Note 106 — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF
W. B. (William Bernard) Hillis translation
In the extravagant and fanatical worship of Dionysos that was transplanted from Greece to Italy and Rome in the year 186 B.C. the miracle of translation was carried out in a very practical fashion (belief in its possibility was evidently firmly established). Machines were prepared upon which those whose disappearance was to be effected were bound; they were then transferred by the machine in abditos specus; whereupon the miracle was announced: raptos a dis homines istos: Liv. 39, 13. This only becomes intelligible in the light of such legends of the translation of mortals, body and soul, to immortality, of which we have been speaking.