[199] I only instance this as evidence that laws of some sort were attributed to Bacchus, whom the traditions also speak of as King of Asia: to judge of these laws by what we know of the Subazian mysteries, would be as if we were to form our opinion of the Mandan ceremonies (vide infra, [ch. xi.]) by the last day’s orgies only. In this matter we may say with Cicero, De Legibus, ii. 17—“Omnia tum perditorum civium scelere ... religionum jura polluta sunt.”
[200] Layard (“Nineveh and Babylon,” p. 343) says, “We can scarcely hesitate to identify this mythic form (at Kosyundik) with the Oannes or sacred man-fish, who, according to the traditions preserved by Berosus, issued from the Erethræan sea, instructed the Chaldæans in all wisdom, in the sciences and the fine arts, and was afterwards worshipped as a god in the temples of Babylonia.... Five such monsters rose from the Persian Gulf at fabulous intervals of time (Cory’s “Fragments,” p. 30). It has been conjectured that this myth denotes the conquest of Chaldæa at some remote and pre-historic period by a comparatively civilised nation coming in ships to the mouth of the Euphrates.... The Dagon of the Philistines and of the inhabitants of the Phœnician coast was worshipped, according to the united opinion of the Hebrew commentators on the Bible, under the same form.” The five apparitions at long intervals may have been the confusion of the previous revelations to the patriarchs with those made to Noah—or they may be reduplications (vide supra, [p. 157]).
[201] Dionysius Periegesis says the women of the British Amnitæ celebrated the rites of Dionysos:—
“As the Bistonians on Apsinthus banks
Shout to the clamorous Eiraphiates;
Or as the Indians on dark-rolling Ganges
Hold revels to Dionysos the noisy,
So do the British women shout Evoë.” (v. 375.) (Qy. Enoë.)
Vide “The Bhilsa Topes,” by Major A. Cunningham, p. 6.
[202] I would specially draw attention to the instances of temples constructed upon the model of ships, concerning which vide Bryant’s “Mythology,” ii. 221, 226, 227, 240; and compare with Plate XVIII. in Montfauçon, ii.