Note 4 — PART II CHAPTER VIII ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY THE THRACIAN WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS

Ζ 132 ff. The scene is evidently meant to be a Bacchic festival. This is shown by the θύσθλα, which the Διωνύσοιο τιθῆναι let fall out of their hands. All the rest is obscure. Even in antiquity no one knew who the τιθῆναι of Dionysos really were, and hence alternative suggestions were all the more numerous: cf. Nauck, Fr. Trag.2, p. 17. Voigt, in Roscher’s Mythol. Lex. i, 1049. It can hardly be necessary (with Sch. A on Z 129) to deduce from the reference to τιθῆναι that Dionysos himself was regarded as νήπιος ἔτι καὶ παῖς. His former τιθῆναι follow him in the Bacchic festival even after he has grown up, exactly as in h. Hom. xxvi, 3, 7–10. αἱ Διονύσου τροφοί as the frenzied mob worshipping the god, τῷ θεῷ ὀργιάζουσαι (in Thessaly), come in D.S. 5, 50, 4, in a parallel narrative to the story of Lykourgos and the Mainads. With the conception of the god as λικνίτης neither his leap into the sea (Ζ 135 ff.), nor esp. the adj. μαινομένοιο (132) are in harmony. This last word does certainly give us pause. The accounts provided by later ages of the madness of Dionysos are obviously made up from the lines of Homer and are therefore of no use to us (already ap. Eumelos in the Εὐρωπία, Schol. AD. Ζ 131; then Pherekydes, Achaios ἐν Ἴριδι: Phld., Piet., p. 36 [Nauck, Fr. Trag.2, p. 751]; E., Cyc. 3. [Apollod.] iii, 5, 1, is prob. derived from Pherec. as are also Philistos fr. 57, FHG. i; Pl., Lg. 672 B; Nic. Ὀφιακ. fr. 30 Schn., etc.). Scholastic interpreters even thought of a hypallage: μαινομένοιο = μανιοποιοῦ, βακχείας παρασκευαστικοῦ, Schol. A, Ζ 132; cf. Sch. B, p. 182a, 43 f. Bk. And, indeed, there is certainly in this case a sort of mythological or sacramental hypallage: the state of mind brought about by the god in those who surround him is reflected back on to the god himself (μαινόμενοι Σάτυροι, E., Ba. 130; cf. the mad nurses of Dionysos, Nonn., D. ix, 38 ff.). It would not be hard to parallel this (e.g. Dionys. who makes men drunk is represented as himself drunk, Ath. 428 E, etc.).