Greek and Roman Mythology & Heroic Legend (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ...When the true meaning of the above mentioned sacrifice of children was no longer understood, the Orphics, or expounders of the religious poetry founded on the worship of Dionysos, created about the time of Peisistratos a fiction to explain that rite. Dionysos himself, they said, had as a child or in the shape of a beast been torn to pieces by the Titans, the foes of the gods, and thence had received the name Zagreus. The word seems to be properly a by-name of the death-god who ravishes all away (Za-aypevs, the 'Wild Hunter'?). Once introduced into the Hellenic system of deities, the Thracian stranger becomes the son of Zeus, his mother Semele the daughter of Kadmos of Thebes, as he was there chiefly worshipped. On her premature death Zeus conceals the still undeveloped embryo in his own thigh until the time of birth. Then Hermes conveys it for further care to the nymphs of Nysa or to their equivalents the Hyades ('maidens of the rain-cloud'). 117. Other myths refer to the opposition with which the introduction of this foreign cult was met. Even in Thrace, the god's home, barbarian foes of his worship seem to be typified in Lykurgos, who pursued him and his nurses with a double-axe. In the Minyeian Orchomenos he is opposed by the sober industrious daughters of Miriyas, and similarly in Argos by those of Proitos, in Thebes again by King Pentheus himself. They however all perish through the madness sent upon them by the god, which is the final stage of drunken excitement. The marriage of Dionysos with Ariadne, a Cretan goddess of near kindred to Aphrodite, which is localised in Naxos or Dia, is in complete agreement with the character he bears elsewhere; its meaning is clearly marked by the names of the sons sprung from it, Oinopion...