A Study in Dionysian Ecstatic Rites

GIVE ME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION: A STUDY IN DIONYSIAN ECSTATIC RITES A dissertation submitted by MICHAEL K.
STAMPER to PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE in partial fulfillment o f the requirements for the degree o f DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in MYTHOLOGICIAL STUDIES with emphasis in DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY This dissertation has been accepted for the faculty o f Pacifica Graduate Institute by:
Ginette Paris, PhD Chair
Patrick M ahaffay,J> hD PhD Advisor
Rudy oauer, PhD External Reader
R ep ro d u ced with p erm ission o f th e copyright ow ner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout perm ission.
UMI Number: 3264676
Copyright 2006 by Stamper, Michael K.
All rights reserved.
INFORMATION TO USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
UMI
UMI Microform 3264676 Copyright 2007 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
JUNE 15, 2006
Copyright by MICHAEL K. STAMPER 2006
ii
ABSTRACT Give Me That Old Time Religion A Study in Dionysian Ecstatic Rites by Michael K. Stamper
Modern society tends to relegate the ecstatic to the fringe, recognizing its casual pursuit as frivolous, and its serious pursuit as dangerous addiction. The modern image of Dionysos, the Greek god of ecstasy, is a reflection o f the societys view of the ecstatic. At best, Dionysos is remembered as a happy-go-lucky, boy-man encouraging us to a little bit o f intoxication, naughtiness, dance and song a degenerate, but charming, god o f wine, women and song. At worst, he is equated with Satan the evil tempter who draws us into the hell o f addiction. The perception of Dionysos in modem society (which is remarkably like the perception o f Bacchus in Roman society) is a perception that was held in Classical Greece, whose city states, at least in myth, resisted the influence of the god. However, this was not the only, or even the dominant, perception. Large portions o f the population engaged in a cult worship o f Dionysos that acknowledged a deeper religious meaning than the simple naughty boy/satanic devil portrait. This worship recognized in Dionysos the image o f indestructible life itself, and a path to stand outside o f oneself as a way to experience life as unified whole. Dionysos informs us about the nature o f ecstasy, its cathartic effect on our psyche, and gives us a means to engage it. We are warned to avoid the extremes o f denying
iii
Dionysos, or its opposite: identifying with the god. We are offered the safe container of Dionysian rituals, which allow us to engage the ecstatic without being destroyed by it. But Dionysos also shows us that the pursuit o f the ecstatic is more than a catharsis, a blowing off o f excess steam. Engagement with Dionysos takes us deeper into the infinity of the present moment and deeper into our connection with the mystery o f life.
iv
Acknowledgments I thank my parents, Ken and Jackie, whose belief in me gave me belief in myself. I thank my children, Ken, Patrick, Maureen, and Bridget. I am inspired by the unfolding o f each o f their lives. And finally, I thank my wife, Elizabeth, whose encouragement and support sustained me during the long hours o f research and writing.
Table o f Contents'
Abstract Acknowledgments Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 2 - Review o f the Myth in Classical Times Chapter 3 - Historic Chapter 4 - Dionysian Festivals Chapter 5 - The Immediate Now o f Theater Chapter 6 - Conclusion and Interpretation Appendix - The Myth o f Dionysos, In Detail Works Cited
iii v 1 49 61 108 138 175 195 227
M anual (second edition, 1998) and Pacifica Graduate Institutes D issertation H andbook (2003-2004).
vi
Chapter 1 Introduction Much o f my adult life has been spent in the grips o f a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde existence, torn between living a controlled and orderly public life and a somewhat out-of control private life: a persona that seems to take on a life o f its own. At the conscious level, I was raised on the values o f hard work, will power, and moderation. My father and my uncle were Detroit policemen. I was taught to keep my nose clean and to think through the consequences before acting. Though no great athlete, the discipline of hard work was reinforced by participation in high-school sports. At the same time that I was learning these values, I rebelled against them. I was a trouble maker and an underachiever in school. A child o f the 60s, I found refuge in hippie culture. After drifting through (but not graduating from) engineering school and working in auto factories as a laborer, Uncle Sam caught me. A two-year stint in the Marine Corps got me focused. I came out o f the Marines strong-willed, motivated, determined, and ambitious. I put this to good use, returning to college and graduating with honors, then rising rapidly in the corporate world to a high level in one of the largest financial institutions in the country. However, something was always amiss within me. There was an inner demon that would periodically surface and threaten to destroy me. Once my career was in high gear and I was clearly successful, I began having extramarital affairs. I took up motorcycle racing as a hobby. I occasionally used drugs. I was compulsively taking huge risks in order to encounter fleeting moments o f ecstasy. Much to my frustration, the demon seemed to be the one thing that I could not control. Every success
seemed to be a high-wire act where I was on the brink o f disaster. The more success I had in my public life, the more risk I took in my personal life. Ironically, the more determined I became to be totally in control, the more difficult it became to maintain that control. By midlife, my burning desire to get ahead began to flicker. I was no longer driven to succeed. Moreover, I could clearly see that there had to be something better than living the Jekyll/Hyde existence. My corporate success had been such that I was able to retire early and undertake a full-time search to find myself. I knew that the experience o f ecstasy would be important in this, but I would have to find it in places that were not self-destructive. There had to be a higher quality ecstatic experience than sex, drugs and rock n roll, and there had to be a way to experience ecstasy without being out o f control. An important part o f the search took me to Burning Man, an annual Dionysian festival in the Black Rock Desert o f Nevada. Ecstasy means different things to different people. Indeed, it is challenging enough to describe an individual experience and even more difficult to describe ecstatic experience in a fashion that encompasses what is common in the multiplicity o f experiences available. There is a fine line between a description so broad that it covers virtually all experience, including the mundane, and a description so narrow that important experiences are excluded or devalued because they do not conform to orthodox thinking about ecstatic experience. A starting point for understanding the meaning o f ecstatic experience is to refer to the definitions and etymology offered for ecstasy by the dictionary.2 The first meaning offered is intense joy or delight. This is in keeping with modern usage o f the term,
2 For this purpose I referred to Am erican H eritage D ictionary o f the English Language (3rd ed.).
which emphasizes the light and blissful side of ecstasy. Here, ecstasy is a good thing to feel and it is an emotion indicative o f a well-adjusted psyche. The experience o f falling in love would be an example o f this form o f ecstasy. However, a second definition, deemed less modern by the dictionary publisher, is significantly different: A state of emotion so intense that one is carried beyond rational thought and self-control: an ecstasy o f rage. The emphasis here is on extreme intensity o f emotion, rather than the color o f the emotion. Thus, rage is offered as an example o f a type o f ecstasy. Moreover, the emotions irrationality and its ability to break through controls are key. This ecstasy is fueled by a feeling o f being out o f control. A third definition is offered: The trance, frenzy or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation. This brings ecstasy into the realm o f the religious. I suspect a more current edition of the dictionary would offer a fourth definition: ecstasy as the street name for the drug 3, 4 methylenedioxy-nmethylamphetamine (MDMA). The effect of the drug might approximate the previous definitions but the meaning o f the word is stretched to include the physical substance in a tablet. The etymology of the word also sheds some light. The Middle English term extasie is derived from the Late Latin word extasis, meaning terror. Latin acquired the word from the Greek ekstasis, meaning astonishment or distraction. In turn, this is derived from existannai, meaning displace or derange, the suffix ex meaning out o f combined with histanai to place. This etymology leads to an understanding of the word as meaning to stand outside of oneself. Robert Johnson, in Ecstasy: Understanding the Psychology o f Joy, expands this idea: If I say, I am ecstatic! I am simply beside myself! I mean that I am filled with an emotion too powerful for my body to contain or my rational mind
to understand. I am transported to another realm in which I am able to experience ecstasy. (13) This etymology (and Johnsons interpretation) is more in keeping with the second (intensity o f emotion) definition and the third (mystical/prophetic) definition offered by the dictionary. The intensity implied is too much for the experience to be considered light and blissful. Erwin Rohde, in Psyche: The Cult o f Souls and B elief in Immortality among the Greeks, expanded on the notion o f ekstasis, describing it as a state o f being possessed, and a brief madness. In ekstasis , Rohde describes the soul as being [. . .] liberated from the cramping prison o f the body; it communes with the god and develops powers of which, in the ordinary life o f the everyday, thwarted by the body, it knew nothing (260). Rohdes description of ekstasis also makes the etymological root o f ecstasy more intense than the blissful connotations that it has in modem life. The above is only an outline o f the picture o f ecstasy. What is clear is that ecstasy defies simple definition. It is a complex experience that is archetypal in nature. Implicit in this picture is that our thinking about ecstasy has moved from the older understanding of ecstasy as an intense, irrational madness to an understanding o f it as pleasant, light, and blissful. Though it is not the central topic o f this dissertation, the psychological movement from dark to light is itself interesting. Valuing ecstatic experience places one at odds with the dominant culture, which barely tolerates the ecstatic. Order and control are important elements o f cultural institutions. Ecstatic experience, by its nature, can imply some loss o f control: a loss o f societys control over the individual and a loss o f the individuals control over him self or herself. In short, the pursuit of ecstasy can be dangerous. Thus, the pursuit o f ecstasy is
often viewed as a fringe activity in the mainstream culture. This marginalization itself speaks to the mythology o f the ecstasy seeker. Society creates some minimal amount of room or play for ecstatic experience to take place, but only with controls to insure that it does not get out of hand. Society can, and often does, provide safe containers that allow for expanded ability to experience the ecstatic. These containers are places in time and space where the usual rules are relaxed. Four examples illustrate this. One example is boxing, which provides a place and time where the contestants are allowed to fight. Two men fighting on a street corner would normally be subject to arrest. But in the space o f the boxing ring, fighting is allowed. A referee is there to make the fight safe for the contestants, and ropes contain the violence within the ring, making it safe for the spectators. A second example is the celebration of Mardi Gras, the day before Ash Wednesday. This is a time when the normal rules o f behavior are relaxed. It is followed by Lent, a time during which the rules get tightened. Although Americans usually associate Mardi Gras with New Orleans, it is celebrated in varying degrees worldwide and has roots that go back to Classical times. Rock festivals are a third example, the most famous o f which would be Woodstock in 1969. Again, there is a container, a specific time and place. There is a relaxing o f the rules, e.g., laws against public nudity and pot smoking were not rigorously enforced at Woodstock. A fourth example is Burning Man, an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert outside of Reno, Nevada. For a period o f about a week, it is a self-contained community
o f approximately 25,000 people who are camping and celebrating in the desert. The laws o f the federal government and the state of Nevada are not suspended, but their enforcement is relaxed. Participants engage in behavior that would be out-of-bounds in most American cities. However, the event is contained. It takes place at a specific time and at a specific place in the desert, which insulates it from the rest o f society. Moreover, it has its own rules o f conduct and enforcement mechanisms which are more liberal than the norm for American society, but which are enough to keep the participants relatively safe. Since violence is actively discouraged, the event is much more like the Mardi Gras and rock festival examples than examples like boxing. Moreover, there is a prohibition against commercial filming at Burning Man. Unlike Woodstock, Burning Man participants need not worry that they will appear on the silver screen dancing naked. In spite o f the above, it has been suggested that modern civilization has closed off too many avenues o f ecstatic experience. Robert Johnson, for example, has said: Our materialistic society teaches us that the only reality is the one we can hold onto, the only thing o f value what we can take to the bank. Our spirits need nourishment as much as ever. But, having excluded the inner experience o f divine ecstasy from our lives, we can look only for its physical equivalent. And no matter how hard we look, or how many lowgrade ecstatic experiences we accumulate, we crave more. This craving has led to the most characteristic symptom o f our time: addictive behavior. (vi) The heart of his argument is that without avenues for the experience of high-quality ecstasy, we get trapped in the experience o f low-quality ecstasy: addiction to sex, drugs, and/or alcohol. This dissertation focuses on what the myths and rituals associated with Dionysos tell us about the ecstatic experience, i.e., how they inform us about the nature o f the experience itself and its place in our lives. I have chosen Dionysos because he is the
quintessential god o f ecstasy.3 Equally important, he has chosen me. His myths speak to the story o f my life and his rituals/festivals speak to the story of Burning Man.
Review o f the Literature The following is a review o f major commentators on Dionysos, each o f whom sheds light on the essence o f the god. Most are classicists. I selected them because o f their expertise in the mythology and rituals o f Dionysos. There is a disproportionate representation o f turn-of-the-twentieth-century classicists, a time at which there was an avalanche o f interest in Dionysos. I chose these classicists in part because they are experts in the facts o f Dionysos, in part because many o f them are so famous that they are part of the mythology themselves, and also because much o f their intuition about Dionysos was the work o f their own unconscious: they were having their own epiphany o f the god. In order to see from multiple perspectives, I also am including the perspectives o f anthropologists, literary critics, depth psychologists, and philosophers. O f course, there is much overlap among the writers, and in most cases the differences from one writer to the next is merely a question o f emphasis or perspective rather than outright disagreement. Where possible, I include the date o f the first edition o f the work so that the reader can place the work in historical context. I present them in approximate chronological order of their writing. Nietzsche. The beginning point of modern scholarship on the topic is Friedrich Nietzsches classic, The Birth o f Tragedy from the Spirit o f Music (1872).4 As noted by
3 There are, o f course, other gods o f ecstasy. Shiva is one god whom I considered using, especially because o f his connection to yoga and meditation. However, I found that the mythology o f Shiva is too culturally foreign to me. Another god whom 1 considered is Jesus. In this case, the opposite was the problem. He is too close, and I bring too much o f my own religious baggage to his study to allow me to study his story rationally.
Cahill, before Nietzsche the standard Enlightenment view of classical Greece was that it was the home o f noble simplicity and silent greatness. There was no room in Enlightenment thinking for a Classical Greece that included the chaos, madness, and irrationality of Dionysos. Nietzsche challenged this view, and his work was [ ...] so disconcerting to his fellow classicists that it ruined his reputation as a scholar (141).5 Nietzsche does not proceed by offering new historical or archeological evidence. Rather, he assumes that the reader shares his foundation o f knowledge about the classical world. He presents an argument that proceeded from this base o f knowledge and gives this set o f facts meaning. Because Nietzsche is such a towering figure, and his work so influential, he is well worth reviewing. Its important to keep in mind that much o f what Nietzsche wrote is about the Dionysian, his label for an archetype, rather than about the god Dionysos. Thus, he approaches the topic more like a psychologist or philosopher than a classicist.6 Nietzsche distinguishes between an aesthetic attitude and an ethical attitude towards life. He references his own preface addressed to Richard Wagner in which he (Nietzsche) [. . .] claimed that art, rather than ethics, constituted the essential metaphysical activity of man [. . .] (9). In his view, [.. .] both art and life depend wholly on the laws o f optics, on perspective and illusion; both, to be blunt depend on the necessity o f error (10). For Nietzsche, the perfection demanded by ethics, in particular
4 Although N ietzsche is best known as a philosopher, he w as a professor o f classics at Basel for ten years. A lso, his book is usually referred to as simply The Birth o f Tragedy. The translation I used drops the long title altogether. 5 In his introduction to Erwin Rohdes Psyche: The Cult o f Souls an d B elief in Im m ortality am ong the G reeks , W. K. C. Guthrie notes that Rohde was the only professional scholar who had a good word to say for N ietzsches D ie G eburt der Tragodie (vii). 6 Indeed, in P sychological Types, C. G. Jung not only refers to N ietzsche in his section on D ionysos and Apollo, but two o f his types, sensate and intuitive, are essentially N ietzsches Dionysian and Apollonian (144-45). That Jung, a psychologist, would use these categories indicates how influential N ietzsch es work would becom e.
by Christian ethics, is life loathing itself. Nietzsche turns against Christian morality and instead embraces a life-affirming, aesthetic counter doctrine that he labeled Dionysian. He applies this doctrine to the area o f tragedy, although the reader might well view tragedy as a metaphor for life. Nietzsche him self asks us to see tragedy as metaphor: Metaphor, for the authentic poet, is not a figure of rhetoric but a representative image standing concretely before him in lieu o f a concept (55). Although Nietzsche was a proponent o f the Dionysian, he recognized that the full flowering o f tragedy required two gods, two opposing forces: It is by the two art-sponsoring deities, Apollo and Dionysos, that we are made to recognize the tremendous split, as regards both origins and objectives, between the plastic, Apollonian arts and the non-visual art of music inspired by Dionysos. The two creative tendencies developed alongside one another, usually in fierce opposition, each by its taunts forcing the other to more energetic production [ . .. ] (19). He makes a point o f distinguishing between Dionysiac Greeks and Dionysiac barbarians. In some barbaric societies, the Dionysian impulse leads to complete sexual promiscuity, lust, and cruelty all overriding tribal law. Greek society, he believed, was free from this, largely because o f the imposing image o f Apollos rejection o f unlimited license (26). Thus, in Greek society the Dionysian impulse was subject to regulation by Apollo, a theme that subsequent writers (notably Rohde) expand upon. From Schopenhauer, Nietzsche developed his own images o f Apollo and Dionysos: Apollo is at once the god of all plastic powers and the soothsaying god. He who is etymologically the lucent one, the god of light, reigns also over the fair illusion o f our inner world of fantasy. The perfection o f these conditions in contrast to our imperfectly understood waking reality, as well as our profound awareness o f natures healing powers during the interval o f sleep and dream, furnishes a symbolic analogue to the
10
soothsaying faculty and quite generally to the arts, which make life possible and worth living. (21). [ . . . ] Apollo him self may be regarded as the marvelous divine image of the principium individuationis, whose looks and gestures radiate the full delight, wisdom, and beauty of illusion. (22) Interestingly, Apollo in his role as the bringer o f law and justice was not included within this image. Dionysos, on the other hand, was viewed as the shattering o f the principium individuationis. Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged once more by the magic of the Dionysiac rite, but nature itself, long alienated or subjugated, rises again to celebrate the reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. (23) No longer the artist, he has himself become a work o f art: the productive power o f the whole universe is now manifest in his transport, to the glorious satisfaction of the primordial One. (24) Thus, the image o f Apollo is in the realm o f ideas and perfection, a differentiated individual, a god o f light and reason, a healer and soothsayer, a god o f illusion. He is a god o f what could be and what should be. Dionysos, on the other hand, is grounded, rooted in the imperfection o f the real, undifferentiated, and connected to life and living things. Dionysos is so deep into connectedness and life that he cannot create a work o f art that is not he. He is a god o f what actually is. For Nietzsche, the era o f tragedy occurred as the Greeks moved from a society dominated by myth and ritual into a society dominated by logic and reason. Tragedy caught that transformation midstream and in balance. The chorus o f early tragedies reflected the older, mythic, aesthetic, Dionysian element o f Greek society, and this element is projected onto the stage as individual (and thus Apollonian) characters; characters who are only masks o f the original hero (Dionysos):
11
If we wished to use Platos terminology we might speak o f the tragic characters o f the Greek stage somewhat as follows: the one true Dionysos appears in a multiplicity o f characters, in the mask o f warrior hero, and enmeshed in the web o f individual will. The god ascends the stage in the likeness o f a striving and suffering individual. That he can appear at all with this clarity and precision is due to dream interpreter Apollo, who projects before the chorus its Dionysiac condition in the analogical figure. (66) Tragedy disappeared, in Nietzsches view, as a result o f too much rationality and a move from aesthetic to ethical sensibility. Nietzsche singles out both Euripides and Socrates as the heavies, and later, the Christians. For example, with respect to Socrates Nietzsche noted the famous Socratic maxims: Virtue is knowledge; all sins arise from ignorance; only the virtuous are happy these three basic formulations o f optimism spell the death o f tragedy (88). Thus, there is an inversion in the creative process: Whereas in all truly productive men instinct is the strong, affirmative force and reason the dissuader and critic, in the case o f Socrates the roles are reversed: instinct is the critic, consciousness the creator (84). With Socrates came a full rejection of tragedy and the mythic attitude, and an embracing o f only that which reflects linear cause and effect. In the creation o f tragedy, Nietzsche recognizes the need for both Apollo and Dionysos. In the demise of tragedy, he implicitly argues that the balance has gone too far in the controlling direction o f the Apollonian, thus squashing creativity o f the Dionysian. The tenor o f his book is to relax Apollonian control. However, he was understood (partially because o f his own overstatement) as arguing for no control. Nietzsches Dionysian epiphany was perceived as too strong, too complete. He was interpreted as attempting to overthrow the existing social order by proposing that the Dionysian was superior to the Apollonian and the Christian.7 A rejection o f this view by Victorian
7 According to Jung, N ietzsche became a true votary and disciple o f D ionysos (Jung, CW6: 142).
12
society was to be expected. As we shall see in chapter 2, Dionysian myth would predict such a reaction. However, modern scholars have been forgiving o f Nietzsches tendency to overstatement and now recognize the genius o f his work. He changed the way in which we look at the Greeks and changed the way in which we look at Dionysos. Rohde. Erwin Rohde followed Nietzsche with Psyche: The Cult o f Souls and B elief in Immortality among the Greeks in 1893, a work that was first translated into English in 1925 by W. B. Hillis. That Rohde followed in the footsteps o f Nietzsche is no surprise: the two were close friends. As the title implies, Rohdes central concern is the development o f a belief in an immortal soul by the Greeks. He suggests that Greeks in the era of Homer had no belief in the immortal soul in ordinary humans. Only gods were immortal. Great heroes might attain immortality (e.g. Heracles), but only by miracle. The post-Homeric Greeks brought about a fundamental shift in thinking about the nature of god and the immortality o f the soul: Nevertheless, at a certain period in Greek history, and nowhere earlier or more unmistakably than in Greece, appeared the idea o f the divinity, and the immortality implicitly in the divinity, o f the human soul. That idea belonged entirely to mysticism a second order o f religion which, though little remarked by the religion o f the people and by orthodox believers, gained a footing in isolated sects and influence certain philosophical schools. Thence it has affected all subsequent ages and has transmitted to East and West the elementary principles o f all true mysticism: the essential unity o f the divine and the human spirit; their unification as the aim o f religion; the divine nature o f the human soul and its immortality. (254) He attributes this shift to an older cult practice out o f which mysticism grew and then united in the worship o f Dionysos. The worship of Dionysos must have sown the first seed of the belief in an immortal life o f the soul (255).8
8 It is not completely clear to m e whether Rohde means the first seed in Greece, the entire world, or something in between.
