her position as Queen of the Under-world: a mixture of Pelasgic and Eastern traditions.' But the concept of Dionysos as son of Persephone, though not contradictory, is necessarily posterior to that of Dionysos as son of the daughter of Kadmos. The foreign god, as such, is the son of a Phoenician mother; and afterwards, when his nature is found to be kosmogonic, he becomes with equal propriety the son of a mysterious kosmogonic and chthonian goddess. In Hymn xxiv. 10, the poet, addressing the Nereïdes, says :

You at first disclosed the rites divine

Of holy Bacchus and of Proserpine.-Taylor.

6

What possible connection there can be between the innocent sea-nymphs, daughters of Nereus, the true Aryan sea-god and rival of the Semitic Poseidon, and the Phoenician Dionysos, and Persephone the majestic' and 'terrible,' it is difficult to say, unless, indeed, the statement is the poetic expression of the fact that the cult of the two mysterious divinities came by sea into Hellas. Many of the lines of the Hymns consist of strings of adjectival epithets illustrating the almost numberless phases of the god, some very ancient, some comparatively modern. All the more important of these will be separately noticed under the head of Dionysiak Nomenclature. Hymn xxxi. connects the Kouretes, legendary inhabitants of Akarnania, Kyretis (Aitolia), and Krete, with Dionysos and Persephone. The connection is not Hellenik, and points towards Phoenicia, and Asia Minor, the home of people,' Semitic, Aryan, and Turanic 4

4

invoke, narthexbearing1 Dionysos, many-named Eubouleus, and holy Mise,3 mysterious queen, male and female, two-natured Iakchos.' And the poet proceeds to connect this strange being particularly with Phrygia, Kypros, and Egypt. Hymn xlv. is inscribed to Dionysos Bassareus Trieterikos, in whose honour a trieteris, or triennial festival, was held. The epithet also applies to several other deities, especially Poseidon. Various epithets, also, connected with the Bull are ascribed to Dionysos in the Hymns; this connection, again, is entirely Semitic, and will be fully noticed and illustrated subsequently. Hymn xlvi. is addressed to Dionysos as Liknites, i.e. bearing the liknon, or fan-shaped basket, which, filled with fruit and offerings, was carried in the Bakchik festivals. Hymn xlvii. is addressed to Dionysos as Perikionios, or the Twiner-round-the-pillars,10 because, when he shook the Theban land," he preserved the house of Kadmos. Hymn xlviii. is addressed to Sabazios, the Phrygian phase of Dionysos,12 who is here described as having, like Zeus, inserted the infant Dionysos in his thigh. Thus, at a comparatively late date, varient forms of the nity came to be regarded as distinct beings. addressed to Dionysos as Lysios, 18 Lenaios,14 the god of the wine-press, who frees men from care. In Hymn li. 3, the Nymphs are called the Nurses of Bakchos.15 This connection is older than the Homerik Poems.16 Hymn lii. addressed to Dionysos as Trieterikos, 17 is almost one continued string of epithets, including Bakcheus, Taurokeros,

13

same divi

Hymn 1. is

Nysios, Eubouleus, Liknites, Protogonos, Erikepaios, Omadios, Keros, Dimetor, Bassareus, Nebridostolos, Polyparthenos, many of which have already been more or less illustrated, and all of which will be again referred to.1 Hymn liii. is addressed to Dionysos as Amphietes, or Having-a-yearly-festival, an epithet to which the god was well entitled. This is Dionysos Chthonios, a divinity of the Under-world, who, for a season, sleeps in the sacred abode of Persephone.' Hymn liv. is addressed to the Satyr Seilenos, the nurturer or foster-father of Dionysos. The Satyroi and Seilenoi appear to be conceptions more Aryan than Semitic, and their connection with Dionysos is not one of the earliest features in his history. Mr. Cox, however, with considerable probability, regards the ass of Seilenos as a link between him and the East, and observes, 'The grotesque form which Seilenos is made to assume may be an exaggeration of the western Greeks, who saw in the ass which bore him a mere sign of his folly and absurdity, while it points rather to the high value set on the ass by Eastern nations. It was, in fact, the symbol of his wisdom and his prophetical powers, and not the mere beast of burden which, in Western myths, staggered along under the weight of an unwieldly drunkard.'4 Hymn lv. addressed to the Semitic Aphrodite, Kyprogenes," or Kypros-born, describes her as the associate of Bakchos.' Both divinities are alluded to as personages, and not as mere representatives of Love and Wine, and the connection is altogether Semitic and Phoenician. Hymn lvi. is addressed to Adonis, the wellknown Phoenician god Adon, the Hebrew Adonai or Lord. Adonis, be it observed, is with the Hymn-writer only another name for Dionysos, and so he is Polyonymos,

