Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/48

 32 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. which in process of time it wholly superseded. 1 Atys is the form usually used by poets and historians ; we also find : it as a proper name in Lydia. The worshippers of Atys, as those of the Syrian Adonis, were in no sense of the word rapt and passive spectators of the rites enacted before them by the officiating priest. To them the oft- recurring drama was a thrilling reality, in which men and women all felt an interest and helped on the unfolding of the cosmic tragedy, during which were depicted the anomalies of terrestrial life, ever failing of its purpose, yet fulfilling it ; arrested in its onward progress, yet bounding on with renewed energy. With a potency of which we can form no idea, the assembled multitude grieved for the orb which, pursued by the hurricane, grew wan and pale, and was presently engulfed within black clouds or the greater gloom of night ; for the plants that wither under the hot breath of summer, whose foliage turns sere and whose sap ceases to run under the wintry blast. A few months later, the same multitude joyed in the return of light and warmth ; it trembled with delight at the reawakening of the god, an event celebrated in a festival that was far away the more important of the two ; it lasted six days, and consisted of two parts widely different in their import : a funereal pageant, followed by solemn rejoicings. 2 In both, the procession moved to the confused sound in turn of funereal chants, tambourines, cymbals, and flutes. 3 Branches of pine were carried on the shoulders of the worshippers as a symbol of undying life, a token that the dead they saw before them would rise again. 4 In this way they reached the grave previously prepared, into which the god was 1 Greek manuscripts and inscriptions spell the name "Arus, "Arrvs, indifferently. Scores of towns in Asia Minor, apparently compounded with the name of the god, have also the double consonant : "Arraia, "Arrea, "ArrouSa, and the like. The first word of the inscription on the Midas rock (Fig. i) shows the form ATE2. 2 Pindar (Strabo, X. iii. 12) in a dithyrambic exclaims : " O mother of the gods, cymbals, tambourines, and bagpipes have struck up ; young yellow pines are lighted in token that the festivity has begun." And in one of the so-called Homeric poems (xiii. 3, 4) Cybele is called " the goddess who loves the shrill-sounding crotals, the flute and loud tambourine." Propertius, xvii. 37 ; xvii. ; MACROBIUS, Saturnalia, i. 1 8. 8 LUCIAN, Tragodopodagra, 30-33. 4 " Quid pectoribus applaudentes palmas passis cum crinibus galli" (ARNOBIUS, Adversus gentes, v. 10).