Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/41

 DEMETER AND APOLLO. 23 fire-breatliing stars, as one celebrated by nocturnal invocations Thus Bacclius and Demeter were the representatives of those two heavenly bodies by which the husbandmen measured the returning seasons, and as such, though not immediately connected with agri- culture^, are invoked by the learned Virgil at the commencement of the Georgics^ They also represented the earth and its produc- tions: but there is still another phase which they exhibit; they were, in the third place, the presiding deities of the under-world Tliis also admits of an obvious interpretation. The Greeks, as a consequence of their habit of imparting actual objective existence with will and choice to every physical cause, considered the cause of anything as also in some measure the cause of its contrary. Thus Apollo is not only the cause, but also the preventer of sudden death^ : Mars causes the madness of Ajax^, he is therefore supposed to have cured the hero of his disease*^; the violent wind which raised the billows also lulls them to rest® ; night, which puts an end to day, also brings the day to light^ ; and Bacchus, the bright and merry god, is also the superintendent of the orphic or black rites ; the god of life, he is also the god of death ; the god of light, he is also the ruling power in the nether regions ^'^, The worship of Dionysus ^^ consequently partook of the same variations as that of the sun-god whom he superseded ; and while, on the one hand, his sufferings and mischances were bewailed, on the other hand, as the god of light, wine, and generation, as the giver of life and of all that renders life cheerful, his rites were celebrated with suitable liveliness and mirth. That mimicry should enter largely into such a worship, is only what we should expect ^^. A religion which recognizes a divinity in the great objects 1 Antig. 1130. ^ Welcker, Naclitrag, p. 191. 3 I. 5 — 7 : Vos, clarissima mandi Lumina, labentem coelo qui ducitis annum, Liber et akna Ceres. '' Soph. Aj. 179. '' Id. ibid. 706. ^ Id. ibid. 674. ^ Id. Trachin. 94. For this reason, says Eustath. ad Iliad. A. p. 27, Apollo is called the son of Latona, TovreaTi, vvktos. Conversely Horat. Carm. Sec. 10 : Alme sol, curni nitido diem qui Promis et celas. 10 Herod. 11. 123. ^^ It seems to us that Qvwvt} or Aiuvt] is the feminine form of Alovvctos, or more anciently Aiuvvaos. 12 Above, p. 9. The mirror which is given to Bacchus by Vulcan is an emblem of
 * Herod. 11. 123. ^ Miiller's Dor. ii. ch. 6, § 2, 3.