13
Rohdes approach is to treat the myth o f Dionysos as being an aetiological myth, which he defines as legends in which special features o f worship (for example, the existing or dimly remembered sacrifice o f human beings at the feasts o f Dionysos) are provided with a mythical prototype in the supposed historical past o f mythology, and thus receive their justification (283).9 Rohde looked to the myth itself to find the history and development o f Dionysian worship. His reconstruction o f this history is important to us in that it became the history to which other scholars reacted and built upon, and it is the history (or at least a history) that is consistent with the myth. The story outlined by Rohde starts with the Thracian and Phrygian10 worship o f Dionysos: The festival was held on the mountain tops in the darkness o f night amid the flickering and uncertain light o f torches. The loud and troubled sound o f music was heard; the clash o f bronze cymbals; the dull thunderous roar o f kettledrums; and through them all penetrated the maddening unison o f the deep-toned flute, whose soul Phrygian auletai had first waked to life. Excited by this wild music, the chorus o f worshippers dance with shrill crying and jubilation. We hear nothing about singing: the violence o f the dance left no breath for regular songs. [ . . . ] They were mostly women who whirled round in these circular dances till the point o f exhaustion was reached; they were strangely dressed; the wore bassarai, long glowing garments, as it seems, stitched together out o f fox-skins; over these were doeskins, and they even had horns fixed to their hears. [ . . . ] In this fashion they raged wildly until every sense was wrought to the highest pitch o f excitement, and in the sacred frenzy they fell upon the beast selected as their victim and tore their capture prey limb from limb. Then with their teeth they seized the bleeding flesh and devoured it raw. (257)
9 With this statement, Rohde approximates the position o f the Cambridge Ritualists, w ho proposed that ritual precedes and explanatory myth. See my later section on Jane Ellen Harrison. 10 Thrace was located in Europe in the southeast Balkan Peninsula. It was colonized by the Greeks in the seventh century BCE. Today, ancient Thrace would be located partly in Turkey and partly in Bulgaria. Phyrgia was located in modern-day central Turkey.
14
This primitive form o f worship resonates in subsequent stories o f Dionysos, particularly in Euripides Bacchae .n Rohde underscores how different this worship was from the orderly worship of the Olympian gods. Dionysos is barely mentioned by Homer. Rohde concludes that this is because at the time o f Homer, Dionysos was a minor deity for the Greeks. However, by classical times his cult was in full flower, albeit in a watered-down form. Rohde contends that the Dionysos o f Greece, especially in Athens, was very much a Hellenized and humanized version o f the god. Although there remained vestiges o f the nocturnal ecstatic worship in the mountains, the mainstream cult was more civilized. Dionysos had become an inspiration for the arts, especially drama: Now the art of the actor consists in entering into a strange personality, and in speaking and acting out o f a character not his own. At bottom it retains a profound and ultimate connexion with its most primitive source that strange power o f transfusing the self into another being which the really inspired participator in the Dionysiac revels achieved in his ekstasis. The essential features o f the god as he first arrived in Greece from foreign lands, in spite o f much alteration and transformation o f the primitive type, were thus not entirely lost. (285) Rohde is thus confronted with the question o f how it happened. How did Dionysos arrive in Greece? And how was his cult Hellenized? Rohdes answer implicates the cult o f Dionysoss own half-brother, Apollo, a god whose rational nature is seemingly opposed to Dionysos. Rohdes argument is that the dry rationality of the Olympian religion made Greece a fertile ground for invasion by an ecstatic god. Dionysos was at first resisted. Moreover, the myth o f Dionysos repeatedly works the m otif o f Dionysos being resisted wherever he appears. When it became clear that he could not be repressed or defeated, he was instead assimilated. The sharing o f Delphi between Apollo and
1 1 With the flute replaced by a didjeridu and the blood sacrifice removed, the scene takes on som e o f the character o f a drum circle.
15
Dionysos (with Apollo having the larger share) echoes a deal struck between the worshippers o f the two gods, and the cult o f Dionysos was then spread under the authority o f Apollo. It is worth expanding this thought. Rohdes view is that the ancient site o f the oracle at Delphi was first under the influence o f the goddess Gaia and her oracular earthspirit Python. Gaia and Python were overthrown by Apollo, ushering in an era of rationality. When the rationality proved to be excessive, an adjustment occurred: a co opting o f Dionysos into Delphi. This co-opting provided room for the ecstatic but also kept the ecstatic within bounds and brought it into the service o f Apollo: When we find Apollo in Delphi itselfthe place where he most closely allied him self with Dionysos deserting his old omen-interpretation and turning to the prophecy o f ekstasis, we cannot have much doubt as to whence Apollo go his new thing. With the mantic ekstasis, Apollo received a Dionysiac element into his own religion. Henceforward, he, the cold, aloof sober deity o f former times, can be addressed by titles that imply Bacchic excitement and self-abandonment. (290-91) Interestingly, this description reflects a working o f the Hegelian dialectic (thesisantithesis-synthesis), a dialectic with which Rohde would most certainly have been familiar. The introduction o f ecstasy into Greek religion led to the appearance (or at least the legend o f the appearance) o f Bakides and Sibyls, men and women who wandered the land, unaffiliated with any particular temple, prophesying the future, healing the sick and exorcising unclean spirits from the afflicted. Rohde estimates this prophetic age to have occurred in the seventh and eighth century BCE. One effect o f these prophets was the development o f a religious culture o f purification. The end point o f the logic o f
16
purification was a subculture o f religious ascetics and the notion that the soul must be purified of the defilement of the body. A concurrent development was the idea o f the immortality and transmigration o f the human soul. The source of this idea is cloudy. Rohde suggests that it may well have come from Thrace and was thus implicitly in the worship of Dionysos, but that the Hellenized Dionysos needed a second infusion o f the primitive Thracian Dionysos in order to manifest this idea in Greece. Alternatively, the idea may have come from the thinking o f the sixth-century philosopher/mystic Pythagoras. Or it may have been the invention o f the Orphic poet Onomakritos. It is difficult to tell, because all three strains o f thinking are closely woven together. Mythically, Pythagoras is sometimes viewed as an early Orphic or even the founder o f the cult. Sometimes he is said to have been a student o f Zalmoxis, a Thracian mountain god very similar to Dionysos, whose followers were said by Herodotus to have believed in the immortality o f the soul. Sometimes, Pythagoras is cast as the teacher o f Zalmoxis! What is clear is that in the Orphic cults, which began no earlier than the sixth century, there was a belief in the immortality and transmigration o f the human soul. These cults had their own mythology and tended towards asceticism and vegetarianism. In their mythology, Orpheus was the great Apollonian musician and founder o f the Dionysiac cults. The historical accuracy o f Rohdes thesis can be questioned. His book is over 100 years old and there have been many archeological discoveries during that period, not the least of which was Sir Arthur Evans excavation o f Knossos. Moreover, there is the question o f the extent to which Rohdes insights are his own psychological projections. Nonetheless, his history is important. It is one of, if not the, first comprehensive
17
reconstructions o f the history o f Greek religious thought. Most o f it was derived from the myths themselves; hence his history increases our understanding o f what the myth says. His history o f Gaia being overthrown by Apollo at Delphi only to have the ecstatic and feminine energy re-assimilated parallels our individual personal histories: phylogeny following ontogeny was an underlying myth o f the era in which he wrote. His psychological projections may well be projections shared by all o f us, the work o f the collective unconscious. His history o f Dionysos is mythic itself. Frazer. Sir James Frazer, in his classic The Golden Bough (1890),
i 'y
identified
Dionysos as a vegetation god. Frazer, known as both a classicist and a social anthropologist, was probably the first to study the relationship between myth and ritual. He was not particularly well-traveled; most o f his data came from ancient histories and questionnaires that he mailed to missionaries and Imperial officials world-wide. He surmised that ancients personified the changing of seasons and the annual growth and decay o f vegetation as episodes in the life o f a god. In particular, Frazer identified Dionysos as the god o f vines and trees. Betraying his own Victorian sensibilities, he was both aware and contemptuous o f the connection between Dionysos and wine: The god Dionysos or Bacchus is best known to us as a personification o f the vine and o f the exhilaration produced by the juice o f the grape. His ecstatic worship, characterized by wild dances, thrilling music, and tipsy excess, appears to have originated among the rude tribes o f Thrace, who were notoriously addicted to drunkenness. Its mystic doctrines and extravagant rites were essentially foreign to the clear intelligence and sober temperament o f the Greek race. Yet appealing as it did to that love o f mystery and that proneness to revert to savagery which seem to be innate in most men, the religion spread like wildfire through Greece until the god whom Homer hardly deigned to notice had become the most popular figure o f the pantheon. (449)
12 The first edition w as published in 1890, though the currently available abridged editions date from 1922.
18
Frazer was particularly interested in connection between Dionysos and animal sacrifice. He noted that Dionysos was often represented as a bull or a goat. The god would appear as a bull to his worshippers at sacred rites. By rending and devouring a live bull at his festival, the worshippers were not only reenacting a myth about Dionysos. They also believed that they were killing the god, eating his flesh, and drinking his blood, resulting in a communion with the god. Later sacrifices o f goats tended to reverse this order. The goat was sacrificed to Dionysos presumably for some alleged offense (e.g., for trampling vines). According to Frazer, this occurred because over time people tend to forget the animal form o f the god and only focus on his human personification. Thus, the goat (now a scapegoat) was no longer Dionysos, but was sacrificed to Dionysos. He made parallel observations about human sacrifice and the substitution of animals for humans. Frazer cites instances o f animals being sacrificed to Dionysos after being dressed like, or treated like, a human being. He suggests that these might have been mitigations o f older rites where actual humans were sacrificed to the god. 1 3 Frazers book was enormously influential, so much so that it is virtually part o f the mythology itself. The image of Dionysos as a vegetation and fertility god owes much to the work o f Frazer. Harrison. In 1903, Jane Ellen Harrison published her work Prolegomena to the Study o f the Greek Religion. It was followed in 1912 by Themis: A Study o f the Social
13 Both o f Frazers observations have intuitive appeal to me. However, there seem s to be a temporal disconnection. The practice o f sacrificing the god, according to Frazer, precedes the practice o f sacrificing to the god. However, he is placing human sacrifice at an even earlier, prehistoric, time frame. The only reconciliation o f this would be if the human sacrifice w as a sacrifice o f the god, i.e., the person being sacrificed would be the god him self taking human form. Frazer clearly alludes to something like this with the sacrifice o f ancient kings for the purpose expelling sickness or guarantying fertility. H owever, I did not find him specifically making this case with regard to D ionysos.
19
Origins o f Greek Religion , which included sections written by F. M. Cornford and Gilbert Murray. As its title implies, the first book is a study o f the roots o f the Greek religion, particularly the real religion practiced by ordinary people. The second book expands on the themes of the first. Both books were important but Themis was the more controversial o f the two. Harrison was influenced by the intellectual forces o f her time, including giants like Darwin, Durkheim, Nietzsche, Frazer, and Freud, all of whom transcended classical studies. Given that she was fluent in German, it is likely that she was familiar with German classical scholars, as well as those who wrote in English. She was one o f the Cambridge Ritualists who argued that myth rose from the ritual performed rather than the other way around. This distinction is important. Our common understanding o f ritual is that it is a re-enactment of a story or myth, and the story is given primary importance. The Ritualists reversed this logic. Harrison, like other Ritualists, emphasized bringing archeological and anthropological techniques to their studies to better understand the people and their rituals. They were also more inclined than their predecessors to acknowledge the irrational as an element in Greek religious thought. Both o f these elements, as well as her gender, made her controversial with classicists o f the time. In Prolegomena , Harrison writes a history o f what she terms the real religion o f the people. Thus she encounters multiple mystery cults and multiple local dying/rising gods. Dionysos is central to this grouping and becomes the umbrella name for it. Ultimately, she equates Dionysos with a multiplicity o f gods including Bromios, Zagreus, and Sabazios. She also notes that Plutarch and Frazer had seen the parallels between Dionysos and Osiris. In Harrisons view, the real religion practiced by the Greeks was a
20
chthonic religion centered on a dying and rising god Dionysos. Thus she elevates Dionysos to a level o f importance rivaling Zeus and makes his cults the most popular in Greece a far cry from his presumed obscurity in the pre-Nietzsche, Enlightenment era.14 This religions roots were a primitive fertility cult which developed into a mystery rite o f death and rebirth. Thus, Harrison expanded on Frazers notion o f Dionysos as a vegetation god and proposed Dionysos as a god o f life which is one, indivisible yet ceaselessly changing (xii). She saw him as more than a metaphor for the changing o f the seasons and the cyclicality o f vegetation. For Harrison, he was a metaphor for the entire world process o f decay, death, and renewal. In fact, Dionysos was a metaphor for the very nature o f life itself. In the introduction to Themis , she emphasizes two points as being her inspiration for writing the book: (1) that the mystery-god and the Olympian express respectively, the one duree, life, and the other the action o f conscious intelligence which reflects on and analyses life, and (2) that, among primitive peoples, religion reflects collective feeling and collective thinking [ . . . ] (xiii). This is a big statement with ramifications that I will attempt to spell out. The term duree is one she takes from Henri Bergson, and it carries a meaning o f that life which is one, indivisible and yet ceaselessly changing (xii).15 This duree is the constant in the seeming endless cycles o f birth and death. Harrison coins a term in Greek to capture the essence o f the changing juxtaposed with the changeless: eniautos-daimon. The term eniautos translates roughly as periodic or cyclical. In most contexts, her use o f it is like yearly or annually, but the period o f a cycle does not necessarily have to be
14 Orphic cosm ogony has D ionysos replacing Zeus as the divine leader. If Harrison is correct, the Orphic myth may have been explaining something that had in fact already happened. 15 Thus the term is not unlike zoe used by Kerenyi.
21
annual. The term daimon is poorly translated as spirit or god, and carries with it the implication o f transcending life and death. The combined term thus becomes something like spirit o f the new year or the year god, and captures the notion o f a god embodying both the changing and the changeless. It captures the essence o f the king is dead, long live the king, i.e., the individual dies but the group lives on. From this, according to Harrison, individual death and group permanence gave rise to the notion of reincarnation. Moreover, her emphasis on the collective aspects o f religion among so-called primitive peoples is underscored by her observation that Dionysos is alone among Greek divinities to be constantly attended by a thiasos (a congregation). She thus emphasizes the primitive nature o f the Greeks (virtual heresy in the early twentieth century) and the notion that Dionysos (an eniautos-daimon ) is a projection o f group consciousness rather than individual consciousness: Then at last we know these gods for what they are, intellectual conception merely, thing o f thought bearing but slight relation to life lived. Broadly speaking, these Olympians represent that tendency in thought which is towards reflection, differentiation, clearness, while the Eniautos-Daimon represents that other tendency in religion towards emotion, union, indivisibility. It might almost be said that the Olympians stand for articulate consciousness, the Eniautos-Daimon for the sub-conscious, (xxi) Remembering the collective nature o f Dionysos, the eniautos-daimon, we then have him as a projection o f the collective unconscious long before the term was actually coined. Also contained in the book is an excursus on ritual forms contained within tragedy, by Gilbert Murray, an important classical scholar o f the time. Murray reiterates the key points that he believes to be generally agreed upon by classical scholars: that the origin o f tragedy is a ritual dance (a sacer ludus), that the dance was originally
22
performed for Dionysos, that Dionysos is a Eniautos-Diamon, and that comedy and tragedy represent different stages in the life o f the year spirit. He regards comedy to be related to his marriage feast and tragedy to be related to his death and rebirth (340). To this base o f knowledge, Murray suggests a ritual form that such celebrations take: (1) an agon or contest, the year against its enemy, (2) a pathos o f the year-daimon, in which he is slain, (3) a messenger announcing the pathos, (4) a lamentation, (5) an anagorisis discovery or recognition o f the slain daimon, followed by (6) his theophany, a resurrection or apotheosis (343-44). He then applies this form to various Greek tragedies, most notably The Bacchae o f Euripides, to show its applicability. He theorizes that this structure in tragedies is an echo o f rituals performed before the development o f the genre o f theater. The viewpoint that theater evolved from pre-existing ritual is consistent with the Ritualist contention that ritual precedes myth. Farnell. Richard Lewis Farnell published a series o f volumes entitled The Cults o f the Greek States, with the volume addressing Dionysos appearing in 1909. As the title o f his work implies, Farnell is more interested in cult and ritual than in myth. He provides considerable detail on the individual festivals dedicated to the gods. Farnell accepts the notion that many local gods are in fact variations o f Dionysos, in spite o f differences in their stories: [. ..] it is only the meagreness o f our records that allows for a moment of such irresponsible statements as that the Dionysos o f Eleutherai was in character different from the god o f the Lenaia, or that the Cretan Dionysos was radically distinct from the others. Therefore the assumption o f many Dionysoi is likely to be as useless as it certainly is antiquated. It is truer to say that the name Dionysos, in spite o f the diversity o f local legend, connotes everywhere a certain identity o f religious conceptions, and is associated with a certain specific kind o f religious emotion. (87)
23
It is FamelPs belief that Dionysos was originally from Thrace and that the cult was carried to other parts of Greece by the Phrygians. Thus, he attributes some o f the more primitive characteristics o f Dionysos worship, such as phallus worship and the shamanic possession o f the priest by the god, to primitive Thracian cult. In the vein of fertility, Farnell associates Dionysos with a series o f goddesses. In Thrace he associates Dionysos with Kotytto [ . . . ] whose rites were notoriously obscene [ . . . ] (98). Semele, the mother o f Dionysos, is viewed by Farnell as an earth goddess or mother goddess, and his wife, Ariadne, as a vegetation goddess. Farnell agrees with Greek poet Pindar, who suggested that Dionysos was the consort o f Demeter (123). This, combined with the above-mentioned phallus worship, underscores Dionysos as a fertility/vegetation god and emphasizes the importance o f his association with a goddess. Pickard-Cambridge. A. W. Pickard-Cambridge was a classicist who concentrated his efforts on Dionysian festivals and theater. His work exemplifies a trend in scholarship towards a narrowing focus and increased specialization. He contributed two important books to the scholarship o f Greek theater and Attic festivals: Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy (1927) and The Dramatic Festivals o f Athens (1953). Pickard-Cambridge is notable for his hard-nosed, fact-based style. He (and editors o f subsequent editions o f his books) meticulously collected the complete known fact base for the festivals and the beginnings o f tragedy. His works have become the source-book for modern scholarship on the topics that he addressed. He also addresses (debunks) the major theories o f his day, notably those of William Ridgeway, Gilbert Murray, A. B. Cook, and F. M. Cornford, all important scholars. He doesnt necessary prove that their theories are not true. Rather, he demonstrates that their theories are not proven by the facts.
