Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/82

 68 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY looked upon as a resurrection of the fructifying god, and thus he could easily be regarded as having been temporarily dead. This was the case particularly at Delphi, and probably also in the ' mysteries' of Eleusis. 90. When this Thracian ' Zeus-hero ' and representa- tive of productive moisture was introduced into the Grecian system of gods, he came to be regarded as the son of Zeus, the god of thunder and rain; and his mother Semele (Earth?) was said to be the daughter of Cadmus of Thebes, because that was the chief place of his worship. After her premature death, continued the legend, Zeus concealed the yet immature child in his own thigh till the time for it to be born. Then Hermes carried it to the nymphs of Nysa, or the synony- mous Hyades (' raincloud goddesses ') to be nursed. 91. Certain other myths relate to the opposition which was raised to the introduction of this foreign worship. Even in Thrace, the very home of the god, barbarian opponents of his worship were personified in Lycurgus, who pursued him and his nurses with a battle-ax. In the Minyaii Orchomenus he was resisted by the soberly industrious daughters of Minyas, similarly in Argos by the daughters of Proetus, and in Thebes by king Pen- theus % but these all perished when the god sent upon them the madness which sensual excitement finally reaches. 92. The legend of the marriage of Dionysus with Ariadne, a Cretan goddess very much like Aphrodite, which was localized on the island of Naxos (Dia) near Crete, is entirely in harmony with the nature of the fructifying god; and the significance of this wedlock is indicated by the names of their sons, Oenopion (' wine-