These feasts continued many days. Those who were initiated, mimicked whatever the poets had thought fit to feign of the god Bacchus. They covered themselves with the skins of wild beasts, carried a thyrsus in their hands, a kind of pike with ivy-leaves twisted round it; had drums, horns, pipes, and other instruments calculated to make a great noise; and wore upon their heads wreaths of ivy and vine-branches, and of other trees sacred to Bacchus. Some represented Silenus, some Pan, others the Satyrs, all drest in suitable masquerade. Many of them were mounted on asses; others dragged goats[59] along for sacrifices. Men and women, ridiculously dressed in this manner, appeared night and day in public; and imitating drunkenness, and dancing with the most indecent gestures, ran in throngs about the mountains and forests, screaming and howling furiously; the women especially seemed more outrageous than the men; and, quite out of their senses, in their furious[60] transports invoked the god, whose feast they celebrated, [pg xxxii] with loud cries; εὐοῖ Βάκχε, or ὦ Ἴακχε, or Ἰόβακχε, or Ἰὼ Βάκχε.
This troop of Bacchanalians was followed by the virgins of the noblest families in the city, who were called κανηφόροι, from carrying baskets on their heads, covered with vine leaves and ivy.
To these ceremonies others were added, obscene to the last excess, and worthy of the god who chose to be honoured in such a manner. The spectators gave into the prevailing humour, and were seized with the same frantic spirit. Nothing was seen but dancing, drunkenness, debauchery, and all that the most abandoned licentiousness can conceive of gross and abominable. And this an entire people, reputed the wisest of all Greece, not only suffered, but admired and practised. I say an entire people; for Plato, speaking of the Bacchanalia, says in direct terms, that he had seen the whole city of Athens drunk at once.[61]
Livy informs us,[62] that this licentiousness of the Bacchanalia having secretly crept into Rome, the most horrid disorders were committed there under cover of the night, and the inviolable secresy which all persons, who were initiated into these impure and abominable mysteries, were obliged, under the most horrid imprecations, to observe. The senate, being apprized of the affair, put a stop to those sacrilegious feasts by the most severe penalties; and first banished the practisers of them from Rome, and afterwards from Italy. These examples inform us, how far a mistaken sense of religion, that covers the greatest crimes with the sacred name of the Divinity, is capable of misleading the mind of man.[63]
The Feast of Eleusis.
There is nothing in all Pagan antiquity more celebrated than the feast of Ceres Eleusina. The ceremonies of this festival were called, by way of eminence, “the mysteries,” from being, according to Pausanias, as much above all others, as the gods are above men. Their origin and institution are attributed to Ceres herself, who, in the reign of Erechtheus, coming to Eleusis, a small town of Attica, in search of her daughter Proserpine, whom Pluto had carried away, and finding the [pg xxxiii] country afflicted with a famine, invented corn as a remedy for that evil, with which she rewarded the inhabitants. She not only taught them the use of corn, but instructed them in the principles of probity, charity, civility, and humanity;[64] from whence her mysteries were called Θεσμοφόρια, and Initia. To these first happy lessons fabulous antiquity ascribed the courtesy, politeness, and urbanity, so remarkable amongst the Athenians.
These mysteries were divided into the less and the greater; of which the former served as a preparation for the latter. The less were solemnized in the month Anthesterion, which answers to our November; the great in the month Boëdromion, which corresponds to August. Only Athenians were admitted to these mysteries; but of them, each sex, age, and condition, had a right to be received. All strangers were absolutely excluded, so that Hercules, Castor, and Pollux, were obliged to be adopted as Athenians in order to their admission; which, however, extended only to the lesser mysteries. I shall consider principally the great, which were celebrated at Eleusis.
Those who demanded to be initiated into them, were obliged, before their reception, to purify themselves in the lesser mysteries, by bathing in the river Ilissus, by saying certain prayers, offering sacrifices, and, above all, by living in strict continence during a certain interval of time prescribed them. That time was employed in instructing them in the principles and elements of the sacred doctrine of the great mysteries.
When the time for their initiation arrived, they were brought into the temple; and to inspire the greater reverence and terror, the ceremony was performed in the night. Wonderful things took place upon this occasion. Visions were seen, and voices heard of an extraordinary kind. A sudden splendour dispelled the darkness of the place, and, disappearing immediately, added new horrors to the gloom. Apparitions, claps of thunder, earthquakes, heightened the terror and amazement; whilst the person to be admitted, overwhelmed with dread, and sweating through fear, heard, trembling, the mysterious volumes read to him, if in such a condition he was capable of hearing at all. These nocturnal rites gave birth to many [pg xxxiv] disorders, which the severe law of silence, imposed on the persons initiated, prevented from coming to light, as St. Gregory Nazianzen observes.[65] What cannot superstition effect upon the mind of man, when once his imagination is heated? The president in this ceremony was called Hierophantes. He wore a peculiar habit, and was not permitted to marry. The first who served in this function, and whom Ceres herself instructed, was Eumolpus; from whom his successors were called Eumolpidæ. He had three colleagues; one who carried a torch;[66] another a herald,[67] whose office was to pronounce certain mysterious words; and a third to attend at the altar.
Besides these officers, one of the principal magistrates of the city was appointed to take care that all the ceremonies of this feast were exactly observed. He was called the king,[68] and was one of the nine Archons. His business was to offer prayers and sacrifices. The people gave him four assistants,[69] one chosen from the family of the Eumolpidæ, a second from that of the Ceryces, and the two last from two other families. He had besides ten other ministers to assist him in the discharge of his duty, and particularly in offering sacrifices, from whence they derived their name.[70]