24
The reverse side o f the coin, however, is that his own theories are minimalist, in that he sticks to what can be factually demonstrated and avoids making the speculative connections that make for exciting reading but cannot be proven. When PickardCambridge says that something is true the reader can be sure that his statement is well supported by evidence and not the product o f imagination, speculation, or idle theorizing. It is his style to not translate (or even transliterate) Greek passages and the editors o f even the most recent editions of his books have continued this practice. Unfortunately, this makes his important works less accessible than they otherwise could be for readers not trained in classical Greek. His theory o f tragedy is that it primarily originated in the performance of dithyramb, a form o f poetry that was sung by a chorus. The dithyramb originally came from Thrace or Phrygia with the cult o f Dionysos, and was but one o f several types o f performance ritual associated with that cult. The early dithyrambs were wild reveling. However, dithyramb underwent development as it spread through Greece and became a literary composition in the hands o f Arion at Corinth (219). The typical Athenian dithyramb consisted o f a chorus o f fifty boys or men who sung in a circle. They were organized by a choragus , who hired a poet to write the lyrics, a flute player to provide music, and a group o f dancers who were crowned in ivy and flowers (but did not wear masks). The singing o f the dithyramb was associated with Dionysian festivals and was competitive (47). Separately, there was also a tradition o f a dance o f satyrs, as another form of performance associated with Dionysos which similarly developed and spread through Greece, eventually making its way to Athens at the end o f the sixth century (219).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
25
The evolution from dithyramb into tragedy occurred as the dithyramb became more serious, solemn, and dramatic in nature. By tradition, the key development came from Thespis, who created a part for a single actor to interact with the chorus and then brought his plays to Athens at a time when the spring Dionysiac festival was being reorganized and extended (219). After this, the format continued to evolve and improve. For example, Aeschylus added a second actor. In the process of addressing the origins of theater, Pickard-Cambridge specifically refutes the theories o f Ridgeway, Murray, Cook, and Cornford. Ridgeway had written Origins o f Tragedy which argued that tragedy originated in hero-worship at the tomb, rather than in the worship o f Dionysos. Murray had written an appendix to J. E. Harrisons Themis (discussed above), which argued that recurrent forms in Greek tragedy were survivals o f the forms of a spring ritual in honor o f Dionysos. Cook had written Zeus , in which he argued that tragedy and comedy both came from Crete as part o f a passion-play generated by the cult o f Dionysos-Zagreus, whom Cook regarded as Zeus himself, having been reborn after being slain. Cornford had written Origin o f Attic Comedy (1914), which offered an explanation for comedy that paralleled Murrays account o f tragedy. In each case, Pickard-Cambridge argues that the facts simply do not support the theory being put forth. The ritual o f theater is an important part o f the Dionysian experience. Its power and relevance are evident in the fact that after 2,500 years, theater still flourishes. Plays written for the Dionysian festivals are still performed. Though other scholars have made important contributions on the development o f drama, Pickard-Cambridge represents the
26
culmination o f thinking on the topic by classicists o f his era, provides useful summaries o f opposing views, and remains the central authority on Attic theater. Otto. Walter F. Ottos Dionysos: Myth and Cult was first published in 1933, but it was not translated into English until 1965. Otto saw Dionysos in images and emphasized his nature as the god who appears, i.e., the epiphany: The cult forms give us the clearest evidence o f the violence with which he forces his way in a violence which affects them so passionately. These forms present him as the god who comes, the god o f epiphany, whose appearance is far more urgent, far more compelling than that o f any other god. (79) Ottos writing attempts to induce the appearance o f the god to the reader. He sought Dionysos in both myth and ritual,16 thus rejecting the importance of the myth-versus-ritual argument that preoccupied classicists in England. Otto placed special emphasis on the unique qualities o f Dionysos as opposed to those shared in common with other gods. He identified Dionysos as a god external to us, rather than considering Dionysos to be an element o f the human psyche. Ottos approach is more like that o f a theologian. His translator, Robert B. Palmer, states as much in his introduction: Otto is accused by his detractors o f pursuing the method of the theologian and not the pragmatic approach o f the scholar o f writing prophecy, not history (xvi). Thus, Otto brings to the subject openness to the wisdom o f Dionysiac worship an openness not present in his predecessors (with the exception o f Nietzsche). His writing demonstrates the evolving acceptance o f the Dionysian in academia. Otto was aware that the mask is encountered in other Greek cults. However, he suggested that Dionysos is the genuine mask god (88). Moreover, he believed that
161 am using the word ritual for convenience only. The translator, in a note at the bottom o f p. 4, makes it clear that ritu al refers to only one act o f k u l t u s and is thus a narrower term than the one used by Otto.
27
masks had to represent the god at his epiphany, all by themselves (88). He further suggested that [ . . . ] Dionysos was presented in the mask because he was known as the god o f confrontation (90). Thus, he constructed an image of the mask connecting epiphany with confrontation and immediacy Dionysos as a god o f the immediate now. Interestingly, Otto did not address the role that Dionysian rites played in the development o f tragedy. Otto recognized two different stories o f the gods birth: in one he is fathered by Semele and Zeus, and in the other he is fathered by Persephone and Zeus. Otto gives primacy to the Semele story. Because Semele is human and Zeus divine (Persephone, o f course, was herself a goddess), their progeny transcend the gulf between humans and the gods. Thus, Dionysos becomes the vehicle for imparting divine truths to human beings. For Otto, ecstatic states bridge the psychic gap between humans and gods. Otto identified duality and tragic contrast as central to the nature o f the god, and offered multiple examples: Thus Dionysos presents him self to us in two forms: as the god who vanishes and reappears, and as the god who dies and is born again. The second conception has evolved into the well-known doctrine o f numerous rebirths o f the god. Basically, however, both conceptions (his vanishing, which is paired with his reappearance, and his death, which is followed by his rebirth) are rooted in the same idea. Both tell o f the god with the two faces, the spirit of presence and absence, o f the Now and the Then, who is most grippingly symbolized in the mask. With this appear the unfathomable mysteries o f life and death cemented together into a single entity, and the mystery o f the act o f creation affected with madness and overshadowed by death. (200-1) Duality is present in our reaction to an encounter with Dionysos, which Otto described: Life becomes suddenly an ecstasy an ecstasy o f blessedness, but an ecstasy, no less, of terror (78).
28
Dodds. In 1943, E. R. Dodds, a one-time student o f Gilbert Murray, published his commentary on the Bacchae, the play by Euripides that tells the story o f the arrival of Dionysos and his worshippers in Thebes. His short introduction to the play offers some excellent insights into the Dionysian religion. Dodds takes issue with the notion that Dionysos is a god o f wine. Citing Plutarch, he describes Dionysos as [. ..] not only the liquid fire in the grape but the sap thrusting in a young tree, the blood pounding in the veins o f a young animal, all the mysterious and uncontrollable tides that ebb and flow in the life o f nature (xii). He concedes that wine and intoxication can expand human perception and make us momentarily one with the truth. However, wine is not the only, or even the most important, means to communion with the god. In fact, some o f the more gruesome rites associated with the god the tearing apart o f a bull and eating its flesh and blood are other means o f communion. Paraphrasing Dodds, the victim was felt to embody the vital powers o f the god, and those powers were transferred to the worshippers during the sacrifice. Dodds underscores the notion o f ritual as a container. He cites an example from the 14th through the 17th centuries in Europe when people would spontaneously start dancing until they dropped and lay unconscious: In some cases the obsession reappeared at regular intervals, growing in intensity until St. Johns or St. Vituss day, when an outbreak occurred and was followed by a return to normality; hence there developed periodic cures o f afflicted patients by music and ecstatic dancing, which in some places crystallized into annual festivals, (xv-vi) He suggests that this has bearing on the mass hysteria reported in the Bacchae and the development o f subsequent Dionysian festivals. By canalizing such hysteria in an organized rite once in two years, the Dionysiac cult kept it within bounds and gave it a
29
relatively harmless outlet (xvi). The alternative, repression o f the hysteria, is not effective. To resist Dionysos is to repress the elemental in ones own nature; the punishment is the sudden complete collapse o f the inward dykes when the elemental breaks through perforce and civilization vanishes (xvi). Though he may not have been the first to say it, on this point he spoke with great clarity. Repressing or unleashing Dionysian energy has risks. His rituals provide containers that allow that energy to flow, but flow with some measure o f control. Kerenyi. Carl Kerenyi, the Hungarian-born professor o f classics and history o f religion, wrote several books relevant to the topic. The Gods o f the Greeks (1951) is a very useful anthology o f Greek myth, including the mythology of Dionysos. Dionysos: Archetypal Image o f Indestructible Life (1969) is focused solely on Dionysos and is more analytical in its approach. Clues to this approach are contained in the title. Kerenyis appreciation o f archetypes should be no surprise: while living in Switzerland, he was a colleague o f Carl Jung. His style plays to images: he uses images found on physical artifacts, as well as descriptions o f rites and myths, to paint a picture o f Dionysos. He brings an archetypal orientation to the topic. The central picture that he addressed is Dionysos as an archetypal image o f zoe , indestructible life or life force. He distinguishes zoe from bios, individual life or characterized life. In painting this picture, he explicitly rejects the characterization of Dionysos as being primarily a god o f intoxication and instead embraces the images of theater and the vine: At that time it came to me that any account of the Dionysian religion must put the main account not on intoxication but on the quiet, powerful, vegetative element which ultimately engulfed even the ancient theaters, as at Cumae. The image of that theater became for me a guiding symbol:
30
another such symbol was the atmosphere o f the vine, as elusive as the scent of its blossom. (xxv) Kerenyis image of Dionysos bears remarkable similarities to those of Dodds and represents a shift away from the Dionysos o f wild midnight ecstatic rites that we find in Nietzsche, Rohde, Harrison, and Otto. Kerenyi believed that Dionysos was implicit in Minoan culture, from which the Greeks borrowed. In this regard, he directly challenges the view o f Rohde that the cult arrived in Greece from Thrace. He contends that Rohde (and Nietzsche and Otto) mistakenly found the core o f the Dionysian religion in orgiasm or more specifically, in accordance with the historical findings, in the orgiasm o f women, for which the new term maenadism was coined (138). This misunderstanding led Rohde to trace the migration o f Dionysos by tracing the migration o f orgiasm. Kerenyis view is that viticulture and wine-making constitute a more important attribute o f Dionysos and that the god migrated with the migration of wine, meaning that the cult o f Dionysos probably arrived by sea, rather than by land from the north. This represents a fundamental shift in thinking about Dionysos and his historical roots. Kerenyi believed that the image o f Dionysian religion contains four preeminent signs: wine, vision, honey, and snakes. He found all four signs to be present in Minoan culture, as well as several other signs o f less central stature. He noted that the palace culture o f Crete was already related to viticulture and that Minoan art made a Dionysian impression, i.e., it conveyed a sense o f man receiving vision or epiphany.17 The brewing o f honey into mead was a major annual event in Crete, with mythological and
17 This impression is that o f individual men making a gesture o f receiving an epiphany.
31
astrological significance,18 and goddesses holding snakes have long been associated with Crete. He summarizes this: To the Greeks, Dionysos was pre-eminently a wine god, a bull god, and a god o f women. A fourth element, the snake was borne by the bacchantes, as it was by less agitated goddesses or priestesses in the Minoan culture. Wine and bull, women and snakes even form special, lesser syndromes to employ a medical expression deriving from the Greek physicians. They are the symptoms, as it were, o f an acute Dionysian state which zoe created for itself. For Greek culture, this was the Dionysos myth; for the Minoan culture, before the arrival o f the Greeks, it was the myth o f a god called by another name, but assuredly a more comprehensive and less clearly defined god than the one recognized in the fermenting mead. (52) Kerenyi did not explicitly state that Dionysos was worshipped in Crete. He suggested that some other Dionysian-like god was worshipped, and that this was done in conjunction with the Goddess religion o f the island. The connection with Minoan culture, however, does connect Dionysos to the goddess, i.e., it is connecting zoe to the images o f mother and reproductive energy. His direction and technique is further amplified by the symbolism o f ivy: What happens to ivy is no less remarkable. Its cycle o f growth gives evidence o f a duality which is quite capable o f suggesting the two-fold nature o f Dionysos. First it puts out the so-called shade-seeking shoots. The scandent tendrils with the well-known lobed leaves. Later, however, a second kind o f shoot appears which grows upright and turns toward the light. The leaves are formed completely differently, and now the plant produces flowers and berries. Like Dionysos, it could well be called the twice-born. But the way in which it produces its flowers and fruit is both strikingly similar to and yet startlingly different from that found in the vine. It blooms, namely, in the autumn, when the grapes o f the vine are harvested. And it produces its fruit in spring. Between its blooming and its fruiting lies the time o f Dionysos epiphany in the winter months. Thus after its shoots have opened out and up, it shows its reverence, as it were, to the god o f the ecstatic winter festivals as a plant transformed with a new spring growth. But even with this metamorphosis it is an adornment of winter. (63-64)
18 Honey had mythological significance in that it w as the drink o f the Golden A ge and the food o f the gods. (36) The brewing o f honey into mead occurred at the time o f the early rising o f Sirius, which in a large area marked the beginning o f the year (43).
32
Kerenyi devotes considerable attention to the forms in which Dionysos arrives, for these too reveal his nature, both literally as a mythological figure and metaphorically as a psychological archetype. One form of arrival is by epiphany, which surely speaks to the nature o f the god. A second form is by missionary cult, which speaks to the nature o f the Dionysian religion. A third form is in response to a call which precedes the arrival. This third form is usually associated with trieteric cult.19 Kerenyi devotes attention to the development o f tragedy and its connection with Dionysos, which evolved from the dithyramb, a song o f Dionysian triumph.20 Although there were bull sacrifices at the occasion o f the dithyramb, especially in the city, the more interesting sacrifice was that o f the goat, which began in the country. Kerenyi suggests that the meaning o f the Greek word tragodia is song on the occasion o f a he-goaf (318). This etymology is consistent with the modem understanding o f tragedy as a goat song. The significance o f the goat sacrifice is that the goat is the enemy o f the vine. The sacrifice occurred early in the year (roughly March) while the vines are leafless stalks. In other words, the goat has not yet committed his sin o f eating the vine, and certainly never comprehends that he is sinning. In a prescribed ceremony he becomes the victim o f a cruel game that life plays with its creatures, so sharing in a fate that will come to be known as tragic from tragos, the he-goaf (320). This ritual was connected to a myth:
19 This term seem s misleading. It is a two-year cult. My understanding o f the prefix tri is that the pattern o f rituals starts to repeat in the third year. In Athens, the trieteric cult was replaced by an annual one sometime in the sixth century BCE. 20 Kerenyi notes that according to Plutarch, the dithyramb was a wild passionate song w hile the Apollonian paean was an orderly measured song (215). The im ages o f the songs certainly reflect the images o f the gods. The topical matter o f the dithyramb was the birth o f the god: In the dithyramb the god is sung to as one who has just been born after long childbirth (305).
33
the killing o f the goat at the gods behest gave the god pleasure, and that the god himself was the goat! An anecdote demonstrates the essence o f Dionysos and tragedy. When a tragedy displeased the Athenians, they said, It has nothing to do with Dionysos. Kerenyis interpretation is that [if] this judgment had originally referred to the subject matter, very few tragedies would have had anything to do with Dionysos. It was not a thematic judgment but a judgm ent on the superficiality o f a play, its irrelevancy to the god in whose sacred precinct it was performed (329-30). The honoring o f Dionysos requires depth, presence and a full engagement o f life itself. A parallel development was that o f comedy. He translates the Greek term komodia as a song on the occasion o f a komos . The komos were groups o f intoxicated men who would honor the wine god with dancing and singing. Their dancing and singing was much freer and less organized than the dithyramb. This had evolved from groups o f peasants who would use the occasion to go to the houses o f rich people from whom they had suffered an injustice to avenge the injustice with songs o f mockery. To avoid being recognized, they would smear their faces with the lees o f wine. Later writers o f comedy would jokingly call their genre trygodia, song on the occasion o f the lees. Kerenyi suggests an ecstatic atmosphere: [ . . . ] comedy can be said to have originated in the ecstasy o f the komos (333). Kerenyi painted images: images based on sound evidence. The connections between these images describe Dionysos and the Dionysian archetype. However, the connections are often lateral, rather than linear. He describes the terrain occupied by
34
Dionysos but seldom tells us where a boundary is, where Dionysos ends, and another god begins. Deutsch. Helene Deutsch provided a Freudian interpretation o f Dionysos at her 1967 lecture at the New York Academy o f Medicine, which was expanded and published in 1969 as A Psychoanalytic Study o f the Myth o f Dionysos and Apollo: Two Variants o f the Son-Mother Relationship. The title announces the perspective from which she writes. Her analysis o f the myth owes much to Kerenyi and his 1951 The Gods o f the Greeks, which she seems to use as her source document for the myth. The scope o f her lecture revolves around two topics that she considers to have been neglected: Dionysos bisexuality and his struggle for immortality. She states her central thesis as: This psychological explanation o f mythical elements that have hitherto seemed unexplainable shows that what we have to do is to deepen the traditional conception o f the meaning o f immortality in Dionysoss struggles. It must include as essential to these struggles two quite neglected elements: (1) that in fighting for his own immortality, Dionysos is also fighting for the immortality o f his mortal mother: and (2) that this can be attained only through the resolution o f his own bisexuality. (24) Her description o f Dionysos as bisexual is interesting. She makes multiple references to his effeminate nature, something well-documented in his mythology. She infers bisexuality from this nature, even though there are no extant stories o f Dionysos taking a male lover.21 She seems to use a different notion o f bisexuality. Quoting Kerenyi from The Gods o f the Greeks, she suggests that Dionysos has a sexual completeness that
21 Kerenyi (1951) describes D ion ysoss decent to Hades to find his mother as follows: He needed a guide and pathfinder, and as a price for this service he to promise com plete female surrender. Only if he did this could he reach his mother and bring her back. He fulfilled his promise with the help o f a phallus made o f fig-w ood, which he erected on this spot (259). It is certainly possible that Deutsch interprets this passage as an indication o f his bisexuality, but other interpretations are possible. Indeed, Deutsch later seem s to interpret this event as a metaphor: a surrender o f his fem ale nature.
35
refers to propagation, so that the identification of Dionysos with trees means bisexuality and the ability to produce offspring by h im se lf (17-18).22 The resolution of his bisexuality is transformed into a fight against his femininity. Deutsch suggests that he uses psychological projection as his primary weapon: The method o f Dionysoss fight against his femininity now becomes clear. One that he uses again and again is projection: a double takes over his femininity. Bacchus his feminine alter ego is a permanent bearer o f this role; the others, like the young priest Dionysos, are transitory. That Dionysos applies the mechanism o f projection so intensively is not in itself remarkable. This mechanism plays a great role in the entire history o f ancient Greece. The immortal gods o f Olympus are themselves projections o f human hopes and wishes and, interesting enough, of human weaknesses and faults! (32) Although she does not make Bacchus a central theme in her study, she opens an interesting avenue o f thinking: looking at the psychological relationship between Dionysos and Bacchus, or more generally, the relationship between Dionysos and any o f his alter egos. Ultimately, Dionysos makes his descent into Hades in order to rescue Semele and bring her immortality as the goddess Thyone. His descent is preceded by his female surrender and is accomplished with the help o f a phallus made o f fig-wood. Deutsch suggests that Dionysos is now a man with a phallus [ . . . ] (43). Thus, in her somewhat tortured logic, he has accomplished his goal o f immortality for both himself and his mother, and has done so by resolving his bisexuality. Although I do not find Deutsch to be convincing in her logic, she marks another shift in thinking about Dionysos. Starting with Nietzsche, psychology was an implicit thread running through the literature on the god. However with Deutsch, it is explicit
22 Thus, in an interesting twist, the Freudian Deutsch provides a metaphor for Jungian individuation, i.e., the male and fem ale nature o f D ionysos giving birth to the image o f the self.
