Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/362

352 352 On the Early Kings of Attica. he owes his supposed existence to the rites of darkness which the name describes. The root is found in op(pvrj^ aKorla. vv^ fmeXaiva Hes. in 6p(pavo^ (orbus, op(po<$ with digamma fur- vus) a child or parent wearing black garments, perhaps in '^Opira. 'EpivvvS' Hes. His descent into the infernal regions to recover his wife ^upv^iKfj^ whose name may be of the same import with Ilpa^i^LKri^ belongs to the same circle of ideas as the search of Ceres for her vanished daughter; his being torn to pieces, to the fable of Bacchus Zaypev^ (Aaypev^ ^d^co) whether this primarily referred to the frenzied wild- ness of the orgies in which the victim was torn to pieces, or to the disintegration of the seed in the earth. The Orphic, Bacchic and Eleusinian religions, though specifically dif- ferent arc in kind and origin the same^. Caucon, the founder of the mysteries of Ceres and Proserpine at Messene, is made a son of KeXaiPo^^ Paus. 4. 1. The name of KeXeo? connected with the Eleusinian rites had probably a similar origin; so KeXaivco was made by one fabulist the mother of AeX0o9j alluding to the worship of Bacchus on Parnassus ; while another assigned to him Qvia as his mother and a third made him the son of MeXatva Paus. 10. 6. Other instances are less obvious. The mythologists tell us (ApoU. 1. 9) that DeXfct? derived his name from his face being; blackened by the kick of a horse, when he was exposed as an infant with his brother Neleus. There are however strong traces in the history of Pelias of a connexion with the same rites whence 'Opipevs derived his mythological existence. The cutting up of Pelias by his daughters is the same story as that of the discerption of Orpheus. The descent of his daughter Alcestis to the infernal regions and her rescue by Hercules, is only another form of the adventure of Orpheus and Eurydice; but Admetus who is properly the infernal god (see Miiller Proleg. p. 306. Dorier. 1. 320. Germ.) has ^ Ai]fii]Tpa Xdovlav AaKcSaifxovioL fxev cripeiv (pao-l, wapadovro^ crcptffiv ^0|0(^cws Paus. 3. 14. 9 The epithet of Nu/cTeXtos was given to Bacchus especiaUy in reference to the mystical doctrine of his being torn to pieces and recomposed Lobeck Aglaoph. 712. The name of Liber applied by the Latins properly to the x^ouio^ Al6vv(to^ and Libera to Proserpine are more probably derived from i/3|0os, o-k-ot€ii/os Hes. (whence Ai^ve^) than from Xei/?w. The Romans seemed to have called their children liberi in honour of the youthful deities Kopos and Kopr],