Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

ix] Iacchos as Spring-Daimon 421
and hence is not daughter—and then, with changed measure, the
Fruit-bearing Mother 1
. Next the Hierophant says
Now call Him hither, the Spirit of Spring 2 .
And then follows the hymn to Iacchos, the young Dionysos of the
mysteries
:
'
Iacchos, O Iacchos.
The scholiast 3 on the passage gives valuable information.
'Some,' he says, 'account for the words tcdXet 8e6v thus. In the agones at
the Lenaia of Dionysos, the Torchbearer, holding the torch, says, "Call ye
the god," and those present call aloud in answer, " Son of Semele, Iacchos,
Wealth-Giver."
The ceremony of calling the god at Athens went on at the
Lenaia, probably on the ancient orchestra, the round dancing-
place close to the agora. Its central altar may well have been the
omphalos, though of this there is no certain evidence. Manifestly
the Son of Semele, the Earth-goddess, is but the impersonation,
the projection of the fruits of the Earth. Like the child in the
cornucopia he is Wealth, Ploutos. Beginning as a child in the
religion of Mother and Son, he ends in later patriarchal days as
a white-haired old man 4 .
The functional identity of and the easy shift between Mother
and Son, Earth and He of the Earth, Semele and Semelei'os, is
shown in vase-paintings. On far the greater number Semele
herself rises through the mound or out of the level earth, but
sometimes the heads of both Mother and Son are seen rising side
by side 5 . Two instances are known to me in which the Son rises
alone through the mound. One of these is reproduced in Fig. 125 6 .
1 V. 383 aye vvv eripav Gfxvuv ISiav, ttjv Kapirotpbpov fiaa'Ckeiav,
Ar]/XT]Tpa dedv.
2 v. 395 vvv Kai tqv tbpatov debv TrapaKaXeire devpo.
The adjective wpalos is quite untranslateable. It means blooming in spring. As
the word uipa is primarily the season of spring, my translation may perhaps pass.
Eros too is wpaloi as the life-spirit (see supra, p. 187). The ritual instruction
K&Kei rbv debv is good comic material later in the play (v. 479).
3 Ad v. 479 to re 'tfdXei dew' rives ovtuis aTroSebwKaaiv ' ev toTs AijvaiKois ayuxri rod
Atovvffov 6 Sadovxos Karexwv \dp.irada Xeyet, KaXeire debv Kai oi vwaKovovTes jBoQfft
2e/ieX?ji'e "laKxe irXovTodbra. Later when people did not understand the ' summoning'
of the Spring-Spirit they thought the Olympian was called 'wpbs ap^y-riv.'
ZejueXrjt'e probably meant to begin with just 'Earth-One,' not Son of Semele.
4 As on a kalpis in the British Museum, Cat. E. 229, where, absurdly enough,
the white-haired Hades-Plouton holds a huge cornucopia.
5 Prolegomena, p. 407, Fig. 130.
6 In the Hope collection at Deep-dene. See Jahrbuch d. Inst. 1890, p. 120,
note 17. In the collection of Greek Antiquities at Stockholm I saw a late redfigured
vase, the design of which seemed, as far as memory served me, almost
identical with this. There may be others of the same type as yet unnoted.
: