Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/37

 DEMETER AND APOLLO. 19 Christian Italy ^; and the oldest traditions derive the indecency of this adoration of the reproductive powers of nature fi-om the drunk- enness of the vine-god and his festival^. It was as a Phallic god and as the giver of wine that Dionysus retained his place in the popular worship of ancient Greece. And in this capacity his worship connects itself indissolubly with the mysteries of Demeter and her daughter, the goddesses of the earth and of the under-world ^ Generally the productiveness of the earth is regarded as the result of a marriage between the god of the sky, — whether he appears as the genial Sun or as the refreshing rain, — and the goddess, who represents the teeming earth, and weds her daughter to Plutus or Pluto, the owner of the treasures hidden below the surface of the ground, either actually, as metallic riches, or potentially, as the germs of vegetable growth*. To the last, this was the leading characteristic of the old Athenian worship of Dionysus, and his spring festival, the Anthesteria, was accompanied by mystic solemnities, pointing at once to this ideal of his reli- gion, and to its Semitic origin^. At this festival the mysteries were enti-usted to the wife of the king Archon, and to fourteen priestesses called yepacpai., whose number is that of the victims sent to the Minotaur, and is obviously Semitic^ As the repre- sentative of the State, and as symbolizing the virgin daughter of Demeter, who returned to earth in the spring, the king Archon' s wife was solemnly espoused to Dionysus^, just as conversely the 1 At Lsemia, one of the most ancient cities in the kingdom of Naples, situated in the Contado di Molise. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1805, a judgment, as some might think, for this iniquity. 2 Compaxe Tzetzes, Chiliad, viii. 211: ToO olvovpylas evperov, /). II. p. 63), " idolum omnium antiquissimum, quod et Chamos dictum est, a Chamo filio Xoe, qui, teste Beroso, idcirco Esmna cognominatus est, hoc est, impudicus sive ignominiosus propa- gator." 3 This subject has been recently discussed by Gerhard, uber die Anthesterien und das Yerhdltniss der attiscken Dionysos zura Koradienst, Berlin, 1858. 5 The principal passage for this ceremonial is in the speech against Xeaera, attri- buted to Demosthenes, p. 1370. ^ Servius, ad JEneid. vi. 21, MiiUer, Dor. i. 2, 2, § 14, recognizes the worship of Apollo, i. e. of the svm-god in the number 7, and the Ennaeteris in the period of the sacrifice. ^ It was only on the day of these espousals, the 12th of Anthesterion, that the temple was opened (Dem. in Necer. p. 1377). 2—2
 * Petersen, geh. Gottesd. h. d. Griech. 1848, p. 17.