Note 71 — PART II CHAPTER VIII ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY THE THRACIAN WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS

The connexion between Thracian Dionysos-worship and the belief in immortality and cult of the dead is vouched for, acc. to Rapp, Dionysosc. 15 ff., by the insc. found by Heuzey in Thracian districts. An epitaph found at Doxato (near Philippi) says of one who has died young (ll. 12 ff.): reparatus vivis in Elysiis. Sic placitum est divis aeterna vivere forma qui bene de supero lumine sit meritus.—nunc seu te Bromio signatae (see Anrich, Antike Mysterienwesen, 123 f.) mystides ad se florigero in prato congregem uti Satyrum, sive canistriferae poscunt sibi Naïdes aeque, qui ducibus taedis agmina festa trahas . . . (CIL. iii, 686). It is true that this remarkable fantasy contains nothing directly alluding to specifically Thracian worship. On the other hand this is certainly suggested and both the Thracian god and his connexion with a cult of the dead is implied in the use of the local cult-title of Dionysos in an offering made by Bythos and Rufus to the thiasi Liberi patris Tasibasteni of 300 denarii ex quorum reditu annuo rosalibus (and so at the yearly festival of the dead) ad monimentum eorum vescentur. CIL. iii, 703; cf. 704. Even the conjunction by E., Hec. 1265 ff., of the belief in palingenesia with the oracle of the Thracian Dionysos seems to imply a connexion between that belief and the cult of Dionysos.