36
rather than implicit. She is a trained psychologist, not a classicist. She paves the way for those psychologists who follow her in bringing depth psychology to bear on the topic. Burkert. Walter Burkert, in his Greek Religion (1977), looks at the totality of known Greek myth and ritual. The historical period that he focuses on begins around 1200 BCE and ends with Alexander, 3rd century BCE. However, he clearly recognizes the influence o f the antecedent Minoan and Mycenaean periods and also acknowledges the continuation o f at least some o f the cult practices until banned by Theodosius in 393 CE. He agrees with the notion that Dionysos is first and foremost a wine god: Historians o f religion have sought at times to see wine as a secondary element in the Dionysos cult, but the oldest festival o f the god, common to both Ionians and Attica, is the wine festival o f the Anthesteria (45). Moreover, Burkert defines Dionysos as [ ...] the god o f wine and of intoxicated ecstasy (161). Paradoxically, he further suggests that the experience o f Dionysos goes far beyond that o f alcohol and may be entirely independent o f it; madness becomes an end in itself (162). In this context, madness is an experience o f intensified mental power and something that tends to be a mass phenomenon rather than an individual experience. Burkert also notes the connection between wine and death: Ikarios, the peasant to whom Dionysos first revealed wine-making, was eventually slain by other peasants who thought they were being poisoned; Ikarioss daughter, Erigone, hangs herself after discovering her fathers body; and the ancients describe wine as the blood o f the vine. Wine can bring ecstasy and/or death, and this duality is inherent in the god. And, as per the myths o f the god himself, death brings the promise o f rebirth.
It is important to recognize that Burkert addresses the entirety o f polytheistic religion. Thus, his overall emphasis is not on an individual god but on a system o f gods. For Burkert, the whole o f Greek religion is greater than the sum o f its constituent parts. He pays particular attention to the god in relation to other gods. Like others before him, he notes the Dionysos/Apollo pairing and reiterates much o f Nietzsches analysis. However, Burkert also pairs Dionysos with Demeter (wine with bread), Dionysos with Hermes (the crosser o f boundaries), Dionysos with Artemis (the sultriness o f the evening versus the freshness o f morning), and Dionysos with Hera (her persecution o f him). For Burkert, no Greek god stands alone. Each must be seen as part o f a whole. By emphasizing wine and the vine, Burkert is following in the footsteps of Kerenyi. However, by accepting intoxication and madness, he also stays close to the imagery o f Rohde, Harrison, and Otto, Thus, he bridges, perhaps reconciles, two schools o f thought on the topic. Segal. In 1985, Charles Segal published Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides Bacchae. This book does not address the god Dionysos per se, but rather addresses the play by Euripides. This, however, is not off-track. One o f the important sources o f information about Dionysos is The Bacchae. The play was performed at the Greater Dionysia, an important Dionysian ritual where the performance o f tragedy was part o f the ritual. This weaving o f myth and ritual makes The Bacchae especially important and opens an additional genre of scholarship for review. Segals book plays to this. One of the important contributions o f Segal was his interpretation o f the play as metatragedy, i.e., a [. . . ] self-conscious reflection by the dramatist on the threatricality and illusion-inducing power of his own work, on the range
38
and the limits of the truth that the dramatic fiction can convey [. . .] (216). In taking this angle, he focuses on the liminal status o f Dionysos, his place in between truth and delusion, reality and illusion. In tragic theater, as in the Bacchic ecstasy, the participant stands outside o f himself: he temporarily relinquishes the safe limits o f personal identity in order to extend him self sympathetically to other dimensions o f experience (215). Segal notes that theater, unlike the intoxication and madness that are also part of the Dionysian experience, is its own cure: Unlike the other manifestations o f Dionysiac power, the drug o f the theatrical illusion is its own antidote, for it contains the process of awakening from illusion to reality. Unlike the god whose rites it so vividly represents, the play proffers both the madness and sanity. Dionysos rites have their wisdom too, o f course, and perhaps the play is saying that tragedy is the appropriate form, probably the only form, that can hold these contradictions in solution [. . .]. (266) Segals concept o f metatragedy emphasizes the self-reflection, liminality, and ecstasy inherent in theater. Johnson. Robert Johnson provided a Jungian analysis o f ecstasy in Ecstasy: Understanding the Psychology o f Joy (1987). Johnsons thesis is that joy is preferable to happiness as a life goal, that the experience o f ecstasy is a necessary condition for joy, and that the mythology o f Dionysos can inform us about how to experience ecstasy. Further, he argues that the lives of many people in modern Western society are devoid o f ecstasy, and that the result is addictive behavior. His argument that joy is preferable to happiness is illustrated by the dictionary definitions that he uses to describe what each concept captures: To my surprise I found that happiness was defined as a happening of chance, luck, fortune. The word joy, on the other hand, was defined as an exultation o f the spirit, gladness, delight, the beatitude o f heaven or paradise. Thats quite a difference! Happiness is always short-lived. (14)
39
He views the experience o f ecstasy as being critical for the experience o f joy. Johnson makes qualitative judgments about ecstatic experience, describing some as high quality and others as low quality. Addictions are examples that he uses o f low quality experiences. Addiction is the negative side o f spiritual seeking. We are looking for an exultation o f the spirit; but instead o f fulfillment we get a short-live physical thrill that can never satisfy the chronic, gnawing emptiness with which we are beset (vii). At the other end o f the scale, the transcending o f the opposites is the highest quality. The transcending o f opposites occurs with assistance o f enthusiasm, which he takes to mean to be filled with God: Enthusiasm annuls the distance between the pairs o f opposites, and this brings ecstatic joy. A visitation o f God, which enthusiasm gives, transcends the duality o f ones life the either/or and brings them into a synthesis. This is an experience beyond price. Then, for a short time because this is all that we can stand the opposites cease torturing us. When we transcend the cross o f opposites, we will find ecstatic joy. (52) Johnson represents the continuing influence o f psychologists on the topic. With Johnson, the discourse moves away from Dionysos himself, and instead revolves around a manifestation o f the god: the experience o f ecstasy. Paris. In Pagan Grace (1990), archetypal psychologist Ginette Paris devotes one o f the three parts of her book to Dionysos. Like other psychologists writing about mythology, her approach is to illuminate the archetype and make us more conscious about the god, rather than to provide new information about the historical god. In her analysis there are multiple themes, several o f which are relevant to this dissertation.
40
She notes that writers have tended to pathologize Dionysos, i.e., they see hysteria in the behavior surrounding him. They fail to understand that the intensity he brings can be healthy, or to understand that the hysteria can be symptomatic o f mental imbalance. In reaction to a model o f mental health that has been for so long antiDionysian and feeling the Dionysian winds coming from the counterculture o f the sixties, the British psychiatrists Ronald Laing and David Cooper called themselves anti-psychiatrists and presented madness, not as a symptom to be eliminated, but as a fever which fights the illness, part o f a larger process o f search for mental balance. They proposed replacing the debasement ceremony as one enters the asylum with an initiation ceremony providing those undertaking this voyage into madness with the conditions necessary to assure a round-trip. (19) Paris argues that Dionysos cant bear people who value reason and moderation above all else (19). However, she also argues that there has to be balance in our embracing o f the god. Though it is risky to deny the Dionysian, the opposite is just as dangerous: the desire to equal Dionysos in intensity is taking oneself as the equivalent o f a divinity. It is psychological inflation (21). This may be an argument for moderation in all things, including moderation. Paris devotes a section to tragedy. She underscores a contribution o f tragedy to the consciousness of humans: the notion that humans can determine their own personal destinies. We are not characters to whom things happen, but characters who make things happen. She suggests that therapy is an extension o f this, that we enter therapy when we are no longer satisfied with our life-script. Therapy is a course in rewriting the scenario we live by (46). Perhaps even more to the point is her treatment o f the mask. Wearing a mask is a metaphor for playing a role. In each persons life, the individual has multiple roles to play:
41
O f course, one must find a balance between the pathology o f the one who thinks he wears no mask and plays no games and the pathology o f the one who cannot commit him self to long-term substantial roles, feeling that every attitude is role-playing anyway, that nothing is real or worth being taken to heart. The first believes he plays no role, while in fact he plays only one and rigidly sticks to it, while the second is a poor actor, his performance inadequate from lack of rehearsals and botched staging. When we are faced with a bad performance, our weird feeling does not come from the fact that someone is wearing a mask but from the fact the mask is worn awry. Psychologists will more readily see the pathology of the one who believes that everything is a game than the one who believes that he plays none. Lets not forget that psychology has often favored a definition o f mental health with no room for play. (51-52) Implicit in this statement is that we bring an element o f performance to the things that we do in our daily lives. Our performance strikes a balance o f playfulness and seriousness. Without that balance, we risk lapsing into pathology. Finally, Paris, seeing through the image o f Dionysos, suggests that Dionysos is not the God behind the mask. He is the mask'' (49). In the realm of Dionysos, we identify with the mask and are able to change masks and change roles. It is, in effect, our ability to move from one archetypal realm to another. We are not fixed in any one role. Danielou. Alain Danielou, in Gods o f Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions o f Shiva and Dionysos (1992), relates ecstatic experience to the earliest and most fundamental of religions: Prior to Vedic Hinduism, Greek religion, Zoroastrianism and even Abraham, this early religion is the outcome o f mans efforts since his remotest origins to understand the nature o f creation in its balanced beauty and cruelty, as well as the manner in which he can identify himself in the Creators work and cooperate with him. This religion is naturalistic, not moralistic, ecstatic and not ritualistic. It strives to find the points o f contact between the various states o f being and to seek their harmonious relationship which allows every man to achieve his self-realization on a physical, intellectual and spiritual level and to play his role more fully in the universal symphony. (7)
42
His statement not only places ecstasy among the most primal religious impulses, it connects it with a naturalistic outlook on life, where humankind finds its place in the universe rather than imposing its will upon the universe. From his own experience and research he discovered that this ancient wisdom survived in the cults of Dionysos and Shiva. He further noted that both traditions were counter-culture. Whenever they appeared, their cults are [.. .] banished from the city, where only those cults in which man is given paramount importance are acknowledged, allowing and excusing its depredations and condemning all forms o f ecstasy which permit direct contact with the mysterious world o f the spirits (17). These cults have lived on the fringes o f society, and in their more modem manifestations they continue to live on the fringes o f society. Thus, we are informed o f them both by their own mythologies and by the mythologies o f the dominate culture that tend to demonize them. Danielou further contended that these two gods are essentially the same god manifesting himself in different cultures. He goes further than arguing that the two gods are manifestations o f the same archetype. He argues that India exported the cult o f Shiva to the Near East where it morphed into the cult o f Dionysos. If Danielou is correct, then the myths and rituals associated with Shiva can shed light on Dionysos and visa versa: Dionysiac orgiasm exactly corresponds to Tantra. Through the power of initiation, man is able to attain self-consciousness and master the reality o f what he has perceived in orgiasm. It is this that constitutes enlightenment. Through orgiasm, man first feels the reality o f certain forces within and without himself. Only then will he be able to grasp the principles involved and comprehend the nature o f the world and o f the divine. (140) The term orgiasm tends to evoke thoughts o f a modern orgy, meaning unrestrained indulgence or unrestrained sexual activity. However, the context in which Danielou
43
uses it is rooted in the Greek religious term orgia, meaning secret rites, worship. Thus, Danielou interprets the rites o f Dionysos as being essentially a Western version of Tantrism. Whether literally true or not, I find this to be a powerful concept. Looking at Dionysian worship through the lens o f Tantric Shivaism has the effect o f giving the ancient Greek religion a modern relevance. Freke and Gandy. Another recent example o f revision in the trajectory o f the Dionysos myth is The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus A Pagan God? by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy (1999). As the title implies, the book is primarily about the origins o f the Jesus story and Christian religion. Their thesis is that [ . . . ] the story o f Jesus is not the biography o f a [sic] historical Messiah, but a myth based on perennial Pagan stories (2). They further contend that Christianity was a [ . . . ] Jewish adaptation o f the ancient Pagan Mystery religion (2). It is no accident that Pagan Mystery religion is singular, for part of their thesis is that Dionysos (and Jesus) is a particular example o f a class o f god. At the heart o f the Mysteries were myths concerning a dying and resurrecting godman, who, was known by many different names. In Egypt he was Osiris, in Greece Dionysos, in Asia Minor Attis, in Syria Adonis, in Italy Bacchus, in Persia Mithras. Fundamentally all these godmen are the same mythical being. (4) Moreover, they take the position that the early Christian Gnostics (as opposed to Christian orthodoxy, which they refer to as the literalists) had beliefs and practices comparable to the mysteries, which they lump together: As we explored the beliefs and practices o f the Gnostics we became convinced that the Literalists had at least been right about on thing: the Gnostics were little different from Pagans. Like the philosophers o f the Pagan Mysteries, they believed in reincarnation, honored the goddess Sophia, and were immersed in the mystical Greek philosophy o f Plato.
23 American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd ed.
44
Gnostics means Knowers, a name they acquired because, like the initiates o f the Pagan Gnosis direct experiential Knowledge o f God. Just as the goal o f a Pagan initiate was to become a god, so for the Gnostics the goal o f the Christian initiate was to become a Christ. (8) The efforts by Danielou and by Freke and Gandy offer two perspectives that the classicists before tend not to emphasize. First, they put Dionysos and the mysteries into a world context, i.e., a context that stretches beyond Crete, Greece, and Homer. Second, they provide a trajectory for the future, i.e., the influence o f Dionysos doesnt die when Emperor Theodosius closes the pagan temples in 393, but lives on through his alter-egos Jesus and Shiva. This embracing o f the Dionysian as a relevant, living religion brings us 180 degrees from the views o f pre-Nietzsche Enlightenment thinking.
Themes and Motifs One striking image from these writers, especially the turn-of-the-twentieth-century classicists, is how much the story o f their analysis mirrors the myth itself, and how much it mirrors their proposed histories o f the cult o f Dionysos. In his introduction to Harrisons Prolegomena , Robert Ackerman provides a historical background to her work, and to classical studies in general. According to Ackerman: At the turn o f the nineteenth century in Germany a group o f Romantic artists, poets, and writers, reacting against the largely Roman neoclassical images that had controlled the European imagination for centuries, constructed a new idealized version o f the Greeks. These neopagan Romantic Greeks were paragons o f light; their myths and (Homeric) religion were treated as precious messages from a time o f natural nobility, a time when a specially gifted nation was inspired by near-divine revelation. [ . . . ] Britains particular contribution to this intellectual stew was the continuation o f the Enlightenment rationalist critique o f the Greeks. The rationalist utilitarians, valuing future progress more than past sublimity, viewed ancient religion in general and Greek mythology in particular as prime illustration o f how far modern scientific Europe had moved beyond the childish superstition o f antiquity, (xv)
45
Thus, with the exception of the Romantics, the emphasis was on the Greek and Roman contributions to literature, science, and philosophy. The myths were treated as quaint stories. Layered on top of this was Christian contempt for anything pagan, in general, and the Dionysian in particular. Even with the Romantics, the appreciation o f Greek myth was an appreciation o f the Olympian religion, not the dark, chthonic religion of Dionysos. Viewed this way, the atmosphere in late 19th-century academia was not unlike the post-Homeric period in Greece. Into this dry atmosphere Dionysos arrived, and his cult was initially resisted by but ultimately spread by the Apollonian academics, paralleling the history o f Dionysian religion as it was hypothesized by Rohde. Beginning with Nietzsche, there was a flood o f material on Dionysos and the Dionysian.24 A second thing that is interesting about these writers (again, I am thinking primarily of the turn-of-the-century classicists) is the degree to which their intuitive insights and hypotheses are the result o f their own psychological projections. I am not suggesting that their facts are wrong or that they are in error in their analysis. But it is interesting to see how their theories could be explained by the workings o f the collective unconscious o f their era. For example, there is a strong element o f phylogeny following ontogeny in their theories the proposed history of Dionysian worship following the history o f the individual. The history o f the matriarchal religion being replaced by patriarchal religion being replaced by mystery cults parallels the mother as the focal point of the child, being replaced by the father as the focal point, being replaced by the individuals own search for wholeness.
24 Interestingly, N ietzsche ultimately slid into insanity, possibly brought on by the effect o f late-stage syphilis or possibly the result o f long term m anic-depressive psychosis (Cahill 141). It has not been lost on commentators that metaphorically, N ietzsches dem ise w as the result o f Dionysian madness.
46
Third, the character o f Dionysos and his status in the psyche o f academics has shifted over time. Initially, mythology was not considered worthy o f study. When it became an object o f study, most o f the early writers,25 while seeking to understand Dionysos, were contemptuous o f (in some cases shocked and horrified by) the primitive nature o f his rites. For example, in her introduction to Themis , Harrison, speaking o f the early Greeks, says: I there confess, and still confess, that I have little natural love for what an Elizabethan calls ye Beastly Devices o f ye Heathen. Savages, save for their reverent, totemistic attitude towards animals, weary and disgust me, though perforce I spend long hours in reading o f their tedious doings (xxv).26 With each new writer, each new book, it seems as thought he Dionysian found its way into a more secure and conscious spot in the psyche o f the academic. Johnson proposes Dionysos as a guide for the modern ecstasy seeker. Danielou equates him with Shiva. With Freke and Gandy, Dionysos finds a place standing next to Jesus as a beacon o f light for modern humankind. One effect o f the work o f psychological interpreters like Jung, Deutsch, Johnson, and Paris has been to bring the unconscious workings o f Dionysos to the conscious level. Particularly regarding the classicists, there was a shift in the conception of Dionysos. He moved from being primarily a wild, orgiastic, Thracian/Phrygian god, tamed by contact with Greece, to a god rooted in viticulture, wine, and Minoan civilization. This, in part, was due to the important excavations in Crete (e.g., Sir Arthur Evans) but also reflects a shift in thinking o f Dionysos as an exemplar o f ecstasy only to Dionysos as a god o f life, whether it be duree or zoe. He is to be found not only in the
25 Nietzsche is clearly the exception. 26 And interestingly, though this is her spoken position, N or Hall in Those Women, describes her as devoted to the god, though she admits that: Harrison was never mad enough to be a maenad (69).
47
transient highs and lows o f ecstasy and madness, but in the endless ebbs, flows, and cycles o f life.
Organization o f the Study This dissertation is organized into six chapters and an appendix. This first chapter is an introduction and survey o f the literature. It focuses on why I have chosen the topic and briefly outlines the thinking of important scholars on the topic. The general trajectory o f thinking on Dionysos has been characterized by a shift from projecting the Dionysian onto primitive people to an acceptance that the Dionysian is part o f each o f us. In so doing, Dionysos has been brought out o f the darkness o f the unconscious and into the light of consciousness. That movement occurred, however, against a backdrop of resistance. The end result is that progress in bringing Dionysos into consciousness has occurred slowly. Chapter 2, Review o f the Myth in Classical Times, is a review o f the stories about Dionysos. In the interest o f readability, I have kept the story simple and at a high level. The appendix at the end o f the dissertation has the story in all o f its detail, with the alternative versions o f the story and the sources for the story identified. Chapter 3, Historical Roots, is a history o f the beginnings o f the Dionysian cults in Greece. In searching for where the god literally comes from, this story also illuminates where the god psychically comes from. His history is that of crossing boundaries to come to Greece from remote, sometimes uncivilized, places. His incorporation into Greek religion and culture reveals an historic precedent for engaging Dionysos in the safety o f a ritual container.
