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305 On the Attic Dionysia, 305 so that a general Attic festival was established even before the Great Dionysia of the Thesean city, which themselves were at least earlier than the Ionian migration. As the an- cient visit of the God to Icarius, which the oracle itself touches on, did not extend his benefits to Athens and the whole of Attica, a new appearance of the god was exhibited of more comprehensive efficacy. But as from the very no- tion of an amphictiony there could not be a house of Amphic- tyonids, the priestesses, who are either the Pythian Thyiads, to whom the present of the roeskin seems very appropriate, or the yepaipai of the Anthesteria, were taken from one of the demes where the worship of Bacchus had been long esta- blished, that of the Semachidae, In Stephanus indeed We only read that his priestesses descended from the daughters of Semachus; but that by these priestesses we are to under- stand not those of the rural district, but those of the capital, is clear from the statement annexed in Eusebius and Syncel- lus, that Semachus received this blessing in the reign of Amphictyon. To soften the anachronism others, according to Eusebius, placed the arrival of Bacchus under the no less purely mythical kings, the second Cecrops, and Pandion. It ap- pears to me utterly impossible to determine either the epoch of the god^s appearance, or his nature and origin, with the scanty fragments we have remaining of the Atthides, and considering the arbitrary manner in which the traditions of different or- ders of men, framed with different views, have been, artificially or through misconception, arranged and interwoven according to historical conditions, as if they were all of the same kind. In general however we may say that from times so ancient as to lie beyond the investigation of the most learned Athe- nians, the worship of Bacchus existed at Icaria, on mount Icarius, at Semachus, Lenaeus, Phlyae, which last place (pro- bably with reference to the Theban worship, though this may have been only an afterthought) honoured the Ismenian nymphs together with /l6vv(to^ ''AvOlo^^ and had dramatic spectacles, and in other demes of Attica; of which several at least pretended to have witnessed a divine revelation and insti- tution of this worship, and celebrated a festival of flowers and another of must, accompanied with Bacchic mummeries : and that their rites, in compliance with the example, and