[459]. Servius on Virgil, Aen. iv. 143. Compare Horace, Odes, iii. 62 sqq.
[460]. Herodotus, i. 182.
[461]. Pausanias, viii. 13. 1. As to the meaning of the title Essen see Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, 16; Hesychius, Suidas, and Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἕσσην. The ancients mistook the Queen bee for a male, and hence spoke of King bees. See Aristotle, Histor. animal. v. 21 sq., ix. 40, pp. 553, 623 sqq., ed. Bekker; id., De animalium generatione, iii. 10, p. 760, ed. Bekker; Aelian, Nat. animal. i. 10, v. 10 sq.; Virgil, Georg. iv. 21, 68; W. Walter-Tornow, De apium mellisque apud veteres significatione (Berlin, 1894), pp. 30 sqq. The Essenes or King Bees are not to be confounded with the nominal kings (Basileis) of Ephesus, who probably held office for life. See above, vol. i. p. 47.
[462]. J. T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, Inscriptions from the Temple of Diana, pp. 2, 14; Inscriptions from the Augusteum, p. 4; Inscriptions from the City and Suburbs, p. 38.
[463]. See B. V. Head, Coins of Ephesus (London, 1880), and above, vol. i. pp. 37 sq. Modern writers sometimes assert that the priestesses of the Ephesian Artemis were called Bees. Certain other Greek priestesses were undoubtedly called Bees, and it seems not improbable that the priestesses of the Ephesian Artemis bore the same title and represented the goddess in her character of a bee. But no ancient writer, so far as I know, affirms it. See my note on Pausanias, viii. 13. 1.
[464]. Demosthenes, Contra Neaer. 73-78, pp. 1369-1371; Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, iii. 5; Hesychius, s.vv. Διονύσου γάμος and γεραραί; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. γεραῖραι; Pollux, viii. 108; K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer, 2nd Ed., § 32. 15, § 58. 11 sqq.; Aug. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 391 sqq. From Demosthenes, l.c., compared with Thucydides, ii. 15, it seems certain that the oath was administered by the Queen at the time and place mentioned in the text. Formerly it was assumed that her marriage to Dionysus was celebrated at the same place and time; but the assumption as to the place was disproved by the discovery of Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens, and with it the assumption as to the time falls to the ground. As the Greek months were commonly named after the festivals which were held in them, it is tempting to conjecture that the sacred marriage took place in the Marriage Month (Gamelion), answering to our January. But more probably that month was named after the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera, which was celebrated at Athens and elsewhere. See below, p. [143]. This is the view of W. H. Roscher (Juno und Hera, p. 73, n. 217) and Aug. Mommsen (Feste der Stadt Athen, p. 383). From the name Cattle-stall, applied to the scene of the marriage, Miss J. E. Harrison ingeniously conjectured that in the rite Dionysus may have been represented as a bull (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 537). The conjecture was anticipated by Prof. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aristoteles und Athen (Berlin, 1893), ii. 42. Dionysus was often conceived by the Greeks in the form of a bull.
[466]. L. Preller, Ausgewählte Aufsätze (Berlin, 1864), pp. 293-296; compare his Griechische Mythologie, 4th ed., ed. C. Robert, i. 681 sqq.
[467]. Hyginus, Astronomica, i. 5.