48
Chapter 4, Dionysian Festivals, is a review o f the major Dionysian festivals o f Attica. Thus, it is the ritual counterpart o f chapter 2. It is also the result o f the history described in chapter 3, i.e., the individual festivals represent a series o f safe containers in which various aspects o f the Dionysian experience could be entertained. Also important in this chapter is connection between Dionysian festivals and the stages o f grape growing and wine making. Chapter 5, The Immediate Now o f Theater, focuses on theater as a specific ritual for worshipping Dionysos. It emphasizes Dionysos as a god o f immediacy, confrontation, and ecstasy. It suggests theater to be a ritual designed to produce an epiphany o f the god himself. Chapter 6, Conclusion and Interpretation, not only offers summary comments but also suggests psychological interpretations o f the Dionysian experience. It argues that the epiphany o f the god is the image o f the Jungian self.
49
Chapter 2 Review o f the Myth in Classical Times This chapter reviews the telling of the myths o f Dionysos (a.k.a. Bacchus, Iacchus, Liber, Bromius) in classical times, by classical sources. First, I retell a simple version o f the story, aiming for a clear and coherent rendition o f the tale. Second, I summarize the themes and motifs. Finally, there is an appendix, in which I review important sources for his story, which I then use to tell the story in detail. This retelling includes alternative versions, footnotes citing the ancient source o f the information, and important myths regarding gods closely associated with Dionysos
The Story The story of Dionysos begins with Demeter coming from Crete to Sicily, where she discovered a cave. In that cave she hid her daughter, Persephone, and left two snakes with her to be her protection. While she was there, Persephone began weaving a robe on which was a picture of the entire world. While she was engaged in this work, Zeus appeared to her in the form of a snake and begat by her a son, Dionysos. The birth took place in the same cave. Once born Dionysos was given a series o f toys to play with: dice, a ball top, golden apples, a bull-roarer, and wool. While Dionysos was playing with his toys, two Titans, their faces whitened by chalk as if they were spirits o f the dead, sent by a jealous Hera, the wife o f Zeus, surprised the boy and killed him. They tore the horned child into seven pieces and threw them into a cauldron standing on a tripod. Once the flesh was boiled, they roasted it over the fire on spits. Zeus intervened and hurled the Titans back
50
into the underworld. The pieces o f the child were given to Apollo, who set them beside his own tripod at Delphi. There was one limb, however, that was neither burnt nor devoured. This limb was said to be his heart, though in Greek, this is a pun, for it can also mean an object made o f fig-wood: in this case, a fig-wood phallus. This object was entrusted by Zeus to Rhea and was carried by her in a basket (a winnowing-fan or liknon ) on her head. The liknon containing a phallus hidden under a pile o f fruit would become a familiar object at Dionysian festivals. A second and more popular birth story is that Zeus fell in love with Semele and slept with her. The lustful Zeus promised Semele that he would grant her a boon. A jealous Hera then deceived Semele into asking Zeus to appear before her as he appeared to Hera. Zeus had to oblige, and appeared in her bedchamber accompanied by lightning bolts and thunder. Semele died o f fright (or was incinerated), but Zeus snatched the aborted sixth-month fetus and sewed it into his thigh. When the appropriate time arrived, Zeus unstitched his thigh and handed Dionysos over to Hermes, who persuaded Ino (Semele5s sister) and King Athamas (Inos husband) to raise him as a girl. In retribution, Hera drove Ino and Athamas mad and Athamas hunted and killed his eldest son Learchos, thinking he was a deer. Zeus rescued Dionysos by turning him into a kid. Hermes again provided help, taking Dionysos to Nysa in Asia to be raised by nymphs. The two birth stories were reconciled by the Orphics, who had Semele impregnated by drinking a potion made up o f the heart/phallus o f the first Dionysos. Thus continuity is maintained by having the DNA o f a first Dionysos and Zeus contribute to the creation o f a second Dionysos.
51
There is a third, relatively obscure birth story in which Zeus impregnated Semele, but her father, King Cadmus, felt dishonored by having an unwed mother for a daughter. In his anger, Cadmus placed Semele and baby Dionysos in a wooden chest and set them to sea. The chest washed ashore in Laconia. When the chest was opened, Semele was dead but Dionysos was still alive and was raised by the locals. His birth and childhood finished, Dionysos then had many travels. One o f his first important feats was to introduce wine to humankind, though there is no clear, single story describing how he did it. Some say he taught the art o f vine cutting and making wine to Icarios. Wanting to pass the gods blessing on to mankind, Icarios visited some shepherds, who, after a taste o f the drink from a goat-skin bottle, enjoyed it so much that they drank it down in quantities without water. Imagining that they had been poisoned, they killed Icarios and buried him under a tree. His daughter, Erigone, located his body and was so distraught that she hung herself from the tree. Others say that Oineus, the king o f Calydon, received the vine plant from Dionysos. Dionysos named its product, oinos, wine, after the king. Achilles Tatius, in his novel The Adventures o f Leucippe and Clitophon, offers yet another story, suggesting that Dionysos first introduced wine to Tyrian herdsmen. His tale notes the interplay between Dionysos and Cupid: Cupid firing the soul with his flames, and Dionysos providing fuel for the fire. The bond between Dionysos and wine was also played out in a recurring miracle at Elis, where three empty jars were brought into the shrine sacred to the god, and the next day the jars are miraculously filled with wine. The miracle was attributed to the god.
52
After Dionysos had discovered the vine, he was driven mad by Hera. During this time he roamed through Egypt, India, and Syria, finally arriving in Phrygia, where he was purified by Rhea and received the initiates robe. During these travels he conquered India, founded cities, gave laws, and taught wine making. He also encountered and defeated the Amazons, some o f whom found refuge at the Temple o f Artemis in Ephesus. He then traveled to Thrace, where he had an encounter with Lycourgos, ruler of the Edonians. Lycourgos insulted and tried to expel Dionysos. He took the Bacchai (the gods followers) and a crowd o f Satyrs as prisoners. After initially running from Lycourgos and jumping into the sea, Dionysos returned to free the prisoners and drive Lycourgos mad. Lycourgos eventually killed his own son, thinking he was pruning a vine branch. In the end, Lycourgos was put to death by the Edonians, who pulled him apart with horses, after Dionysos made their land barren and told them that killing the king was the only way to restore its fruitfulness. While in Thrace, his followers encountered Orpheus, the great Apollonian musician. The story, as it relates to Bacchus, is that Orpheus was spotted by maenads (mad women who are followers o f Bacchus). His music would have saved him from harm, but the Bacchic clamoring and drumming o f the maenads drowned his sound out. The maenads caught him and in their frenzy tore him apart. His head and lyre found their way to a stream that carried them out to sea and eventually to the isle o f Lesbos, igniting the artistic fires o f the islands poets. Bacchus avenged this affront by turning the maenads into trees and then left for the other lands, ultimately turning up in Lydia. On his way, he took most o f his entourage, but lost his dear drunk satyr and mentor, Silenus. He (Silenus) had been captured by some country folk, crowned with
53
country flowers, and taken to their king, Midas. Midas was an initiate o f the mysteries and immediately recognized Silenus as an old friend. He returned Silenus to Bacchus and was rewarded with the now legendary boon o f his own choosing, the Midas touch, which Bacchus undid when Midas understood the folly o f his choice and confessed to Bacchus that the choice was sinful. He then encountered his own macho, militaristic cousin, Pentheus, at Thebes. This story is forever immortalized in Euripedes The Bacchae. Pentheus, like Lycourgos, attempted to resist the power o f the god. Pentheus repeatedly attempted to arrest Dionysos and his followers, but Dionysos easily broke the bonds and set him self free. Pentheus then fell under the spell of Dionysos, dressed as a woman, and went into the mountains to spy on the reveling maenads, one o f whom is his own mother, Agave. The maenads (with the help of Dionysos) spotted Pentheus spying on them and tore him into pieces. In the climatic scene, Agave and her fellow maenads return to Thebes with Pentheus head on a platter. Only after she came down from her ecstatic high did she comprehend that she had murdered her own son. The next adventure o f Dionysos is recorded in the Homeric Hymns. Dionysos, as a young man dressed in purple robes, was spotted by Tyrrhenian pirates, who had just crossed the wine-dark sea. They mistook him for a young king and attempted to seize him, presumably to hold for ransom. Their willow ropes, however, fell off o f him. The helmsman o f the ship immediately recognized that they had seized a god, and warned his comrades to leave him be. The helmsman, however, was quickly overruled by the captain, and the pirates attempted to go to sea with Dionysos on board.
54
Their error became quickly apparent. The sea turned to wine, grape vines sprang up on each side o f the ship to the top o f the sail, and a vine of ivy coiled around the mast. The oar locks became garlands. Dionysos became a lion and seized the captain. The crew jumped ship and became dolphins. The helmsman, however, was spared, and Dionysos made him rich. Next is the important story o f Dionysos and Ariadne: an episode from the Cretan mythology of the labyrinth. Without retelling the entire labyrinth story, the great hero, Theseus, had come to Crete ostensibly to be sacrificed to the Minotaur in the labyrinth. But in fact, he was there to kill the Minotaur and to bring to an end the periodic sacrifice o f Greek youths to this monster. In this endeavor, he was assisted by King Minos daughter, Ariadne. As told by Apollodorus: [ . . . ] she gave Theseus a thread as he entered. He attached it to the door and played it out as he went in; and discovering the Minotaur in the innermost part o f the Labyrinth, he killed it with blows from his fists, and then made his way out again by pulling back on the thread. On the journey back, he arrived at Naxos by night with Ariadne and the children. There Dionysos fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off; and taking her to Lemnos, he had intercourse with her, fathering Thoas, Staphylos, Oinopion, and Peparethos. (Epitome. 1.9) In his grief for his loss, Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship as he returned home, which would have signaled his father that he had been successful. When his father saw black sails, he threw himself to his death. Some say that Theseus purposely abandoned Araidne, and others say that Dionysos and Ariadne were married before the labyrinth adventure takes place. However, the story told by Apollodorus is the most common. Eventually, Ariadne was made immortal. Dionysos later encountered Minyas. The priests had declared a feast day for Bacchus to be honored by all. The daughters o f Minyas scoffed at the god and continued
55
to work at their weaving. Suddenly, they heard the crashing o f drums and the air was sweet with scents o f myrrh and saffron. Their weaving turned green, their hanging cloth grew leaves o f ivy and became part o f a vine. Leaves unfurled and branches o f grapes appeared. Beasts o f prey appeared and the girls cowered down. Thin wings appeared on their arms, made from parchment rather than feathers. The theme o f the gods divinity being denied continues with an Argive story involving the three daughters o f Proitos. The daughters were driven mad because they refused to accept the rites of Dionysos. Proitos took them to the seer Melampous, who said he would cure them in return for one third o f Proitos kingdom. Proitos refused and the madness got worse, spreading to other women. Proitos went back to Melampous, who now demanded that his brother, Bias, also get a one-third share o f the kingdom, raising the total fee to two thirds of the kingdom. Proitos agreed to these new terms and proceeded to dance ecstatically and drive the women through the mountains. One died, but the other two were purified and cured. Proitos then gave his remaining two daughters in marriage to Melampous and Bias. Ovid tells the story o f the daughters o f Anius to whom Bacchus gave the Midaslike gift o f touch, but in this case their touch could produce wine, corn, or oil. The daughters were stolen by Agamemnon, who used their powers to supply his fleet and hoped to use it to supply his army while in Troy. The daughters escaped but were recaptured. When they asked for help from Bacchus, he aided them in their ultimate escape by turning them into white doves. The last episode in the earthly life of Dionysos was his visit Hades to bring his mother, Semele, up from the underworld. To succeed on his trip he needed a guide and
56
pathfinder. His pathfinder was Polyhymnos the much sung-of, whose price was the female surrender of Dionysos to the guide. Dionysos fulfilled this promise with a figwood phallus. Semele was renamed Thyone ecstatically raging, and the two of them ascended to heaven. This visit to Hades was parodied by Aristophanes in The Frogs, which presents a paunchy, cowardly, middle-aged Dionysos who is sent on a journey to Hades with his slave, Xanthias, for the purpose o f saving Athens. The chorus in the play is made up of frogs, which apparently lived in the swamps around the Temple o f Dionysos on the outskirts o f Athens. At the time o f the play, Athens was losing its war with Sparta, and its government was in disarray. Dionysos was on a mission to go to Hades and bring back a poet to save the city. He interviewed two o f the great old (now dead) poets: the conservative Aeschylus, and the more modem Euripides. Dionysos hosted a debate between the two, and Aristophanes has him ultimately selecting Aeschylus (and his traditional values) as the right poet at that time to save the city. This concludes my short retelling o f the myth. It includes the most popular versions of his most prominent adventures. The appendix contains a lengthy retelling o f the myth, including minor stories, alternative stories, and cites the sources. It also includes myths o f a select number o f other gods who are closely associated with Dionysos. However, the above telling o f the story provides sufficient information for the reading o f chapters 3 through 6.
Themes and Motifs The first theme that stands out is the multiplicity of birth stories. In all o f the stories, his father is Zeus. However, his mother and the method o f birth are in question. In two
57
stories, the mortal, Semele, is his mother, and she dies at or near the time o f his birth. However, Dionysos eventually traveled to Hades to retrieve her and take her to Olympus. Thus, mortal Semele dies and is reborn as immortal Thyone. These stories stress the mangod nature o f Dionysos, half human, half divine, giving him a status o f being in between right from his birth. His trip to Hades shows his power used at its best, bringing ecstasy and immortality to his mother. In the other story, the chthonic goddess Persephone is his mother, and being a goddess, she does not die at his birth (and thus, is not in need o f rebirth). However his own death-rebirth is a powerful image o f his transcendence o f life-death. He is neither mortal or immortal, but rather cycles through both realms. This is worth expanding. In the Persephone story, he is killed by the Titans only to be later reborn. In one Semele story, his fetus is saved by Zeus from his dying mother. In the other Semele story, he is put to sea in a basket. Even though he does not actually die, he was left for dead by his grandfather Cadmus. Thus, his experience o f death and rebirth is unlike the mortality generally attributed to humans, or the immortality generally attributed to gods. He transcends the duality o f mortal/immortal. Because he apparently has a mortal mother but an immortal father, his own divinity is questioned. This leads to conflict between him self and the existing social order. One o f the themes in his story is that Dionysos is determined to be recognized as a divinity. He refuses to be repressed. Repeatedly, he encounters a social establishment that denies this and makes concerted efforts to suppress anything that is Dionysian. Lycourgos and Pentheus are examples of strong, militaristic, disciplined leaders who try to keep Bacchus out o f their kingdom, but fail and are destroyed. The daughters o f
58
Minyas refuse Dionysos because they are too involved in their work (weaving), and suffer dire consequences. Dionysos demands that his divinity be acknowledged and respected, and takes retribution against those who resist him. The theme o f resistance and retribution is one o f the most prominent motifs of his story. The nature o f his retribution is interesting. In many o f the cases, Dionysos destroys his adversary by enlisting him or her into his own army o f mad worshippers, worshippers who know no bounds. Caught in an out-of-control religious fervor, they virtually destroy themselves. After denying the Dionysian, they die from too much Dionysos. Usually the death comes from dismemberment (as Dionysos himself was dismembered by the Titans) and in many cases, their flesh is eaten. In some cases, the punishment for denying the god is to become the killer during the Dionysian frenzy, only to recognize the horror o f the crime once the high has worn off. This underscores an important motif: the killings are violent acts o f passion by a killer who is out of control. In short, the killings take place with the participants in a wild, irrational, state o f ecstasy. The killings are intense orgies o f blood and gore, in which the killers stand outside o f themselves. His relationship with the feminine is very different than that o f most gods. With the exception o f Hera, the stern and jealous stepmother and the Amazons, his relationship with goddesses and heroines is very good. His grandmother, Rhea, is an ally, initiating him into her mysteries and curing him o f his madness. Other goddesses are protectors, helpers, and in some stories, lovers (see below). He takes his mother, Semele, from Hades to Olympus to become immortal. He was raised as a woman and he is very much in touch with his feminine side. His worshippers are disproportionately female.
59
The women with whom he has difficulty (Hera and the Amazons) are strong women who exhibit male characteristics. The reverse is true o f his relationship with the masculine. Although he is obviously very powerful and capable o f successfully fighting tough guys (e.g. Pentheus and Lycourgos), he is not particularly masculine. His appearance is soft. Pentheus accuses him o f not being good at wrestling. He initially runs from Lycourgos, jumping into the sea. Aristophanes paints him as somewhat soft and cowardly. He most definitely does not embody the macho ethic. It appears that few o f his worshippers are men. Thus, he projects a different kind o f image than the tough-guy, macho image often projected by major gods and heroes. He is a man in touch with his feminine side not necessarily effeminate, and certainly not emasculated but one at least as comfortable around women as he is around men. His invention o f wine is interesting. It was named after a king (Oineus) and is pronounced as a blessing to mankind. Achilles Tatius connects wine with love. At Elis it is connected with miracles. Through Silenus, it is connected to wisdom. But it is also connected to madness and death (Icarios). If wine and intoxication are metaphors for the working of Dionysos, we should be warned that there is no promise o f a happy ending: there are risks. As important as the things that Dionysos does are the things that he does not do. He is the god o f wine, and in the public perception, he is associated with drunkenness. However, in his story, Dionysos is not a drunk.27 He is a god o f orgiastic rites, and in the public perception he is associated with sexual license and debauchery. However, in his
27 Some commentators have suggested that when young D ionysos was driven mad by Hera, it was because he had drunk too much wine. In my view , this has to be read into the story. But even if true, it might make my point, i.e., he may have learned his lesson with one youthful indiscretion.
story, Dionysos is not sexually promiscuous,28 an unusual virtue for an Olympian god. Dionysos is associated with rebellion and breaking through rules and boundaries. But in his story, he does not rebel against his father, Zeus. He destroys macho stereotypes, but does not destroy masculinity.
28 D ionysos is generally regarded as faithful to Ariadne. He did have a son, Narkaios, by Physkoa (Pausanias, V .16.7), but it is not clear that he was married at the time. It is som etim es said that Priapus was the son o f Aphrodite and D ionysos, but Zeus and Adonis are also mentioned as possible fathers. Finally, Iacchos (Eleusinian D ionysos) is som etim es identified as a consort o f Demeter, but consort is not necessarily indicative o f sexual intimacy.
61
Chapter 3 Historical Roots In chapter 2, we reviewed Dionysian myths. The stories themselves speak to several themes: his insistence on being recognized as a divinity, his transcendence o f the duality o f life and death, and his bringing o f madness and destruction to non believers. Now I will turn from his mythic past to his historical past, the stories spun by scholars about his origins. These historical stories repeat many o f these same themes in part because scholars use the myths in reconstructing his historical past. These themes are then carried into the next chapter, where we see how they become part o f a sophisticated structure of festivals and rituals. In addition, a subplot running through the chapter is the discovery and deification o f Dionysos by modern (post-Enlightenment) classicists. This modem epiphany has parallels with the story o f his arrival in Greece. By classical times (fifth century BCE), Dionysos had become a very important god to the Greeks. To keep perspective, the primary cults of the aristocracy during this period continued to be those o f Zeus and Apollo. Dionysos was an important god, perhaps the most important god to ordinary people. He was not, however, the most important god to the ruling elite. Neither Homer nor Hesiod devotes much attention to Dionysos. Thus, scholars have historically speculated that something significant took place between the eighth and sixth centuries that accounts for a dramatic increase in the popularity and importance of Dionysian cults. Unfortunately, this is a time period when historical facts are murky. Scholars have proposed competing theories explaining what happened. Each o f these theories makes its own contribution to the image o f Dionysos. Most o f them focus on a foreign proto-Dionysian god who is imported to Greece and syncretically attached to
62
an existing Dionysian cult thus reshaping his rites. By examining these theories, I will illuminate the nature o f Dionysian worship.
