Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/79

 THE GREEK GODS 65 of nature dies away. He was represented as bearded, with the legs, tail, ears, and horns of a he-goat; often, however, in human 'form, distinguished only by the animal-like expression of his face. 85. Dionysus (Lat. Bacchus) himself, the most impor- tant of these divinities of fruitfulness, was once rep- resented in animal form, namely, that of a bull, richly endowed with procreative power, as is seen from certain of the customs of his worship in Argos and Elis ; and at a later period the bull and the he-goat were still consid- ered the most acceptable offerings to him. Nevertheless, the worship of Dionysus (' Zeus-man ? or ' Zeus-hero ') had its origin, properly speaking, in Thrace ; and from there, by an emigration of part of the inhabitants toward the southwest, it reached Phocis and Boeotia, and, later, Attica also. The Phocians w.ere closely related to the Phrygians of Asia Minor, among whom he was worshiped, under the name Sdbazius, as son of Ma, the mother of the gods. 86. In his native home, and later also in Greece, the worship of the god was celebrated by women, who in sensual ecstasy, carrying torches, reveled by night through the mountain forests in so-called 'orgies/ a word that is connected with 6/oyaw (' to swell with fructify- ing moisture'). These devotees of his became in mythol- ogy sometimes his nurses, the nymphs, and sometimes his attendants, the Bacchae (' exulting ones '), Maen- ades (' raving ones '), and Thyiades (' raging ones '). To fill themselves (and typically, at the same time, the rural districts represented by them) with new pro- creative power, they tore in pieces young animals (and, in the earliest times, probably even children) which