Note 464 — Chapter XII · THE SACRED MARRIAGE

Demosthenes, Contra Neaer. 73-78, pp. 1369-1371; Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, iii. 5; Hesychius, s.vv. Διονύσου γάμος and γεραραί; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. γεραῖραι; Pollux, viii. 108; K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer, 2nd Ed., § 32. 15, § 58. 11 sqq.; Aug. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 391 sqq. From Demosthenes, l.c., compared with Thucydides, ii. 15, it seems certain that the oath was administered by the Queen at the time and place mentioned in the text. Formerly it was assumed that her marriage to Dionysus was celebrated at the same place and time; but the assumption as to the place was disproved by the discovery of Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens, and with it the assumption as to the time falls to the ground. As the Greek months were commonly named after the festivals which were held in them, it is tempting to conjecture that the sacred marriage took place in the Marriage Month (Gamelion), answering to our January. But more probably that month was named after the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera, which was celebrated at Athens and elsewhere. See below, p. 143. This is the view of W. H. Roscher (Juno und Hera, p. 73, n. 217) and Aug. Mommsen (Feste der Stadt Athen, p. 383). From the name Cattle-stall, applied to the scene of the marriage, Miss J. E. Harrison ingeniously conjectured that in the rite Dionysus may have been represented as a bull (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 537). The conjecture was anticipated by Prof. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aristoteles und Athen (Berlin, 1893), ii. 42. Dionysus was often conceived by the Greeks in the form of a bull.