Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

DIONYSOS THE WANDERER.
the prominent feature in the later developements of the wan- CHAP,
295
dering wine-god. It is unnecessary to trace these journeys — ^—*
in detail, for when the notion was once suggested, every
country and even every town would naturally frame its own
story of the wonderful things done by Dionysos as he abode
in each. Thus he flays Damaskos alive for refusing to allow
the introduction of the vine which Dionysos had discovered,
and a false etymology suggested the myth that a tiger bore
him across the river Tigris. But wherever he goes there is
the same monotonous exhibition of fury and frenzy by which
mothers become strange unto their own flesh and maidens
abandon themselves to frantic excitement. All this is merely
translating into action phrases which might tell of the
manifest powers of the wine-god ; and the epithets applied
to him show that these phrase's were not limited merely to
his exciting or maddening influences. In his gentler aspects
he is the giver of joy, the healer of sicknesses, the guardian
against plagues. As such he is even a lawgiver, and a pro-
moter of peace and concord. As kindling new or strange
thoughts in the mind, he is a giver of wisdom and the revealer
of hidden secrets of the future. In this, as his more
genuine and earlier character, he is attended by the beautiful
Charites, the maidens and ministers of the dawn-goddess
Aphrodite, who give place in the later mythology to fearful
troops of raging Mainades or Bassarides, bearing in their
hands the budding thyrsus, which marks the connection of
this cultus with that of the great restoring or revivifying
forces of the world.
The changes which come over the person of Dionysos are The wo-
in accordance with the natural facts indicated by his attri- Skmysos.
butes. Weak and seemingly helpless in his infancy, like
Hermes or Phoibos himself, he is to attain in the end to
boundless power ; but the intervening stages exhibit in him
the languid and voluptuous character which marks the early
foliage and vegetation of summer. Hence the story that
Persephone placed her child Dionysos in the hands of Ino
and Athamas to be brought up as a girl ; and from this
character of feminine gracefulness he passes to the vehement
licence of his heated worshippers,