Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/42

 24 THE CONNECTED WORSHIP OF DIONYSUS, of nature, — which looks upon the Sun and Moon as visible repre- sentatives of the invisible potentates of the earth, and sky, and under- world, — is essentially imitative in all its rites. The reason why such a religion should exist at all, is, as we have already shown in a general way, also a reason why the ceremonies of it should be accompanied by mimicry. The men who could consider the Sun as the visible emblem of an all-seeing power who from day to day performs his constant round, the cause of light and life ; the Moon, his sister goddess, who exercises the same functions by night ; the two though distant (eKaroi) yet always present powers (TTpocTTaTTjpcot) J thc mcu who could see in the circling orbs of night "the starry nymphs who dance around the pole;" such men, we say, would not be long in finding out some means of representing these emblems on earth. If the Sun and the ever-revolving lights were fit emblems and suggestions of a deity, the circling dance round the blazing altar was an obvious copy of the original sym- bols, and an equally apt representation The heavenly powers became gods of the earth, and it was reasonable that the co-ordinate natural causes of productiveness should also have their representatives, who would form the atten- dants of the personified primal causes of the same effects. The sun-god therefore, when he roamed the earth, was properly attended by the Sileni, the deities presiding over running streams^; the goddess of the Moon by the Naiades, the corresponding female divinities ; nay, sometimes the two bands united to form one merry train ^ To these Sileni were added a mixture of man and goat the mimetic character of his worship — ohu ALOv^iaov ev KaroirTpi^, Plotinus, IV, 3, 12 (see the passages quoted by Creuzer in his note on p. 707, i, 3, of his edition). 1 See the author irepl XvptKQv, apud Boissonade, Anecd. Gr. iv. p. 458; Rhein. Mus. 1833, p. i6q; cf. note on Soph. Ant. 1113, p. 224. Though all polytheisms are connected with the production of the mimetie arts, the modes of imitation differ with the nature of the religion. The symbols of an elementary religion are the objects of imitation ; but in a mental religion, art is called upon to produce from the ideal a visible symbol. The mimicry of action is the result of the former, the mimicry of sculpture of the latter. Hence the primitive gods, who were parts of an elementary worship, were not originally represented by statues (comp, Miiller, Eumen. § 89, 90, 93), "Ye eldest gods," says Ion, Are palpable ; who shun the azure heights Of beautiful Olympus, and the sound Of ever-young Apollo's minstrelsy," Talfourd's Ion, Act iii. Sc, 2. 2 Welcker, Nachtrag, p. 214, 3 Strabo, p, 468,
 * Who in no statues of exactest form