Note 4 — Chapter II · THE ENVIRONMENT

Of his cult in particular it is difficult to grasp any general significance, so inextricably did it become entwined with others, in particular with the Phrygian cult of Sabazios,4 and with the Corybantic mysteries, in connection with which are to be traced a whole series of local deities of the same stamp as those under notice, just as the myth of Apollo can be seen to have absorbed a whole series of local Sun-Gods. Thus the mortal Jasion or Iasious is slain by Zeus for being the lover of Cybelê, who however bears to him a divine son, Korybas; and he in turn figures also as the son of the Virgin Persephonê, and without father, human or divine. In the Orphic hymns Korybas is the mighty Lord of the underworld, who frees the spirit from all terrible visions, a giver of blessedness and of sorrow, a God of double nature. So Dionysos, like the Hindu Fire-God Agni, is born of two mothers; and like Hermes and Herakles he has descended to Hades and returned, victorious over death. In all such cults alike is to be noted the gradual emergence of the relation of maternity as well as paternity, the Mother Goddess coming more and more to the front as such; while the Son-God, in the case of Dionysos and Dêmêtêr, tends to overshadow or supersede the Daughter-Goddess, who in Rome had twinned with Bacchus under their names of Liber and Libera.