§ 260. fennel and white poplar. These were credited with magical and protective properties.
Euoe, Saboe: the cry to Sabazios. One is tempted to render it by 'Glory! Hallelujah!' In fact, the Dionysiac 'thiasoi', or some of them, had many features, good as well as bad, in common with the Salvation Army. The cry 'Euoe, Saboe' is of Thracian origin; 'Hyes Attes' is Phrygian. The serpents, the ivy, and the winnowing-fan figured in more than one variety of Dionysiac service. It is not certain that for 'ivy-bearer' ([Greek: kittophorhos]) we should not read 'chest-bearer' ([Greek: kistophoros]) used with reference to the receptacle containing sacred objects, of which we hear elsewhere in connexion with similar rites.
§ 261. fellow-parishioners; lit. 'members of your deme'. Each deme kept the register of citizens belonging to it. Enrolment was possible at the age of 18 years, and had to be confirmed by the Council. (See Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, chap. xiii.)
§ 262. collecting figs, &c. Two interpretations are possible: (1) that the spectators in derision threw fruit—probably not of the best—at Aeschines on the stage, and he gathered it up, as a fruiterer collects fruit from various growers, and lived on it; or (2) that while he was a strolling player, Aeschines used to rob orchards. Of these (1) seems by far the better in the context.
§ 267. I leave the abysm, &c. The opening of Euripides' Hecuba. The line next quoted is unknown. 'Evil in evil wise' ([Greek: kakon kak_os]) is found in a line of Lynceus, a fourth-century tragedian.
§ 282. denied this intimacy with him: or possibly (with the scholiast), 'declined this office.'
§ 284. the tambourine-player. Such instruments were used in orgiastic rites.
§ 285. Hegemon and Pythocles were members of the Macedonian party, who were put to death in 317 by order of the Assembly. (See Speech on Embassy, §§ 215, 314.)
§ 287. same libation: i.e. the same banquet. The libation preceded the drinking. To 'go beneath the same roof' with a polluted person was supposed to involve contamination.
in the revel. Cf. Speech on the Embassy, § 128. The reference, however, is here more particularly to Philip's revels after the battle of Chaeroneia, in which, Demosthenes suggests, the Athenian envoys took part.