Roots A starting point is the etymology o f the name Dionysos , for knowing where the word came from and what it means can shed some light on where the god came from and what he means. Burkert offers that in antiquity, the name was construed to mean son o f Zeus.29 He argues that this is half right, that the first part of the name, Dio, is Greek and related to Zeus but that the meaning of the last part o f the name [. . . ] remains impenetrable (162). It is his view that the last part o f the name is not Greek in origin. Thus, we have Zeus o f Nysos or god o f Nysos without knowing what Nysos means.30 Danielou, quoting Jeanmaire, suggests that Nysos may be a Thracian or Phrygian word meaning young man. Interestingly, the word is grammatically in the feminine form (135). Whether etymologically true or not: a feminine young man is a fitting description o f the god. However, the more conventional approach is that Nysos is a place, Nysa and Dionysos is the god from the place, Nysa. Danielou attempts to give this meaning. He notes that an epithet of Shiva is Nisah, meaning supreme, whereas Nisam means bliss, and nisa, joy.31 Thus, he argues that Nysa is the Happy Mountain, an earthly paradise. He further notes that the Greeks had found as many as ten Nysas scattered around their
29 Gilbert Murray, referencing Kretschmer, accepts the Thracian son o f Zeus etym ology, and connects it to the Orphic tradition o f Zeus yielding his power to D ionysos (vi-vii). The first edition o f Murrays book, however, was published in 1912. 30 Graves, in The G reek Myths, suggests that the name means lame god, thus implying that nysos means lame. His rational for this, and the implications o f the meaning, remains a mystery to me. 31 Presumably these are Sanskrit words, though Danielou doesnt specifically say so.
63
world, thus indicating that this earthly paradise wasnt necessarily confined to one geographic place. Harrison is not convinced that Nysa can be found, and suggests that it is a remote place synonymous with nowhere (Prolegomena 378). I personally like the idea that the name could mean god o f Nysa, an earthly paradise which is both everywhere and nowhere. It makes for a nice psychological metaphor: Dionysos comes from that place in our psyche which is paradise and that paradise is paradoxically both everywhere (or at least ten places) and nowhere. There are multiple theories describing from where these cults may have come, many o f which have him arriving in Greece before the Trojan War. The theories are not mutually exclusive in varying degrees they may all be true. I present these theories in the approximate historical order in which they were proposed. The more recent theories tend to propose roots that go further into the past. An apt metaphor might be an archeological dig where the progressively older levels o f civilization are uncovered. The first theory was proposed in the mid-fifth century BCE by Herodotus. Herodotus focused on phallic worship as an essential element o f the gods cult and identified him with Osiris. He thus makes Dionysos an Egyptian import, by way of Phoenicia. The second was proposed famously by Erwin Rohde, who posited the essence o f Dionysiac worship to be in orgiasm and ecstatic states. By identifying the foreign source o f these rites, he identified the source o f Dionysos. That source, he argues, is Thrace and Phrygia. He connects Dionysos to Sabazios, the proto-Dionysos figure of Thrace/Phrygia, who in turn was associated with the mountain goddess, Cybele (a.k.a. Kybele). Rohdes theory has, o f course, been expanded upon by subsequent scholars,
64
notably Harrison and Otto. It suggests importation just after the time o f Homer. For many years, this was the conventional wisdom on the topic. The third theory, proposed by Carl Kerenyi, posits the essence o f Dionysos to be in wine and zoe , indestructible life.
'K ')
Kerenyi traced the origins o f Dionysos by following
the trail of the introduction o f wine into Greece. This led Kerenyi to Crete and Zagreus, the proto-Dionysos god o f Minoan culture. Kerenyis theory would suggest importation before the Trojan War. At about the same time, Jean Zafiropulo proposed a theory similar to Kerenyis. He too cites Zagreus as an influence on the Dionysian cults, but Zafiropulo presents Dionysos and Zagreus as the gods o f warring factions on the Greek mainland: goat herders and cattle herders, respectively. The two gods are eventually reconciled and synthesized mythically. Alain Danielou proposed a fifth theory. Like Rohde, Danielou found the essence o f Dionysiac worship in orgiasm and ecstatic states, but he traced the importation o f such cults into Classical Greece to India and the early cult o f Shiva. This would also make importation pre Trojan War. This section will look at each o f these theories. It is not my intention to determine which o f the five theories represents the literal historical truth. Rather, I seek to expand the understanding o f the nature o f the god by illuminating the image o f the god that each o f these theories supports. It is as if the archetype o f Dionysos sits on a dark stage, and each of the above perspectives is a spot light, shining down from a different direction. Each shines upon the same god, but what gets illuminated and what is thrown into the
32 Downing suggests zoe to be synonym ous with libido (73).
65
shadows changes from perspective to perspective. We have to look at them all to take in the totality of the picture. Moreover, these theories themselves are mythic, and say something about how Dionysos enters into our lives today. Each o f the five theories proposes a source for Dionysos in the recesses o f ancient history and prehistory, and geographically traces that history to different regions o f the world. Although I will write from this historical perspective, I encourage the reader to consider the history to be a metaphor for the gods source in our own psyches. Phylogeny following ontogeny was an underlying myth o f the era in which many o f these scholars worked. Reversing this equation sheds light on the workings o f their (and our) psyches. Osiris-Egypt theory. It is interesting to consider what the ancients thought about the topic, and one important example is Herodotus, author of the The Histories. Herodotus was struck by the similarity between rites o f Dionysos practiced by the Greeks and those o f Osiris practiced by the Egyptians. He argues that these similarities are the result o f Egyptian influence on Greek culture. In particular, he notes similarities in rites involving phallic worship and phallic processions. Citing myth, he expresses the view that the seer, Melampus, brought these rites to Greece. Melampus learned the rites from Cadmus o f Tyre and those people who came with him from Phoenicia (II, 47-50).34 Thus, Herodotus argues that the cult o f Osiris was imported to Greece from Egypt and became the cult o f Dionysos. In emphasizing phallic worship as a point o f similarity between the
331 do not imply that Herodotus speaks for the ancients. Undoubtedly, there were other views on the topic. However, I select Herodotus because o f his stature and because he is an early example o f a particular view, namely the Osiris connection. Diodorus (first century BCE), Plutarch (first century' CE) and Apuleius (second century CE) followed in his tradition o f equating Dionysos to Osiris. Interestingly, Plutarch was a one-time priest o f Apollo at Delphi. 34 Melampus also brought with him the ritual o f a pig sacrifice, which reappears as a purification ritual at Eleusis (see chapter 3). The story o f Melampus and Cadmus arriving in Greece will figure prominently in the theories o f other scholars as well.
66
two cults, Herodotus describes Dionysos as a fertility god, i.e., a god associated with the
i f
drive for life to manifest itself physically.
He is the image o f creativity and creation. His
theory emphasizes in Dionysos those elements essential to the nature o f Osiris: a dismembered, dying/rising god who has conquered death and is now ruler o f the underworld. Plutarch notes that Osiris, like Dionysos, holds the bull to be sacred (Meyer 168). He is also associated with the ram, and interestingly, in his form as Sepa he is associated with the centipede. His connection to the centipede is twofold. First, the centipede eats insects who consume rotting flesh. Thus, the centipede is the protector o f the dead. Second, the centipede was considered by ancient Egyptians to make soil
-5 Z
fertile.
Osiris is also connected to the donkey because their manure makes soil fertile.
The fertility/death interplay also comes across in the color of Osiris. When he is not pictured as mummified, his skin is green, suggesting both rotting flesh and new vegetative growth. Thus, Osiris bridges death and life, and is the active agent in bringing new life to death and decay. He does so by being an earthy god, one who is rooted and physical. In Hellenic times, there was a mystery religion o f Isis and Osiris, which appears to have been a product o f Egyptian religion mixing with Greek philosophy. Freke and Gandy suggest that these mysteries were the Eleusinian mysteries transplanted to Egypt (179-180). In this case, Greece influenced Egypt, suggesting cyclicality in influences. Apuleius, in his second-century CE Latin text, The Golden Ass, describes the mysteries of Isis and Osiris as his hero, Lucius, goes through those mysteries after Isis had
35 Osiris possessed the generative powers that enable Egyptian land watered by the N ile to be fertile (Meyer 157) 36 The Egyptians incorrectly attributed to centipedes those powers that w e now attribute to earthworms.
67
transformed him from an ass into a human. In his description, Isis is identified as being Ceres (Demeter). Isis, as described by Plutarch, is the good mother, goddess, the female principle in nature (Meyer 161). She is both sister and lover o f Osiris. Herodotus gives a date o f birth for Dionysos from Semele: approximately 1,000 years before his own time, i.e., fifteenth century BCE (11.145). He also offers that the Egyptians date Dionysos (Osiris) far earlier. Arguably, these dates can be reconciled if the Greek birth date is the date that the cult was imported to Greece. This would have the cult imported several hundred years before the Trojan War. The limited importance attached to Dionysos by Hesiod and Homer would suggest that the cult was either not a major factor in Greek life at that time or that its influence had waned by the eighth century. Walter Burkert, writing in 1977, argues that after 660 BCE37 there was an increasing influence o f Osiris in both Greece and Phoenicia (163). Thus, the Egyptian influence may have been relatively recent when Herodotus wrote, and Herodotus may have projected it too far back into the past.38 There are two additional facets o f the Egyptian religion o f Osiris which I wish to focus on. The first is geography and civilization. The Egyptian landscape is divided in a sharp contrast: black land which is made fertile by the water and silt from the flooding of the Nile, and red land which is barren desert. His contrast between live land and dead land is palpable. Mythically, Osiris plays to this, since he is sometimes identified with the Nile. One o f his first accomplishments was to deliver the Egyptians from their brutish way of living by teaching them cultivation, giving them laws, and teaching them to honor the gods (Meyer 162).Thus, Osiris presents an image o f a god responsible for lifting
37 Apparently, after 660, Egypt was more open to trade and commerce. 38 Kerenyi suggests the possibility o f an indirect Egyptian influence via Crete (see the next section).
68
humankind up from its uncivilized ways o f living. Egypt is a land recognized for its ancient civilization. Along with the picture of civilization, however, is the second image: wildness. The ancients believed that humans were what they ate and that the virtues and powers of the eaten could be absorbed by the eater. Although the cult of Osiris forbade cannibalism, it did not outlaw dismemberment and eating o f enemies and it did practice the ritual rending and eating o f the sacred bull, symbolizing Osiris. This ritual was, of course, quite familiar to the worshippers o f Dionysos. Although the account o f Herodotus is not in the mainstream o f thinking by modern classicists, the strong possibility o f Egyptian influence on the cult of Dionysos is acknowledged.
TO
Moreover, the connection to Osiris (and Herodotuss endorsement of it)
continues to capture popular imagination. A notable example is the Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God? by Freke and Gandy. In this book, the authors have taken up this lineage, using Dionysos and Osiris as interchangeable names for a godman who was, in their view, the prototype for Jesus.40 Another example is Martin Bernals controversial Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots o f Classical Civilization, which emphasizes connections between Egypt/Phoenicia and Greece to establish African roots to classical civilization.41 The image o f Osiris also speaks to the source o f the god. Osiris dies and is reborn; is dismembered and reassembled. He is the bringer o f civilization and creates life from
39 By, for example, Burkert (163). 40 Indeed, they suggest that Dionysos was a minor figure until the Pythagoreans transformed him into the image o f Osiris circa six or fifth century BCE. (191). 41 One elem ent o f B em els argument is that racism caused nineteenth and early twentieth century classicists to systematically overlook Egyptian and Phoenician connections to Greece. It is worth keeping this argument in mind as w e consider theories from those classicists.
69
death. He is in our psyche to bring about our own evolution, reassembling us from the shattered pieces of our own psychological dismemberments. Sabazios-Thrace/Phrygia theory. Erwin Rohde proposed a history o f Dionysiac worship that was been expanded upon by subsequent scholars, notably Harrison, Nilsson, and Otto. Rohde emphasized ecstatic and orgiastic rites as being the central features o f Dionysiac worship.42 He thus traces the introduction o f Dionysos into Greece by tracing the introduction o f ecstatic and orgiastic cults into Greece. These cults, he argues, came from Thrace and Phrygia, and are rooted in their god, Sabazios. He eloquently describes the mountain worship o f the god that was imported: The cult of this Thracian divinity differed in every particular from anything that we know o f from Homer as Greek worship o f the gods. On the other hand, it was closely related to the cult paid by the Phrygians, a people almost identical with the Thracians, to their mountain-mother Kybele. The festival was held on the mountain tops in the darkness o f night amid the flickering and uncertain light o f torches. The loud and troubled sound o f music was heard; the clash o f bronze cymbals; the dull thunderous roar of kettledrums; and through them all penetrated the maddening unison o f the deep-toned flute, whose soul Phrygian auletai had first waked to life. Excited by this wild music, the chorus of worshippers dance with shrill crying and jubilation. We hear nothing about singing: the violence o f the dance left no breath for regular songs. These dances were something very different from the measured movement o f the dance step in which Homers Greeks advanced and turned about in the Paian. It was in frantic, whirling, headlong eddies and dance-circles that these inspired companies danced over the mountain slopes. They were mostly women who whirled round in these circular dances till the point o f exhaustion was reached; they were strangely dressed; the wore bassarai, long flowing garments, as it seems, stitched together out of fox-skins; over these were doeskins, and they even had horns fixed to their ears. Their hair was allowed to float in the wind; they carried snakes sacred to Sabazios in their hands and brandished daggers or else thyrsos wands, the spear-points o f which were concealed in ivy leaves. In this fashion they raged wildly until every sense was wrought to the highest pitch o f excitement, and in
42 Rohde did not attempt to prove that ecstatic and orgiastic rites were the central feature o f Dionysiac religion. Rohde was searching for the source o f an idea: the idea o f the immortality o f the soul. In doing so, he followed the Dionysian thread back to Thrace. Elements in Dionysiac worship that were unconnected to his search were not important to his thesis.
70
the sacred frenzy they fell upon the beast selected as their victim and tore their captured prey limb from limb. Then with their teeth they seized the bleeding flesh and devoured it raw. (257) This primitive form o f worship resonates in subsequent stories o f Dionysos, particularly in Euripides Bacchae .43 This scene, as described by Rohde, bears a striking resemblance to the scene o f Pentheus dismemberment at the hands o f the maenads in The Bacchae. Rohde underscores how different this worship was from the orderly worship o f the Olympians. His description strikes at the heart o f orgiastic worship, and it is worthwhile to amplify the image that he creates. A central point in his thesis is that the ecstatic and orgiastic worship o f Thrace (and Phrygia) is the foundation o f the Greek development o f the idea o f an immortal soul. He emphasizes the mania experienced by the worshippers: A strange rapture came over them in which they seemed to themselves and others frenzied, possessed, [sic] This excessive stimulation o f the senses, going even as far as hallucination, was brought about, in those who were susceptible to their influence, by the delirious whirl of the dance, the music and the darkness, and all the other circumstances o f this tumultuous worship. The extreme pitch o f excitement was the result intended. The violently induced exaltation o f the senses had a religious purpose, in that such enlargement and extension o f his being was mans only way, as it seemed, o f entering into the union and relationship with the god and his spiritual attendants. The god is invisibly present among his inspired worshippers. [ . . . ] The worshipper who in his exaltation has become one with the god, is him self now called Sabos, Sabazios. (258) In his description, I emphasize the religious purpose o f the frenzy: the individuals extension and the union of the individual with the god. In subsequent passages, Rohde describes the worshippers as possessed, as having left the body, as in a sacred madness. He offers that in ekstasis, the soul is liberated from the cramping prison of
43 The Bacchae gives primacy to the story o f Semele (as opposed to Persephone) as the mother o f Dionysos. Kerenyi notes that Semele is a Phrygian name and that in Phrygia the name belonged to a goddess o f the underworld (Gods 107). This further connects The Bacchae to the Thracian/Phrygian form o f the god, but interestingly connects Semele to Persephone as being an underworld figure.
the body, and the God enters into men (260). He also expands on the means o f attaining such a frenzied state, suggesting that intoxicating drinks (the Thracians were renowned drinkers) and the fumes o f hempseeds were involved (259). To further expand on his picture, Rohde suggests that in these rites the individuals soul comes in contact with the spirit world.44 He compares this mass experience to the shamans o f Asia and the medicine men o f North America where only select individuals have such a spiritual experience (261-62). He also argues that this type o f emotional religious experience among savage people has its analogue in mystical religious experience among civilized people (262). I find Rohdes description o f this experience to be consistent with my own experiences at Pentecostal churches, where people are taken with the holy spirit and slip into ecstatic states o f shaking, dancing, and speaking in tongues. I also find Rohdes description o f the effect of the experience to be consistent with modern ravesthe allnight, techno-music dance parties o f the late 1990s that often (but not always) were fueled by the street drug ecstasy. There is another element o f Rohdes description that applies to the Phrygian cults and their counterparts that invaded Greece: the notion that these rites bring about purgation or purification. He suggests that the madness induced by these cults was a homeopathic treatment for excessive emotionality: an excessive emotionality that may have manifested itself in the form o f uncontrolled Bacchic frenzy (286-87). Thus, in addition to the mystical component o f the worship, there is also a therapeutic (psycho therapeutic) component as well, which used the principles o f homeopathy to affect its cure.
44 This, o f course, implies that the individual has a soul. Rohde argues that the concept o f an immortal soul was implicit in Thracian religion.
72
Lets back up from Rohdes imagery and consider the context and contours of what he describes. First, consider the geography. Thrace is a region in Southeast Europe, bounded in the north by the Danube River, in the east by the Black Sea, in the south by the Aegean Sea, and in the west by the Carpathian Mountains. The Thracian people were loose-knit tribes that first appear at the end o f the second millennium BCE. Because they spoke an Indo-European language, they can be assumed to be at least distantly related to the Greeks. Elowever, since their language was not Greek, they would have been considered by the Greeks to be barbarians. Rohde considered the Thracians as having [ . . . ] a sort of semi-animated torpor o f the intellect (265). They may have numbered around one million in population roughly two to three times as populous as all of Greece. Flomer makes a few oblique references to them. Beginning in the eighth century BCE, Greeks began settling along coastal areas in Thrace, thus trade and communication between Greece and Thrace was common. 45 Phrygia is an area in the highlands o f west-central Anatolia (modem Turkey). It was a kingdom from roughly 1200 BCE until 700 BCE. The Phrygian kingdom arose from the ruins of the Hittite Empire, and ended with the ascendancy o f the Lydian Empire, which soon fell to Persia. The Phrygians were noted for the worship o f their mountain goddess, Cybele. Although Troy was not in the Phrygian empire, they were allies. King Priam o f Troy aided the Phrygians in their war with the Amazons, and the
45 Otto, referencing Rohde, N ilsson, and W ilam owitz, is more explicit in pinpointing dates. Otto argues that cults did arrive from Thrace, Phrygia, and Lydia but did so no earlier than the eighth century BCE. When they arrived in Greece, they attached them selves to existing, similar Greek cults (52-53). It is not obvious in Ottos writings if the name o f the existing Greek god w as D ionysos, but w e can guess that it was, since D ionysos was mentioned by Homer and Hesiod. It is also not clear whether the arriving god was named D ionysos or Sabazios. Interestingly, with N ilsson and W ilamowitz, there had been a shift in thinking about the source o f D ionysos, with more emphasis being placed on an arrival by sea from Phrygia/Lydia rather than by land from Thrace. Central to their argument is a Phrygian/Lydian etym ology for the name Sem ele and the alternative name o f D ionysos: Bacchus. Otto argues that their analysis is premature and that a Thracian origin for D ionysos is just as likely as a Phrygian/Lydian origin.
73
Phrygians aided Troy in its war with the Greeks. Greek iconography often depicts Paris (the abductor o f Helen) as wearing a Phrygian cap,46 and Hecabe, the wife o f King Priam, was o f Phrygian birth. There appears to have been a migration o f Thracians to Phrygia, and that migration is alluded to in myth. By legend King Midas o f Thrace traveled to Phyrgia with many o f his followers to bathe in the river Pactolus in order to rid him self o f the golden touch. He was adopted by the childless Phrygian king Gordias (of Gordian knot fame), and then went on to become the king o f Phrygia.47 The adoption o f Midas by Gordias suggests an amicable reconciliation o f the two royal families and the two cultures,48 and in Rohdes description there is some blurring o f Thracian and Phrygian influences, as though they were the same. If we follow Rohde, it is clear that the ecstatic cult practices were imported to civilized, rational Greece from a people who were considered by the Greeks to be barbarians (both Thrace and Phrygia), who historically had been in conflict with Greece (Phrygia), and who had a religious culture o f a dominant goddess (Phrygia). A key figure in Rohdes description is the Thracian/Phrygian god Sabazios. Sabazios, a nomadic horseman sky god/father god is guessed to have migrated to Phrygia from western Thrace and Macedonia, around 1200 BCE. The Macedonians, in particular, were noted horsemen, and a god mounted on a horse is very appropriate to them. In his early form Sabazios is identified with his horse. He was also sometimes identified with Zeus in the sense of being a Zeus prototype, or possibly derived from the same source as Zeus. In moving from Macedonia/Thrace to Phrygia, he came into contact with the
46 Interestingly, the Phrygian cap would reappear in both the American and the French revolution as the liberty cap. 47 The geography lesson is sourced from Wikipedia on the internet. 48 This does not mean, o f course, that historically it was amicable.
74
existing cult o f Cybele. Again, the story o f Midas coming from Thrace to Phrygia and being adopted by King Gordias may be a mythic echo o f a confrontation between Thracians and Phrygians. Sabazios is later identified with Dionysos, as well as Zeus. Grimal offers that Sabazios was conceived when Zeus took the form o f a serpent and slept with Persephone, thus emphasizing the importance o f snakes in his cult (392). This story also mirrors one o f the birth stories of Dionysos. There appears to have been some transformation of Sabazios in Phrygia, for the Thracian/Macedoneon horsemen god did not originally have snake/chthonic associations. This story may reflect the rebirth rather than the birth o f Sabazios: Sabazios-Zeus impregnating Persephone to create Sabazios-Dionysos. Grimal further notes that Sabazios was often depicted with horns on his forehead, and interestingly credits him with the idea of domesticating oxen and yoking them to the plow (392), thus he has a civilizing influence in spite o f the barbaric culture he comes from. Graves (7.1) and Harrison (Prolegomena 417-19) emphasize that Sabazios was a barley god, a god o f beer. Harrison makes much o f the notion that the drunkenness brought on by the beer-loving Sabazios led to sleep rather than religious ecstasy. This might be a factual statement about the relative merits o f intoxication by beer versus wine, or may reflect Victorian class attitudes about the two drinks. Graves and Harrison also underscore the Sabazios connection to snakes and horses. They note that while Dionysos was associated with snakes, his more characteristic animal was the bull.49 However, the affinity with snakes may have paved the way for a Greek adaptation o f the
49 Recall that in the story o f Dionysos and Lycurgos, Lycurgos is finally tom apart by horses not bulls, suggesting the possibility that the story originally involved Sabazios. Also, it is interesting that Sabazios as the horsemen god mythically domesticated the oxen, sacred to Cybele, but as Sabazios transforms into Dionysos, he becomes a bull.
75
Thracian/Phrygian cult. Sabazios was considered by the Greeks more primitive and savage than Dionysos. Graves (27.9) strongly implies that in the original Sabazios cults, an annual human sacrifice (in the form o f a boy victim) took place in which the Maenads tore the boy to pieces and ate him raw. He further argues that this sacrifice was supplanted by more orderly Dionysian revel in which the boy was replaced by a foal. Cybele is the very ancient turret-crowned goddess o f Anatolia, who is often identified with Rhea and Gaia. She is goddess o f the fertile earth, caverns, mountains, walls, fortresses, nature, and wild animals. She is often pictured with lions, and rides in a chariot pulled by lions. Her consort and chariot driver is Attis, who was also her son. She was supposed to have been born on Mount Ida. Pausanias reports that Cybele was originally the personified daemon o f Mount Agdistis: The daemon was originally both male and female but the Olympian gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ and cast away. There grew up from it an almond-tree, and when its fruit was ripe, Nana who was a daughter o f the river Sangarios picked the fruit and laid it in her bosom. It at once disappeared, but she was with child. In time a boy was born and exposed on the hillside, but the infant was tended by a he-goat. As Attis grew, his long-haired beauty was godlike, and Agdistis as Cybele, then fell in love with him. But the foster parent o f Attis sent him to Pessinos, where he was to wed the kings daughter. According to some versions the King o f Pessinos was Midas. Just as the marriage-song was being sung, Agdistis/Cybele appeared in her transcendent power, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals. A ttis father-in-law-to-be, the king who was giving his daughter in marriage, followed suit, prefiguring the selfcastrating corybantes who devoted themselves to Cybele. But Agdistis repented and saw to it that the body o f Attis should neither rot nor decay. (7.19) The myth explains a key element in the worship o f Cybele: her most ecstatic followers were males who ritually castrated themselves and assumed female identities. Eunuch priests o f Cybele often called themselves Attis. Merlin Stone (148-50) suggests that ritual castration may have been a substitute for the death of the year king, and that
76
castration may have been a vehicle for men to assume power within the matriarchal religion.50 Cybele is associated with ecstatic rites and some o f her followers, the corybantes and curetes, expressed this cult in music, especially drumming, clashing o f shields and spears, singing, dancing, and shouting, all at night. Cybele herself is sometimes pictured with a round frame drum. By the fifth century BCE, her cult had been adopted by the Greeks. Burkert argues that in Greece, Cybele was called Meter oreie, Mother o f the Mountain, or Meter Kybele, that she was the mother o f Zeus (recall her identity with Rhea) and that her rites were like the Phrygian rites described above by Rohde. Moreover, he says that since the time o f Pindar,51 her cult was seen as one with Dionysos (178-79). In later years, her cult would become important in Rome as well. The relationship between Sabazios and Cybele is interesting. The Sabazios cult would seem to be patriarchal, whereas the Cybele cult would seem to be matriarchal. Yet, when the two confronted one another in Phrygia, an accommodation o f some sort was reached. The nature o f accommodation is not historically well-documented, but it does echo in the story o f the accommodation between Gordias and Midas. Note how Sabazios and Cybele change after the gods meet. Sabazios enters Phrygia as a powerful, horseman sky god. Among gods, he is a mans man; a fierce and powerful warrior to be worshipped by men. After contact with the cult o f Cybele, there is a shift. He is still a man, but a man in a new image. He has become something o f a ladys man; his warrior edges have softened and he embodies some values held dear to womenhe is in touch with his
50 Stones view has an interesting corollary in modern patriarchal society: the woman who adopts a masculine persona in order to succeed in the corporate or political arena. w l 5lh-century BCE.
77
feminine side.52 His worshippers are women, and he can bring those women to a state o f ecstasy in a fashion that the dominating sky god could not. Although Sabazios is now in touch with his feminine side, he is not the emasculated Attis.53 The one-time sky god is now a chthonic god to whom snakes are sacred, i.e., he is grounded, and in touch with his unconscious.54 Recall the myth that Dionysos traveled to Phrygia to be initiated into the cult o f Rhea. Substitute Zabazios for Dionysos and Cybele for Rhea and there is a clear mythic precedent for Sabazios being transformed by the cult o f Cybele. Thus, we are given a clear image o f the power o f initiation into the goddess cult and its impact on men. Recall also that in the myth o f Cybele, she began life as a mountain daemon and as such had both male and female characteristics. It was the Olympians who stripped her of maleness. And note that the initiation o f Sabazios into the cult o f Cybele was not one sided in its impact. Mythically, Sabazios was said to have yoked the oxen, the lunar bull, i.e., Cybele. Thus, the goddess made some accommodations as well. We now move to the music. The kettle drums, which were also used in combat to signal movements and to frighten opponents, provided a low-pitched rumbling background sound. The auletai were the players of the aulos, which is often translated as
52 Bachofen particularly emphasized this aspect o f Dionysos: Throughout its development the Dionysian cult preserved the character it had when it first entered into history. With its sensuality and emphasis on sexual love, it presented a marked affinity to the fem inine nature, and its appeal w as primarily to women; it was among w om en that it found its m ost loyal supporters, its m ost assiduous servants, and their enthusiasm was the foundation o f its power. D ionysos is a w om ans god in the fullest sense o f the word, the source o f all w om ans sensual and transcendent hopes, the center o f her w hole existence. It w as to wom en that he was first revealed in his glory, and it was women who propagated his cult and brought about its triumph ( 101 ). D ow ning points out, however, that the traditions o f both Zeus and D ionysos include hints o f the god being emasculated (72-73). 54 N ote the parallel with the birth story o f D ionysos. The relevant story in this context is his birth from Sem ele, which is a Phrygian name (though the birth story is not necessarily o f Phrygian origin). D ionysos is the offspring o f the powerful Olympian, Zeus, and an underworld goddess, Sem ele, much as the later Sabazios is an offspring o f a Zeus-like Sabazios and a powerful goddess, Cybele.
78
flute. However, this is something o f a mistranslation because the aulos was a reed instrument. Sometimes it had a single reed, like a clarinet or saxophone, and in other cases a double reed, like an oboe. In ancient times, two o f them were often played at the same time, giving rise to the notion o f the double flute. Scholars surmise that the deeper-toned instrument was played as a drone, whereas the higher-pitched instrument played a melody. Others suggest that two melodies were played at once. The musical image is one o f a cacophony o f unharmonious sounds that are held together rhythmically. The music is a flow of energy, well suited for dancing, but not for easy listening. The aulos carried with it several connotations. It was the instrument o f the common man, as opposed to the lyre which was the instrument o f aristocrats. However, because it was difficult to play, it was associated in Greece with professional musicians, often slaves. In classical Greece (as opposed to Thrace and/or Phrygia), aulos players (both male and female) sometimes doubled as prostitutes. The original aulos player was sometimes said to be the satyr Marsyas, who challenged Apollo to a musical contest, lost, and was flayed alive. There were several types o f aulos , e.g., the Phrygian, the Pythian and the choric. Writing sometime between the first and fourth centuries CE, Aristides Quintilianus considered the Phrygian aulos to be feminine, mournful, and threnodic. It appears to have been the lowest pitched o f the three instruments. While it is not known with certainty what scales were used by Thracians and Phrygians, the Greeks named a mode after Phrygia, which confusingly is the same as the modern Dorian mode. The Dorian mode, with its minor third and seventh, is commonly used by modem jazz musicians.55 When
55 Information on the aulos is from several Internet sources including Wikipedia and an essay on ancient music by Diane Touliatos-Miliotis, PhD.
79
researching this music, I could not help but think of the hypnotic effect o f a late-night drum circles, set around camp fires, supported by the droning sound o f a didjeridu and dancers. Having amplified some of the details o f Rohdes mountain-top scene, it is worthwhile to paint the full image. The worship o f Sabazios is geographically located in mountains among peoples considered by the Greeks to be barbarians. It is wild and unruly. It clearly violates social taboos the region from which it comes has in its recesses the eating o f raw flesh, castration, incest, and possibly a history o f human sacrifice and cannibalism. It is an area o f the psyche that Freud would identify with the id. The worship o f Sabazios embodies the irrational notion of becoming one with the god by eating the god, or by eating his proxy. It is a region where ecstatic expression unfolded, unfettered by law and reason. It is also a region o f ambiguous gender power relationships, in which a new male hero, one embodying both male and female values, was emerging. We then turn to the adaptation o f the cult by Greece. Rohdes description is simple: The Greeks received from the Thracians and assimilated to their own purposes the worship o f Dionysos, just as, in all probability, they received the personality and worship o f Ares and the Muses. O f his assimilation we cannot give any further particulars; it took place in a period lying before the beginnings o f historical tradition. In this period a multiplicity of separate tendencies and conception, freely mingled with features borrowed from foreign creeds, were welded together to form the religion o f Greece. (282) In the absence o f historical data, Rohdes approach is to treat the myth o f Dionysos as an aetiological myth, which he defines as legends in which special features o f worship (for example, the existing or dimly remembered sacrifice of human beings at the feasts o f
80
Dionysos) are provided with a mythical prototype in the supposed historical past o f mythology, and thus receive their justification (283).56 Rohde looked to the myth itself to find the history and development of Dionysian worship. Rohde contends that the Dionysos o f Greece, especially in Athens, was very much a Hellenized and humanized version o f the Sabazios. He is thus confronted with the question o f how it happened: how did Dionysos/Sabazios arrive in Greece and how was his cult Hellenized? Rohdes answer implicates the cult o f his Dionysos half-brother, Apollo, a god whose rationality is seemingly opposed to Dionysos. Rohdes argument is that the dry rationality o f the Olympian religion made Greece a fertile ground for invasion by an ecstatic god. Dionysos was at first resisted. The myth o f Dionysos repeatedly works the m otif of Dionysos being resisted wherever he appears. When it became clear that he could not be repressed or defeated, he was instead assimilated. The sharing o f Delphi between Apollo and Dionysos (with Apollo having the larger share) echoes a deal struck between the worshippers o f the two gods, and the cult o f Dionysos was then spread under the authority of Apollo.57 Apollo, a god o f healing and purification, made a rational judgment that some irrationality was needed, and after creating safe boundaries and limitations, allowed the irrationality in. Apollo brought healing and purification to Greece by homeopathically introducing a bit o f irrationality, in the form o f Dionysos. Christine Downing alludes to this in Gods in Our Midst [.. .]. She describes Apollo as a [. . . ] god o f plague and healing in that order: a god who
56 With this statement, Rohde approximates the position o f the Cambridge Ritualists, who proposed that myths are invented after rituals as a means o f explaining the rituals. 57 The integration o f the Dionysian religion into Greece may have been assisted by the Orphic cults as w ell. The pseudo-historical figure o f Orpheus bridges A pollo and D ionysos. The cults, though small in numbers, were influential. A full discussion o f Orphism is beyond the scope o f this dissertation. Excellent discussions on the topic can be found in Rohde, and also in W. K. C. Guthries Orpheus an d G reek Religion, first published in 1952.
81
heals because he is a god who brings disease. Myth and rite express a homeopathic understanding o f healing (9 1).58 This accommodation by both gods follows the melding o f the Sabazios and Cybele cults that was required to create the Sabazios/Dionysos god exported to Greece. Rohdes view is that the ancient site o f the oracle at Delphi was first under the influence o f the Goddess, Gaia, and her oracular earth-spirit, Python. Gaia and Python were overthrown by Apollo, ushering in an era o f rationality. When the rationality proved to be excessive, an adjustment occurred: a co-opting o f Dionysos into Delphi.59 This co opting provided room for the ecstatic but also kept the ecstatic within bounds and brought it into the service o f Apollo: When we find Apollo in Delphi itselfthe place where he most closely allied him self with Dionysos deserting his old omen-interpretation and turning to the prophecy o f ekstasis, we cannot have much doubt as to whence Apollo got his new thing. With the mantic ekstasis , Apollo received a Dionysiac element into his own religion. Henceforward, he, the cold, aloof, sober deity o f former times, can be addressed by titles that imply Bacchic excitement and self-abandonment. (290-91) In Rohdes description, Dionysos is wild, emotional, and ecstatic. His temperament is reflected in his historical origins. However, he is introduced under the aegis o f Apollo. Thus, the wild god is incorporated in a healthy, homeopathic fashion into civilized life with the security of the safe ritual container. His description predates, but anticipates Freudian psychological theory the Dionysian id being reined in and controlled by the Apollonian ego.
58 In Civilization an d Its D iscontents, Freud maintains that civilization causes us to repress our aggressive instincts, leading to a host o f problems. Freuds analysis offers a source for the ills that A pollo attempts to heal. 59 Harrison suggests that the Greeks found the religion o f the Olympian gods to be too superficial to meet their needs, and thus invited D ionysos into their pantheon (Prolegom ena 363).
82
Zagreus-Crete theory. Kerenyi believed that Dionysos was implicit in Minoan culture, from which the Greeks borrowed. In this regard, he directly challenges the view of Rohde that the cult arrived from Thrace. He contends that Rohde (and Nietzsche)60 mistakenly found the core o f the Dionysian religion in orgiasm or more specifically, in accordance with the historical findings, in the orgiasm o f women, for which the new term maenadism was coined {Dionysos 138). Otto, according to Kerenyi, was o f a similar mind stressing madness. He quotes Otto in his (Ottos) emphasis on a life that is not zoe: life which, when it overflows, grows mad and in its profoundest passion is intimately associated with death {Dionysos 132-34). This misunderstanding led Rohde to trace the migration o f Dionysos by tracing the migration o f orgiasm. Kerenyis view is that viticulture and wine making are more important attributes o f Dionysos and that the god migrated with the migration o f wine, meaning that the cult o f Dionysos probably arrived by sea from Crete, rather than by land from the north. This represents a fundamental shift in thinking about Dionysos and his historical roots. Kerenyi does not necessarily deny the influence o f Thrace, Phrygia, Sabazios, and Cybele on Dionysian worship in Greece.61 What he argues is that there was an earlier influence from Crete that brought a Dionysian wine cult to Greece. The influences o f Thrace and Phrygia may have infused new life into the Dionysian cult at a later date, and may have turned it in the direction o f orgiasm, but these were influences imposed on an existing cult. He disagrees with the notion that Dionysos, before the influence o f Thrace
and Phrygia, was a minor deity. He is also open to the notion o f an Egyptian influence,
60 Both Rohde and Nietzsche wrote before the excavations o f Sir Arthur Evans that began at the beginning o f the twentieth century. Thus, Rohde and Nietzsche did not have the same fact base available to them as Kerenyi. 61 Indeed, he even suggests the possibility that the Minoans influenced the Thracians (D ionysos 138). 62 Interestingly, Burkert notes that in the mid-fifth century BCE, the image o f D ionysos shifted from an old bearded man to a young boyish man (167). Thus, the rejuvenation o f the god, possibly due to Thracian/Phrygian influences that rejuvenated his cult.
83
though he suggests that such an influence would have most likely come to Greece via Crete. Kerenyis basic approach is to develop the image of both Greek and Cretan culture, and by showing the close association between the two, proves a causal effect. This has a double effect: it is both a means o f showing how elements o f Greek Dionysian worship came from Crete, but it also amplifies the image of Dionysian worship by bringing in additional material in the image from Crete. He begins his investigation by outlining a culture on Crete that predates wine. Its alternative to wine was mead, an intoxicating drink made o f honey and water that is fermented in an animal hide. The fermentation, he argues, was done in the heat o f the summer, coinciding with the early dawn rising o f Sirius, the dog star, which marked the beginning o f the year in Crete {Dionysos 35-43).63 He also notes how bees were created by allowing a dead bull rot in the summer heat, with all o f his orifices sealed. Apparently, this grim sack attracts swarms o f bees and initiates the creation o f honey. It also, he suggests, ties to the myth o f the birth o f Orion, the hunter, from a sack o f animal hide {Dionysos 43). Thus, he outlines a culture/religion based on the gathering o f honey, the brewing o f mead, and the astrological significance o f the constellation Orion, and his dog, Sirius. This tradition pre-dates Dionysos and wine, and could be found in Crete, Egypt and parts o f Greece. From this activity, he argues, evolved myths and rituals for a
63 The calendar is interesting. Kerenyi argues that (a) in both Egypt and Crete, the calendar year began with the summer solstice, that (b) beginning the year with the summer solstice makes sense only in Egypt where it coincides with the rising o f the Nile, thus (c) Crete must have inherited its calendar from the Egyptians and (d) this evidence supports the possibility o f an indirect Egyptian influence on Greece via Crete. He also describes an image o f the rising o f the Nile, the solstice and the dawn rising o f Sirius all occurring together, thus the year beginning with the early rising o f Sirius though together in this case covers a time span o f about one month. In the end, it wasnt clear to me if the year began with the rising o f Sirius or the summer solstice. Some areas o f Greece inherited this calendar, according to Kerenyi, from Crete (Dionysos 29).