[468]. Tertullian, Ad nationes, ii. 7, “Cur rapitur sacerdos Cereris si non tale Ceres passa est?” Asterius Amasenus, Encomium in sanctos martyres, in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, xl. col. 324, Οὐκ ἐκεῖ (at Eleusis) τὸ καταβάσιον τὸ σκοτεινόν, καὶ αἱ σεμναὶ τοῦ ἱεροφάντου πρὸς τὴν ἱερείαν συντυχίαι, μόνου πρὸς μόνην; Οὐχ αἱ λαμπάδες σβέννυνται, καὶ ὁ πολὺς καὶ ἀναρίθμητος δῆμος τὴν σωτηρίαν αὐτῶν εἶναι νομίζουσι τὰ ἐν τῷ σκότῳ παρὰ τῶν δύο πραττόμενα; Psellus, Quaenam sunt Graecorum opiniones de daemonibus, p. 39. ed. J. F. Boissonade, τὰ δέ γε μυστήρια τούτων, οἷα αὐτίκα τὰ Ἐλευσίνια, τὸν μυθικὸν ὑποκρίνεται Δία μιγνύμενον τῇ Δηοῖ, ἤγουν τῇ Δήμητρι ... Ὕποκρίνεται δὲ καὶ τὰς τῆς Δηοῦς ὠδῖνας. Ἱκετηρίαι γοῦν αὐτίκα Δηοῦς καὶ χολῆς πόσις καὶ καρδιαλγίαι. Ἐφ’ οἷς καί τι τραγοσκελὲς μίμημα παθαινόμενον περὶ τοῖς διδύμοις, ὅτιπερ ὁ Ζεύς, δίκας ἀποτιννὺς τῆς βίας τῇ Δήμητρι, τράγου ὄρχεις ἀποτεμών, τῷ κόλπῳ ταύτης κατέθετο ὥσπερ δὴ καὶ ἑαυτοῦ (compare Arnobius, Adversus nationes, v. 20-23); Schol. on Plato, Gorgias, p. 497 c, Ἐτελεῖτο δὲ ταῦτα (the Eleusinian mysteries) καὶ Δηοῖ καὶ Κορῇ, ὅτι ταύτην μὲν Πλούτων ἁρπάξειε, Δηοῖ δὲ μιγείη Ζεύς; Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium, v. 8, pp. 162, 164, ed. Duncker and Schneidewin, Λέγουσι δὲ αύτον (God), φησί, Φρύγες καὶ χλοερὸν στάχυν τεθερισμένον, καὶ μετὰ τοὺς Φρύγας Ἀθηναῖοι μυοῦντες Ἐλευσίνια, καὶ ἐπιδεικνύντες τοῖς ἐποπτεύουσι τὸ μέγα καὶ θαυμαστὸν καὶ τελειότατον ἐποπτικὸν ἐκεῖ μυστήριον ἐν σιωπῇ, τεθερισμένον στάχυν. Ὁ δὲ στάχυς οὗτός ἐστι καὶ παρὰ Ἀθηναίοις ὁ παρὰ τοῦ ἀχαρακτηρίστου φωστὴρ τέλειος μέγας, καθάπερ αὐτὸς ὁ ἱεροφάντης, οὐκ ἀποκεκομμένος μέν, ὡς ὁ Ἄττις, εὐνουχισμένος δὲ διὰ κωνείου καὶ πᾶσαν παρῃτημένος τὴν σαρκικὴν γένεσιν, νυκτὸς ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι ὑπὸ πολλῷ πυρὶ τελῶν τὰ μεγάλα καὶ ἄρρητα μυστήρια βοᾷ καὶ κέκραγε λέγων· ἱερὸν ἔτεκε πότνια κοῦρον Βριμὼ Βριμόν, τουτέστιν ἰσχυρὰ ἰσχυρόν. In combining and interpreting this fragmentary evidence I have followed Mr. P. Foucart (Recherches sur l’origine et la nature des mystères d’Eleusis, Paris, 1895, pp. 48 sq.; id., Les Grands Mystères d’Eleusis, Paris, 1900, p. 69), and Miss J. E. Harrison (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 549 sqq.). In antiquity it was believed that an ointment or plaster of hemlock applied to the genital organs prevented them from discharging their function. See Dioscorides, De materia medica, iv. 79; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxv. 154. Dr. J. B. Bradbury, Downing Professor of Medicine in the University of Cambridge, informs me that this belief is correct. “Although conium [hemlock] is not used as an anaphrodisiac at the present day, there can be no doubt that it has this effect. When rubbed into the skin it depresses sensory nerve-endings and is absorbed. After absorption it depresses all sympathetic nerve-cells. Both these effects would tend to diminish organic reflexes such as aphrodisia” (Dr. W. E. Dixon, Pharmacological Laboratory, Cambridge). Pausanias seems to imply that the hierophant was forbidden to marry (ii. 14. 1). It may have been so in his age, the second century of our era; but an inscription of the first century B.C. shews that at that time it was lawful for him to take a wife. See P. Foucart, Les Grands Mystères d’Eleusis, pp. 26 sqq. (extract from the Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, vol. xxxvii.).