Triptolemus was also said to have been “the inventor of the plough and of agriculture, and of civilisation, which is the result of it,” and to have instituted the Elusinian mysteries. Like Bacchus he is also said to have “ridden all over the earth, making men acquainted with the blessings of agriculture.”—Smith. Myth. Dict.; vide also infra, [p. 224]: “Deucalion.”
[178] Dionusus like Bacchus came to India from the west.—Philostratus, lib. ii. 64; Byrant, ii. 78. The Indian Bacchus “appears in the character of a wise and distinguished oriental monarch; his features an expression of sublime tranquillity and mildness.”—Smith, Myth. Dic.
[179] This appears to me still more apparent in the 26th Idyll of Theocritus, where, when the Bacchanals were at their revels,
“Perched on the sheer cliff Pentheus would espy
All....
(For profaning thus “these mysteries weird that must not be profaned by vulgar eyes,” Pentheus is torn to pieces by the Bacchanals)....
“Warned by this tale, let no man dare defy
Great Bacchus; lest a death more awful should he die.
And when he counts nine years or scarcely ten
Rush to his ruin. May I pass my days