[1164]. Athen. xiii. 29.
[1165]. The religious rites in which the women of Athens officiated were numerous and important: 1. The orgiastic ceremonies in honour of Pan were performed with shouts and clamour, it not being permitted to approach that divinity in silence.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysistr. 2. They celebrated sacred rites in honour of Aphrodite Colias, id. ibid. 3. Another divinity, in whose honour they congregated together, was Ginesyllis a goddess in the train of Aphrodite, who obtained the name ἀπὸ τῆς γενέσεως τῶν παίδων. id. ibid. Cf. Luc. Amor. § 42. 4. The part they took in the orgies of Dionysos is well known. 5. They, too, were the principal actors in the festival of Adonis. Plut. Alcib. § 18. and to mention no more they may strictly be said to have constituted the principal attraction of the Panathenaic procession.
[1166]. Phorm. 2. 2. 40. sqq.
[1167]. Lys. De Cæd. Eratosth. § 2.
[1168]. Diog. Laert. ii. 5. 18.
[1169]. To prove the presence of the women at the theatre among the other Greeks, ample testimonies might be collected. Thus, when in Æolis, a certain Alexander exhibited dramatic performances, the people flocked thither from all the neighbouring towns and villages, upon which he surrounded the theatre with soldiers, made prisoners both men, women, and children, and only released them on payment of a large ransom.—Polyæn. Stratagem. vi. 10.
[1170]. To this Pope alludes:
“And not a mask went unimproved away.”
See also Swift, Tale of a Tub, § ix.
[1171]. On the coarseness of the German theatre, in the eighteenth century, frequented by the empress and the first ladies of the court, see Lady Montague’s Letters, ix.