Demêtrius Phalêreus says about the legends belonging to these ceremonies—Διὸ καὶ τὰ μυστήρια λέγεται ἐν ἀλληγορίαις πρὸς ἔκπληξιν καὶ φρίκην, ὥσπερ ἐν σκότῳ καὶ νυκτί. (De Interpretatione, c. 101).
[73] See the curious treatise of Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. c. 11-14. p. 356, and his elaborate attempt to allegorize the legend. He seems to have conceived that the Thracian Orpheus had first introduced into Greece the mysteries both of Dêmêtêr and Dionysos, copying them from those of Isis and Osiris in Egypt. See Fragm. 84, from one of his lost works, tom, v. p. 891, ed. Wyttenb.
[74] Æschylus had dramatized the story of Pentheus as well as that of Lykurgus: one of his tetralogies was the Lykurgeia (Dindorf, Æsch. Fragm. 115). A short allusion to the story of Pentheus appears in Eumenid. 25. Compare Sophocl. Antigon. 985, and the Scholia.
[75] Iliad, vi. 130. See the remarks of Mr. Payne Knight ad loc.
[76] See Homer, Hymn 5, Διόνυσος ἢ Λῆσται.—The satirical drama of Euripidês, the Cyclôps, extends and alters this old legend. Dionysos is carried away by the Tyrrhenian pirates, and Silênus at the head of the Bacchanals goes everywhere in search of him (Eur. Cyc. 112). The pirates are instigated against him by the hatred of Hêrê, which appears frequently as a cause of mischief to Dionysos (Bacchæ, 286). Hêrê in her anger had driven him mad when a child, and he had wandered in this state over Egypt and Syria; at length he came to Cybela in Phrygia, was purified (καθαρθεὶς) by Rhea, and received from her female attire (Apollodôr. iii. 5, 1, with Heyne’s note). This seems to have been the legend adopted to explain the old verse of the Iliad, as well as the maddening attributes of the god generally.
There was a standing antipathy between the priestesses and the religious establishments of Hêrê and Dionysos (Plutarch, Περὶ τῶν ἐν Πλαταίαις Δαιδάλων, c. 2, tom. v. p. 755, ed. Wytt). Plutarch ridicules the legendary reason commonly assigned for this, and provides a symbolical explanation which he thinks very satisfactory.
[77] Eurip. Bacch. 325, 464, etc.
[78] Strabo, x. p. 471. Compare Aristid. Or. iv. p. 28.
[79] In the lost Xantriæ of Æschylus, in which seems to have been included the tale of Pentheus, the goddess Λύσσα was introduced, stimulating the Bacchæ, and creating in them spasmodic excitement from head to foot: ἐκ ποδῶν δ᾽ ἄνω Ὑπέρχεται σπαραγμὸς εἰς ἄκρον κάρα, etc. (Fragm. 155, Dindorf). His tragedy called Edoni also gave a terrific representation of the Bacchanals and their fury, exaggerated by the maddening music: Πίμπλησι μέλος, Μανίας ἐπαγωγὸν ὁμοκλάν (Fr. 54).
Such also is the reigning sentiment throughout the greater part of the Bacchæ of Euripidês; it is brought out still more impressively in the mournful Atys of Catullus:—