p. 161; the names, p. 266.

63 Corpus inscr. graec, 3190, ἡ ἱερὰ σύνοδος τῶν περὶ τὸν Bρεισέσ Διόνυσον τεχνιτῶν καὶ μυστῶν. Other inscriptions in Quandt, op. cit., p. 147. Cf. Festugière, loc. cit., p. 267, n. 2.

64 Quandt, op. cit., pp. 110 ff.; Suppl. epigraph, graecum, vi, 59 of the year 128 A.D.

65 Lucian, de saltatione, 79.

66 Philostratos, vita Apollonii, iv, 21, λυγισμοὺς ὀρχοῦνται καὶ μεταξὺ τῆς Ὀρφέως ἐποποιίας τε καὶ θεολογίας, τὰ μὲν ὡς Ὧραι, τὰ δ᾽ ὡσ Nύμφαι, τὰ δ᾽ ὡς Bάκχαι πράττουσι.

67 W. Wrede, Der Maskengott, Athenische Mitteilungen, liii, 1928, pp. 66 ff.

68 v. Rohden-Winnefeld, op. cit., pp. 78 ff.

69 In my Dionysos Liknites, p. 6, n. 4. Th. Schreiber, Hellenistische Reliefs, pl. 101, and Harrison, Prolegomena etc., p. 318, fig. 14; Monumenti antichi, vii, 1898, p. 310, fig. 33 resp.

70 I noted this briefly in my paper, Das Ei etc., p. 540, in the reprint pp. 13 f.

71 Plutarch, quaest. conviv., p. 636 D et seq., ὅθεν οὐκ ἀπὸ τρόπου τοῖς περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον ὀργιασμοῖς ὡς μίμημα τοῦ τὰ πάντα γενῶντος καὶ περιέχοντος ἐν ἑαυτῷ συγκαθωσίωται.

72 Macrobius, Saturnalia, vii, 16, 8, et ne videar plus nimis extulisse ovum elementi vocabulo, consule initiatos sacris Liberi patris, in quibus hac veneratione ovum colitur, ut ex forma tereti ac paene spherali atque undique versum clausa et includente intra se vitam mundi simulacrum vocetur, mundum autem consensu omnium constat universitatis esse principium. P. Boyancé, Une allusion à l'oeuf orphique, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'école française de Rome, lii, 1935. pp. I ff., takes up this subject in a learned paper. Starting from the passages quoted he explains a passage in Martianus Capella, ii, 109 et seq., in which the egg contains the drink of immortality. His attempt to explain mundus in the quoted passage of Macrobius as Aion is not convincing. The vases from South Italy discussed pp. 16 ff. are a supplement to the materials collected in my paper, Das Ei etc.

73 In my paper, Das Ei etc., p. 543, in the reprint p. 17.

74 See the paper quoted in the foregoing note.

75 Juvenal, v, v. 84.

76 Cf. Festugière, loc. cit., p. 208.

77 Phalli were erected on tombs in the neighbourhood of Smyrna and in Phrygia, Athenische Mitteilungen, xxiv, 1899, pp. 7 ff., and in Bithynia and Paphlagonia, Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1939, pp. 171 ff. and fig. 40; a single instance comes from Macedonia near Strymon, ibid., 1940, p. 280. The custom was not unknown in Greece. A white lekythos shows a big phallos as a tomb monument, British Museum Quarterly, iii, pp. 7 f., quoted by Buschor on p. 107 of his paper, Ein choregisches Denkmal, Athenische Mitteilungen, liii, 1928, pp. 96 ff., where he treats of the great phalli erected in Athens and on Delos as commemorative monuments.

78 See F. Winter, Die Typen der figürlichen Terrakotten, i, p. 248, figs. 3–5; the much more numerous female protomae pp. 247–250. A good copy in the National Museum in Copenhagen is reproduced in my paper, Das Ei etc.

79 The cock appears often on tomb monuments, but also in erotic scenes, see L. Couve, Ephemeris archaiologike, 1897, p. 69; G. Weicker, Athenische Mitteilungen, xxx, 1905, pp. 207 ff. According to Porphyrius, de abstinentia, iv, 16, he was sacred to Demeter as a chthonian goddess. The cock and the egg are often seen on the Locrian terracottas; see Q. Quagliati, Rilievi votivi arcaici di Lokroi Epizephyrioi, Ausonia, iii, 1908, pp. 136 ff.

80 A collection of these vases is found in Wiener Vorlegeblätter, Ser. E; two are reproduced in Baumeister, Denkmäler des Klassischen Altertums, iii, pp. 1927 ff. The Canosavase, Wiener Vorl. pl. i; Baumeister pl. lxxxvii; the Altamura vase, pl. ii and fig. 2042 A resp. A new find see p. 199. Cf. my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, i, pp. 776 f. with further literature.

81 See Kern, Orphicorum fragmenta, 293–296, pp. 304 et seqq. The Nekyia in the eleventh book of the Odyssey has been said to be Orphic. It is not so, but it has certainly been a model of the Orphic poems, which drew largely on earlier literature.

82 I have not taken up these because their contents is different, they do not refer to Dionysos. See my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, pp. 223 ff. A new copy has been found in a tomb dated in the middle of the fourth century B.C. near Pharsalus, Ephemeris archaiologike, 1950–51, pp. 80 ff.; Revue des études grecques, lxv, 1952, pp. 152 f. They are found in Thessaly, Crete, South Italy, and Rome, and their time ranges from the fourth century B.C. to the second A.D.

83 This is well known, see e.g. Cumont, Symbolisme funéraire, pp. 372 ff.

84 Bieber quoted above p. 179, n. 21; A. Maiuri, La Villa dei misteri.

85 See the plan in Maiuri, fig. 45, p. 125, and the sketch of the paintings, fig. 46, p. 129.

86 See my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, i, p. 555; cf. my Dionysos Liknites, pp. 2 ff.

87 Described loc. cit., p. 6; mentioned above, p. 177, n. 12.

88 Cf. above, p. 189.

89 Inscription on the Altamura vase; see p. 192, n. 80.

90 Quoted above, p. 186, n. 50.

91 Hermias in Plat. Phaedrum, p. 248 C = Kern, Orphicorum fragm., 105, ἡ μὲν ἐκεῖ (viz. in the cave of Nyx) Δίκη θυγατὴρ λέγεται τοῦ Nόμου τοῦ ἐκεῖ καὶ Eὐσεβείας; cf. fragm. 159; 160; 181.

92 Pseudo-Demosthenes, xxv, 11 = Kern, Orphicorum fragm. 23, τὴν ἀπαραίτητον καὶ σεμνὴν Δίκην, ἣν ὁ τὰς ἁγιωτάτας ἡμῖν τελετὰς κατδείξας Ὀρφεὺς παρὰ τὸν τοῦ Διὸς θρόνον φησὶ καθημένηυ πάντα τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐφορᾶν. Cf. Hymn. Orph., lxii.

93 Proklos in Plat. rempubl., ii, p. 145, 1 Kroll, = Kern, Orphic. Fragm., 158, ὁ Ὀρφεύς φησιν τῷ (Διί) δὲ Δίκη πολύποινος ἐφέσπετο πᾶσιν ἀρωγός. εἰ γὰρ πᾶσιν ἀρωγὸς πολύποινος, εἰ τῷ δημιουργῷ τοῦ παντὸς συνδιακοσμεῖ τὰ πάντα, θεῶν ἄρχει, δαίμοσι συνεπιστατεῖ, ψυχὰς διαδικάζει καὶ ἁπαξαπλῶς διὰ πασῶν διεξέρχεται τῶν ψυχῶν ἡ κρίσις.

94 See my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, i, p. 775.

95 Hesiod, Opera, v. 259 et seqq.

96 On a fragment of an amphora at Karlsruhe, Wiener Vorlegeblätter, Ser. E, pl. vi, 3; cf. the Canosa vase. See A. Winkler, Die Darstellungen der Unterwelt auf unteritalischen Vasen, Breslauer philologische Abhandlungen, iii:5, 1888, pp. 12 and 36.

97 M. Jatta, Monumenti antichi, xvi, pp. 517 ff. and pl. iii. The letters above the winged figure which Jatta took to be AIKA are rightly read ΔIKA by A. Dieterich, Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft, xi, 1908, p. 159. He points out that Dike is door-keeper in Parmenides, fragm. 1, v. 14 Diels, τῶν δὲ Δίκη πολύποινος ἔχει κληῖδας ἀμοίβους. It is supposed that these verses are of Orphic origin; cf. Kern, Orphicorum fragmenta, 158.

98 Wiener Vorlegeblätter, Ser. E. pl. vi, 4.

99 Some scholars come near to a similar interpretation. Kern in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencycl. d. klass. Altertumswissenschaft, s. v. ‘Mysterien’ p. 1312 calls her a kind of Erinys. Rizzo, loc. cit., p. 87, sees also a similarity to the Erinys and adds that the punishing and avenging daemons culminate in the Orphic Ananke and Adrasteia. They speak only in terms of a general probability.

100 Rostovtzeff, Mystic Italy, p. 78 with fig. xiv. The paintings are so faded that certain details cannot be seen in the not very good autotypes, even with the help of the description.

101 In passing I remark that the crater had a conspicuous place in the Orphic writings; some Orphic books had this title. It is even called ζωογόνος κρατήρ; see my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, p. 584, n. 1.

102 Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie, i, p. 1019.

103 v. Rohden-Winnefeld, iv:1, p. 52, fig. 98, pl. 123.

104 Bieber, loc. cit., p. 309, fig. 8; Journal of Roman Studies, iii, 1913, p. 163, figs. 29 and 30.

105 Cf. p. 188.

106 L. Leschi, Mosaïque à scènes Dionysiaques de Djemila-Cuicul (Algérie), Monuments Piot, xxxv, 1935–36, pp. 139 ff. and pls. viii and ix.

Further: ‘Der Gott auf dem Elefantemwagen,’ ibid. No. 10.

107 If she is not hired. Such a one is certainly the naked dancing girl at a banquet on a stele from Mysia; see my Gesch. d. griech. Religion, ii, pl. 14, 3 and p. 639.

108 A striking instance is a tomb monument in the museum of Arlon: within a curtained recess stand two men and two women, probably two brothers and their wives, at the sides are a naked dancing Bacchant clapping the castanets and a Satyr holding up a bunch of grapes. Similar small naked figures adorn the panels of the angle pilasters. Excellently reproduced in Mrs. A. Strong, Apotheosis and Afterlife, pls. xxv, and xxvi, pp. 200 ff.