Note 446 — Chapter IV · PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE ORPHICI

Doubtless the bees, who throughout Asia Minor were said to be the attendants of the Great Goddess. The priestesses of the Ephesian Artemis were called Μέλισσαι or Bees, and there were Μέλισσαι at Eleusis. See Foucart, Grds. Myst. pp. 66, 67. Cf. Aristophanes, Frogs, l. 1274. So were those of Cybele: cf. Lactantius, Div. Inst. Bk I. c. 22. Cf. also, A. B. Cook, “The Bee in Greek Mythology” in J.H.S. XV. (1895), pp. 17 sqq.