the many-named, the best of heavenly beings,' as Zagreus and Iao are the highest of gods.' So Adonis is Eubouleus, the Wise-counselling, and Dikeros, the Twohorned, 'nourisher of all,' i.e. vital power of the world, 'male and female;' or, as Shelley says, 'a sexless thing it seemed,' in fact the two-natured Iakchos.' Ever fresh and vigorous, he is, like Dionysos, both solar and kosmogonic.

Adonis, ever flourishing and bright;

At stated periods doom'd to set and rise
With splendid lamp, the glory of the skies.
"Tis thine to sink in Tartarus profound,

And shine again thro' heaven's illustrious round.
Taylor.

Dionysos, Adonis, Iao, 'these three agree in one.' Hymn lxxiv. is addressed to Leukotheë, daughter of Kadmos, 'a nurturer of Dionysos,' and also called Ino; and Hymn lxxv. to her son Paleimon, 'nurtured with Dionysos,' and also called Melikertes.1 It is unnecessary to enter more fully into the varied detail of these Hymns. Many points connected with them will be noticed and illustrated in different parts of the Work; and they are here referred to, not as being themselves of high antiquity, but as having preserved to a considerable extent the aroma of an archaic period, although mingled with, and often almost overpowered by, the stupifying incense of a comparatively modern mysticism.2

Subsection VI.-Neo-Platonism.

The learned reader will observe that I have carefully avoided and shall not, except in this subsection, allude to the arbitrary mysticism rightly styled Neo-Platonism, that

1 As to Ino and Melikertes, vide inf. VI. i. 2.

2 Vide subsec. vi.

is, something entirely different from the philosophical ideas of Platon and the Hellenes of the great ages. The diffusion of the divine truths and doctrines of Christianity throughout the ancient world naturally stimulated the learned who remained constant to heathenism to attempt to discover a corresponding grandeur, and sublimity, and depth of mystery, in the writings, traditions, and practices of their own religion. Before the Christian era the speculations and belief of the wiser heathen, in their feeling after God and divine realities, are sufficiently intelligible, and their discoveries and errors can alike be understood and appreciated. But the vain endeavour to bring to light, from the confused mass of heathen belief, knowledge, and tradition, a depth of splendour and of truth corresponding to the revelation of the Deity and his principles in the sacred books of the Hebrew and the Christian, only produced a system of the most uncertain belief and midnight obscurity, mainly founded on unsupported fancy and arbitrary assertion. The chiefs of the Neo-Platonists were Ammonios, the founder of the School, who died A.D. 243, and who was the son of Christian parents; Longinos, the friend of Zenobia, put to death by Aurelian; Plotinos, often considered as the originator of the system; Porphyrios, the great anti-Christian controversialist; the Emperor Julianus; Saloustios, his friend, author of an occult treatise About the Gods and the Kosmos; Proklos, the chief luminary of the School, surnamed Diadochos, the Successor, as being the true representative of Platon; Marinos, his pupil, and who wrote his life; Olympiodoros the elder; and Olympiodoros the younger, a contemporary of the Emperor Justinianus; and Simplikios, who, persecuted by the Christians, took refuge with six other philosophers at the Court of Kosru of Persia, and through his assistance obtained from the Christian Emperor license for the fugitives to return and