Note 2 — Chapter IX · DIONYSIAC RELIGION IN GREECE ITS AMALGAMATION WITH APOLLINE RELIGION. ECSTATIC PROPHECY. RITUAL PURIFICATION AND EXORCISM. ASCETICISM

The women in Boeotia ἐνθεώτατα ἐμάνησαν (cf. Eur., Ba.). ταῖς Λακεδαιμονίων γυναιξὶν ἐνέπεσέ τις οἶστρος βακχικὸς καὶ ταῖς τῶν Χίων, Ael., VH. iii, 42. Hdt. ix, 34, speaks inclusively of the madness of the women in Argos (τῶν ἐν Ἄργεϊ γυναικῶν μανεισέων), where others speak only of the frenzy attacking the daughters of Proitos. Neither is incompatible with the other; they simply represent two different stages of the story. The μαίνεσθαι which attacks the entire female population is not (as later accounts generally make out) the punishment sent by Dionysos: it is simply another way of expressing the general acceptance of his worship which essentially consisted in μαίνεσθαι (= βακχεύειν in Ant. Lib. 10). The μαίνεσθαι of individual women who try to resist the contagious enthusiasm of the Dionysiac revelry going on around them (e.g. the daughters of Eleuther: Suid. μελαναιγ. Δίον.) is, however, a punishment sent by the angry god when it leads them to murder their own children.—The regular and widespread “mania” of the newly introduced cult of Dionysos is referred to also by D.S. 4, 68, 4; [Apollod.] 2, 2, 2, 5; Paus. 2, 18, 4; cf. also Nonn., D. 47, 481 ff.