Note 65 — Chapter IX · DIONYSIAC RELIGION IN GREECE ITS AMALGAMATION WITH APOLLINE RELIGION. ECSTATIC PROPHECY. RITUAL PURIFICATION AND EXORCISM. ASCETICISM

Homer knows Kassandra as one of the daughters of Priam and indeed as Πριάμοιο θυγατρῶν εἶδος ἀρίστην, Ν 365; probably that it why she is allotted to Agamemnon as his share of the spoil and why she is slain with him, λ 421 ff. The Κύπρια is the first to tell of her prophetic skill. Was it the narrative of Ω 699 which first suggested to the νεώτεροι the idea of her knowledge of the future? (In reality that passage alludes rather to the συμπάθεια of the sister and daughter and not to mantikê: Sch. B. ad loc.) Her prophetic gifts were elaborated later in many stories: e.g. Bacchyl. xiv, 50 = fr. 29 Bgk. (Porph. on Hor. O. i, 15). Aesch. represents her as the type of the ecstatic prophetess (φρενομανής, θεοφόρητος, Ag. 1140, 1216). As such she is called by Eur. μαντιπόλος βάκχη, Hec. 121. φοιβάς 827. τὸ βακχεῖον κάρα τῆς θεσπιῳδοῦ Κασσάνδρας 676. She wildly shakes her head like the Bacchants ὅταν θεοῦ μαντόσυνοι πνεύσωσ’ ἀνάγκαι, IA. 760 ff.