Note 19 — Chapter IX · DIONYSIAC RELIGION IN GREECE ITS AMALGAMATION WITH APOLLINE RELIGION. ECSTATIC PROPHECY. RITUAL PURIFICATION AND EXORCISM. ASCETICISM

Use of dance and music to cure those who are attacked by Korybantic excitement: Pl., Lg. 790 DE, 791 A. More especially the melodies for the flute composed by Olympos, being θεῖα, were able to discover and cure those liable to Korybantic ekstasis (by means of the inspiring effect which they had on such persons). This is shown particularly by a passage in Plato (Smp. 215 C-E); where it is evident that the κορυβαντιῶντες of 215 E are not to be distinguished from the θεῶν καὶ τελετῶν δεόμενοι of 215 C (C states the general rule of which E is a particular application). This homoeopathic cure of the κορυβαντιῶντες by the intensification and subsequent discharge of the disorder is implied in all that we hear of the character of the Phrygian mode as ἐνθουσιαστική and of the μέλη Ὀλύμπου as exciting the souls of men to “enthousiasmos”; Arist., Pol. 1340b, 4, 5, 1342b, 1 ff., 1340a, 8; [Pl.], Min. 318 B; Cic., Div. i, 114. The κορυβαντιῶντες are also meant in Arist., Pol. 8, 7, 1342a, 7 ff . . . καὶ γὰρ ὑπὸ ταύτης τῆς κινήσεως (i.e. τοῦ ἐνθουσιασμοῦ) κατακώχιμοί τινές εἰσιν· ἐκ δὲ τῶν ἱερῶν μελῶν ὁρῶμεν τούτους, ὅταν χρήσωνται τοῖς ὀργιάζουσι τὴν ψυχὴν μέλεσι, καθισταμένους ὥσπερ ἰατρείας τυχόντας καὶ καθάρσεως. Plato’s analysis (Lg. 790 D ff.) is exactly parallel: the cure for the μανικαὶ διαθέσεις of the Korybantic patients is οὐχ ἡσυχία ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον κίνησις, whereby they are assisted to regain their ἕξεις ἔμφρονες. (It is from this religio-musical procedure and not from strictly medical experience or practice that Aristotle, taking a hint from Plato, Rp. 606, derived his idea of the κάθαρσις τῶν παθημάτων by violent discharge of the emotions and transferred it to tragedy—not, as in the explanation to which some have recently returned, by a tranquilization of the emotions in “a final reconciliation”.) This κάθαρσις and ἰατρεία of the κορυβαντιῶντες is the object of the initiation ceremony of the Korybantes (whose true βάκχοι are the κορυβαντιῶντες, i.e. the worshippers who are in need of and capable of cure); of the Κορυβάντων μυστήρια which are held ἐπὶ καθαρμῷ τῆς μανίας (Sch. Ar., V. 119–20, ἐκορυβάντιζε); cf. the τελετὴ τῶν Κορυβάντων (Pl., Euthd. 277 D, including θρόνωσις: D. Chr. 12, p. 388 R., § 33 Arn.; Lob., Agl. 116, 369. There is a parody of θρόνωσις in the initiation scene of Ar., Nub. 254, where Streps. sits ἐπὶ τὸν ἱερὸν σκίμποδα. τεθρονισμένος τοῖς θεοῖς = initiated in P. Mag. Lond. 747 f. = Kenyon, Greek Papyri in B.M. i, p. 108); and cf. the μητρῷα καὶ κορυβαντικὰ τέλη: D.H., Dem. 22. At the initiation ceremony (κορυβαντισμός· κάθαρσις μανίας Hsch.) held in the Κορυβαντεῖον (Hdn. Gr. 1, 375, 15 Lentz; App. Prov. ii, 23) the famous music of “inspiration” was played; there was also χορεία (Pl. Euthd.), ἦχοι e.g. the sound of τύμπανα (Ar., Ves. 120 f.; Luc. DD. 12, 1), and also it appears incense-burning: ὀσμαί, D.H., Dem. 22; cf. above, chap. viii, n. 39. All these stimulants intensified the pathological tendency of the κορυβαντιῶντες and gave them relief by the violent discharge of their emotions.—There is no need to doubt the actual occurrence of such pathological states and their medical treatment by music, etc. It was clearly the same type of psychopathical malady that invaded Italy in the Middle Ages under the name of Tarantism, repeating its attacks for several centuries; in this case, too, music (and even the sound of a particular melody) served both to excite and eventually to cure the violent dance-mania; cf. Hecker 172, 176 ff.—There seems to be a fabulous element in other stories current in antiquity about the cure of madness, love-passions, and even sciatica by the music of the flute (Pythagoras, Empedokles, Damon, Thphr. fr. 87). Such belief in the curative powers of music, esp. of the flute, seems to have been derived originally from actual experience of the καθάρσεις practised in Korybantic festivals, and then to have been exaggerated into a fable. Even doctors had no doubt that μανία was curable by the cantiones tibiarum; see Cael. Aur., Morb. Chr. i, 5, 175, 178 (Asklepiades); Cael. Aur. (i.e. Soranos), ib. 176, however, denies it. It depended entirely upon the theory, originally derived from κορυβαντισμός, of cure by intensification and discharge of the emotional state.