84
divine child which was taken into the religions o f both Zeus and Dionysos.64 This tradition o f mead, Sirius and Orion is difficult to date, but he puts it in the second or third millennium BCE. From these beginnings, he moves to Dionysos. He argues that the Dionysos we know from Greece was present in Crete (though possibly with another name), was rooted in the ancient honey/mead culture, but had left that culture behind and had been adopted and adapted to a new grape/wine culture. He outlines what he considers to be the key signs o f the Dionysian religion, as we know it from Greece and from Crete: The presence o f the Dionysian religion is to be recognized by the concurrence o f several signs. [ . . . ] The over-all Dionysian impression made by Minoan art can be broken down into concrete elements which are present in the same combination only in the Dionysian religion o f known, historic times. To the Greeks, Dionysos was pre-eminently a wine god, a bull god, and a god o f women. A fourth element, the snake, was borne by the bacchantes, as it was by less agitated goddesses or priestesses in the Minoan culture. Wine and bull, women and snakes even form special, lesser syndromes to employ a medical expression deriving from the Greek physicians. They are the symptoms, as it were, o f an acute Dionysian state which zoe creates for itself. For Greek culture, this was the Dionysos myth: for the Minoan culture, before the arrival o f the Greeks, it was the myth o f a god called by another name, but assuredly a more comprehensive and less clearly defined god than the one recognized in the fermenting mead. (Dionysos 52) Thus, Kerenyi identifies a picture o f worship that he labels as Dionysos, and finds that picture in both Greece and Crete. It represents both a p ro o f o f a Minoan connection, and also a particular image o f Dionysian worship. To this image o f wine, bulls, women, and snakes, he later adds ivy.
64 Kerenyi outlines a myth from Crete that relates the cave in which Zeus was born to honey, honey bees and blood, thus tying the m ythology o f Zeus to the culture o f mead. He then argues that the baby Zeus and baby D ionysos are closely aligned (D ionysos 30-31), thus the mythology o f D ionysos is tied to the mead culture as w ell.
85
Kerenyi notes that although both Homer and Hesiod say little about Dionysos, they do acknowledge a wine culture in Greece. In the Iliad, Homer describes the shield that Hephaistos made for Achilles as including a picture o f a wine harvest. Hesiod, in Works and Days, offers instructions for wine making (Dionysos 65-66). These two references suggest that wine had arrived in Greece no latter than the eighth century BCE. He argues that Crete had an thriving wine culture in at least as far back as the early second millennium BCE. Excavations o f oldest palace at Phaistos, Crete uncovered grape seeds: vitis vinifera Mediterranea {Dionysos 51). This palace dates from the early second millennium BCE He infers that this is early evidence o f a wine culture in Crete. Later Minoan palaces had vineyards (Dionysos 56). This doesnt prove that wine came to Greece from Crete, but in Kerenyis own words: It seems more than likely viticulture came to Greece from Crete {Dionysos 56). He further suggests that Dionysos came with the wine: Though it is hard to draw a horizontal dividing line between the Minoan cult characterized by the bull and wine, on the one hand, and the Greek Dionysos religion on the other, it is equally difficult to draw a vertical dividing line setting off the migration o f viticulture from that o f the Dionysos cult. {Dionysos 56) Kerenyi is aware that his argument has limitations and that wine may have come to Greece from other sources as well. He also acknowledges that wine may have been imported to Crete from yet another source, possibly Egypt or Libya. A central figure in Kerenyis argument is the hunter god, Zagreus. Orphic mythology identifies Zagreus with Dionysos, and the similarities between the two gods makes a connection likely.65 Zagreus, however, has connotations that take the image of
65 My understanding o f Kerenyi is that Zagreus is a Greek name, not a Minoan name, and that the name o f the Minoan god remains unknown. The Greek Zagreus has become the name that is attached to the Minoan god.
86
Dionysos in different directions than we are accustomed. Zagreus is a hunter. Moreover, he is a very special hunter one who captures his game alive. The etymology o f the name means catcher o f game (Dionysos 82). Kerenyi suggests that this god is ancient, predating matriarchal/agricultural society, going back to hunter societies and shamanic religion. Kerenyi argues that the purpose o f taking live animals is to eat them raw, and thus acquire the characteristics o f the eaten animal (Dionysos 83). He contends that close proximity to a wild animal would have been primitive m ans early confrontation with zoe, i.e., indestructible life. He highlights a Minoan gem from Kydoia in which a lord o f the beasts, a being he identifies as Zagreus, holds fast two lions with his bare hands, having tamed them with by a laying on of hands {Dionysos 81-82). It is as if the god has an energetic connection with and power over the two wild animals. An obvious question is whether Zagreus is the same god that Kerenyi describes as having evolved from the honey/mead culture into the grape/wine culture. Although he is a little vague in connecting the dots, Kerenyi does connect them by showing that Orion is the connecting link the old god being is associated with the hunter Orion. This gives us a new facet see in Dionysos: the hunter who captures the animal to rended and eaten, a god possibly associated with a hunter-gatherer society, one possibly connected with shamanism, and clearly associated with honey, the sweetness o f life, and mead. His image connects Dionysos to wildness. Also, note how the mythology o f Zagreus blurs the distinction between the divine children, Zeus and Dionysos. The divine child, in the form of Zeus, is further connected to the honey/mead culture by bees. However, in addition to this connecting link there is a
87
movement worth considering the shift from a Zeus like god to a Dionysos like god. Recall the similar transformation that took place in Sabazios, as he moved to Phrygia. The movement is further attested to in the mythology itself. On Crete, Dionysos is the son of Zeus (or Zeus o f the underworld, Hades) and Persephone the offspring o f the powerful patriarchal ruler and the chthonic goddess, or the underworld offspring o f the god and the goddess. Interestingly, Kerenyi describes a tomb at Phaistos, Crete which contain two symbols dating from 1400-1300 BCE. The symbols are clearly Dionysian: a goat and a mask {Dionysos 80). The existence o f these symbols at this point in time on Crete suggests that Crete had a religious cult containing not only those elements associated uniquely with Zagreus, but that the cult also contained elements that we associated with Dionysos as he appeared in Athens.66 An important figure is Ariadne, the mistress o f the labyrinth. In the myth o f the
labyrinth, Ariadne is portrayed as human, the daughter o f a king. Her humanity mirrors that of Semele, and her mortality is reinforced when she is killed by Artemis. However, to Kerenyi, Ariadne was at one time a Great Goddess {Dionysos 90), and the labyrinth a meander pattern68 which he directly relates to zoe: Like most Cretan art, the spiral decoration so frequent on Minoan walls must be interpreted as directly relating to zoe,
66 In the next section, the distinction between goat cults and bull cults is more fully discussed. Zagreus is traditionally associated with bull cults, w hile D ionysos is associated with the goat. It is not until the two cults merge that D ionysos gains his bull characteristics. 67 Ariadne is identified by Kerenyi as having characteristics o f several goddesses including Demeter and Aphrodite. Most important, he links her to Persephone, arguing that Persephone was the mistress o f the labyrinth. 68 For Kerenyi, the key feature o f the labyrinth and o f the meander pattern is that they are [ . . . ] paths on which one involuntarily goes back to the beginning. Thus, the present-day notion o f a labyrinth as a place where one loses on es way must be set aside. It is a confusing path, hard to follow without a thread, but, provided one is not devoured at the mid-point, it leads surely, despite twists and turns, back to the beginning (D ionysos 93).
88
which suffers no interruption and permeates all things {Dionysos 95). The labyrinth itself is a double image: it is a place o f death where one might be devoured by the Minotaur, and it is a place o f life, a place where a dance o f winding and unwinding took place. Thus, Ariadne is herself connected to zoe. Moreover, Kerenyi offers examples o f honey offerings being given to an unnamed mistress o f the labyrinth, suggesting that this goddess, though not yet named Ariadne, dates back to a time when Crete was still in touch with its honey culture. Kerenyi has the labyrinth story at the heart o f the mystic nature o f Dionysian myth. He describes the great god, Zagreus, the subterranean Zeus, taking the form o f a snake and impregnating Persephone: The mystic feature which we have presupposed in the relationship between Dionysos and Ariadne here appears in an archaic myth in which generation and birth never go beyond the same couple. Taking his mother or daughter to wife, the son or husband begets a mystic child who in turn will court only his mother. To such involvements the snake figure is more appropriate than any other. It is the most naked form o f zoe absolutely reduced to itself. [ . . . ] Individual snakes were ritually torn to pieces, but the snake, the genus as a whole, was indestructibly present, bearing witness to the indestructibility o f life in what was, in a manner of speaking, its lowest form. (Dionysos 114-15) Thus, we have a mind bending tale o f incest in which the gods regenerate one another. Zeus, Hades, Dionysos, and Zagreus are different manifestations o f the same god; Rhea, Demeter, Persephone, Semele, Ariadne are different manifestations o f the same goddess. The snake is a metaphorically appropriate agent o f the regeneration o f life and the labyrinth the subterranean place where it happens. The deaths that take place with the
89
births (e.g., the death of Semele) reflect the appearance o f birth-death-rebirth m otif against a backdrop o f continuing indestructible oneness o f life: zoe.69 Kerenyi devotes attention to the way in which Dionysos arrived in Attica, in Athens, and in the rest o f Greece. These forms are historically interesting and also reveal his nature, both literally as a mythical figure and metaphorically as a psychological archetype. Kerenyi argues that there are three forms in which the god could appear. One form o f arrival is by epiphany, which surely speaks to the nature o f the god. In this form, the god and cult are spontaneous local creations. A second form is by missionary cult, i.e., the cult existed in some other location and was imported. A third form is in response to a call which precedes the arrival. This third form is usually associated with trieteric cult.70 Kerenyi gives priority to the second form o f arrival for Attica and Athens. And like Rohde, he finds evidence in for his argument in the echoes o f the myth. His argument is that Dionysos came by sea from Crete along with the importation o f viticulture and a ritualistic structuring o f society around the rhythms o f growing grapes and making wine. The memory o f Dionysos arrival by sea was preserved by reminiscences o f his ship. Vase paintings o f the sixth century show how it was moved about on rollers at a festival, although it is hard to say what festival. {Dionysos 144). He argues that this occurred at an earlier date than the arrival o f Dionysos in the Thebes of Cadmus and influences from Thrace and Phrygia (Dionysos 142-43).
69 Danielou suggests that the labyrinth is a metaphor for the yogic experience o f awakening Kundalini energy (120-21). He also notes Freuds interpretation: The story o f the labyrinth reveals a representation o f anal birth: the w inding paths are intestines, Ariadnes thread, the umbilical cord (123). 70 This term seems misleading. It is a two-year cult. My understanding o f the prefix tri is that the pattern o f rituals starts to repeat in the third year. In Athens, the trieteric cult was replaced by an annual one sometime in the sixth century BCE.
90
In an effort to determine when and where the cult was imported, Kerenyi turns to the myth, and to archeological evidence. He argues that the introduction o f the cult occurred in phases. He notes a clay tablet showing the pseudo-historical third king of Athens, Amphiktyon, entertaining Dionysos. In this first phase, Dionysos taught the king to mix wine with water, and was known as Dionysos Orthos, the Dionysos who stands upright. It is likely that his temple included an erect phallus {Dionysos 144). It is difficult to date Amphiktyon, since he is not necessarily an historical figure, but by legend, he is the brother o f Hellen, the father o f all Greeks (Graves 38.h). This would, of course, date him (and the coming o f Dionysos) far in the past, before Homer, before the Trojan War, before the Thracian/Phrygian influence. In a confusing passage, he speculates on several possible sites for the landing of Dionysos, the gist o f which is that he probably arrived by sea, landing in Attica in the east along the coast facing the Aegean islands {Dionysos 147). This would have placed his landing near Ikarion and its eponymous hero Ikarios, to whom Dionysos introduced wine. It also would place him near the island o f Naxos, providing a neat link to the story o f his abduction by pirates. Important in the story o f Ikarios was the wanderings o f Erigone, the Ariadne of Ikarion and Athens {Dionysos 155). Erigone had wandered about in search o f her father, Ikarios, who had been murdered by the shepherds to whom he had given wine.71 The wanderings o f Erigone ended on Choes Day, the day o f the wine pitchers. Choes Day was part o f the festival, Anthesteria. According the myth, Erigone [ . . . ] put an end to her life by hanging herself from the tree that had grown from the corpse o f Ikarios {Dionysos 156). This swinging was imitated by girls at the Anthesteria who swung on chairs
71 Kerenyi notes the similarity o f this story to the search o f Isis for Osiris.
91
hanging from trees. Thus, there is a story associated with the ancient festival o f Anthesteria. Simon (Festivals 92) dates Anthesteria to the late Bronze Age. The Trojan War itself was late Bronze Age, but Homers writing o f it occurred in the early Iron Age. Thus, this dates the beginnings o f this important Dionysian festival in a fashion consistent with Kerenyis72 theory. Kerenyi further speculates that Dionysos came from Attica in general to Athens in particular as a god o f women and that his cult was spread by a missionary name Pegasos {Dionysos 164). Pegasos is thought to have brought phallic processions to Athens. When these processions were resisted by men, they suffered an ailment o f their own phalli, satyriasis. One inevitable association that arises when we talk o f Crete is the myth lost civilization o f Atlantis. The totality o f written material on Atlantis is contained in two o f Platos works, Timaeus and Critias. It is often speculated that Platos reference to a great ancient civilization destroyed by a cataclysmic event alludes to the Minoan civilization on Crete and/or Thera (modern Santorini). It is not my purpose to digress into the mythology o f Atlantis. However, Atlantis, as described by Plato, was a just and idyllic place, where people lived simple and virtuous lives. It was the domain o f Poseidon and his mortal wife, Cleito. It was ruled by their children, the first king being Atlas. Atlantis was destroyed by Zeus when the Atlanteans became consumed with greed and power. As a metaphor, Atlantis has some similarities to the Garden o f Eden, and may represent the innocence and simplicity o f our lives as small children. A Greek god whose history is
72 It is possible, o f course, that the ritual, Anthesteria, predates the story associated with it and that the story is a late explanation for a ritual w hose original meaning is long lost.
92
rooted in Crete is one who brings these associations with him. It recalls the etymology o f his name, the god o f Nysa, where Nysa is the earthly paradise alluded to by Danielou. Indigenous theory. This theory is deduced from Jean Zafiropulos M ead and Wine: A History o f the Bronze Age in Greece, which appeared in English in 1966. Zafiropulo paints Bronze Age Greece (the later half o f the second millennium BCE) as a pastoral society with two opposing factions: cattle herders and goat herders. Agriculture had not yet become important in the economy o f the Greeks. The cattle herders formed a complex around bull worship, Zagreus, honey, and mead. The goat herders complex was around goat worship, Dionysos, and wine. The cattle herders tended to dominate and had control o f the better land, and built fortresses for protection. The goat herders were driven to the margins o f the land, especially the mountains, where they nomadically moved with their herds. The nomad movement was necessitated by the eating habits o f goats, which exhaust any grazing area and force a constant migration (31). A key event in this drama occurred in 1360, when Agenor o f Tyre (Phoenicia) launched an expedition against Crete under the command o f Cadmus. The expedition was in retaliation for a raid on Tyre by the Cretan king, Taurus. Cadmus never reached Crete, but went on to Greece, where he conquered Delphi and established his settlement at Thebes (14). He was, according to Zafiropulo, aided in his efforts by the mountaindwelling goat herders. Thebes thus became a center for a goat culture that included the worship o f Dionysos and the use o f wine. Cadmus belonged to the goat-herding faction, as attested to in the birth o f Dionysos from Semele and Zeus. Cadmus contributed wine to the complex o f Dionysian worship. Before Cadmus, the vine was unknown to Greece. His home of Tyre, on the
93
other hand, was known for its wine (55). Dionysos, however, appears to have been indigenous to Greece. He describes the period just before the expedition o f Cadmus (1450-1400) as one in which we find bull and goat more in opposition as time goes on, with Dionysos flouting the authority o f Zagreus (47). Zafiropulo is not disturbed that there is no archeological evidence o f the Dionysian goat cult. It is to be expected: wandering goat people had nowhere to place permanent religious symbols, permanent homes, or elaborate tombs. However, the evidence exists in myths. Thus, if I follow Zafiropulo correctly, Cadmus came from Tyre, established himself at Thebes with the landless, poor, goat-people o f the area, fully adopted the Dionysian cult, and added to it the contribution o f his Phoenician culture: wine.73 However, he did not bring a cult o f Dionysos, it was already there. Nor does Zafiropulo suggest that he brought Osiris he is silent on this topic. He connects Dionysos to wine, but makes it a late connection. The more ancient connection appears to be between Dionysos and goats. Zafiropulo theorizes that the bull-people were organized by King Danaus, an emigre from Egypt (22). After multiple generations o f fighting, the bull worshippers defeated the goat worshippers. Three important campaigns are reflected in myth. The first confrontation was the unsuccessful expedition o f Atreus known as the Seven against Thebes, circa 1265. This was followed one generation later by the successful campaign against Thebes known as the Epigoni, undertaken by Atreus son, Agamemnon, circa 1250 (73). Shortly thereafter was a larger expedition against Troy, which Zafiropulo considers by then to have become a rather impoverished city and one aligned with goats and Dionysos (84). Zafiropulo argues that these expeditions were not primarily economic
73 By legend, Cadmus also brought with him letters.
94
conflicts, but religious/cultural conflicts.74 Though the bull worshippers gained the upper hand, their success was only temporary. The goat-peoples later aligned themselves with the invading Dorians, overthrowing the established Mycenaean order, and plunging Greece into its dark ages.
75
Zafirpulos image is a cult centered primarily on goats, pushed by the bull worshippers to the margins and fringes o f society. It is also a cult identified with the underclass o f society. The Dionysos that we know from classical times is the result o f a confrontation and reconciliation between the cultsthe Zagreus-bull-mead cult and the Dionysian-goat-wine cult. The reconciliation is reflected in the double birth story the
baby Dionysos/Zagreus, bom o f Zeus and Persephone being rended by the Titans, then reborn as the son o f Zeus and Semele. In this regard, Zafiropulo is similar to Kerenyi except that Zafiropulo has the action taking place in Greece, whereas Kerenyi has it taking place on Crete and then being imported to Greece. Because the merging of the Zagreus and Dionysos cults takes place in Greece, I am calling this an indigenous theory. O f course, this begs the question o f where the goatbased Dionysos came from. Zafiropulo is silent on this. However, he does provide an explanation for the significance o f goats in the Dionysian cults. Shiva-India theory. In Gods o f Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions o f Shiva and Dionysos (1992), Alain Danielou argues that the origins o f Dionysos are in Shiva; that
74 A Marxist would, o f course, take issue with this interpretation, since the religious/culture differences between the peoples has an econom ic basis: goat herding versus cattle herding. 75 Zafiropulo credits Cadmus with bringing culture to the goat-people near Thebes. However, when the goat herders aligned them selves with the Dorians, there was no faction bearing the mantle o f high civilization. 76 Zafiropulo argues, however, that in spite o f their best efforts, the Greeks were never able to fully integrate and reconcile the two cults: Despite the efforts to reconcile them (which were carried out, to som e extent, at every level) the hatred existing between the B ulls and the Goats supporters remained perennial and inextinguishable, a legacy to their descendants. It lead to the Peloponnesian War, in which , once again, the central essence o f the Greek spirit was destroyed (96).
95
there is a direct link between Shivaist cults o f the fourth millennium in the Indus plain and classical Athens; and that Shivaist Tantra is virtually identical to Dionysian orgiasm. He begins his argument by relating ecstatic experience to the earliest and most fundamental o f religions: Prior to Vedic Hinduism, Greek religion, Zoroastrianism and even Abraham, this early religion is the outcome o f mans efforts since his remotest origins to understand the nature o f creation in its balanced beauty and cruelty, as well as the manner in which he can identify him self in the Creators work and cooperate with him. This religion is naturalistic, not moralistic, ecstatic and not ritualistic. It strives to find the points of contact between the various states o f being and to seek their harmonious relationship which allows every man to achieve his self-realization on a physical, intellectual and spiritual level and to play his role more fully in the universal symphony. (7) His statement not only places ecstasy among the most primal religious impulses, but it also connects it with a naturalistic outlook on life, where humankind finds its place in the universe rather than imposing its will upon the universe. From his own experience and research he discovered that this ancient wisdom survived in the cults o f Dionysos and Shiva. Moreover, he contends that these two are essentially the same god, manifesting themselves in different cultures. It is important to understand that Danielou goes further than arguing that the two gods are manifestations o f the same archetype. He argues that India exported the cult o f Shiva to the near east where it morphed into the cult o f Dionysos. I f Danielou is correct, then the myths and rituals associated with Shiva can shed light on Dionysos and vice versa: Dionysiac orgiasm exactly corresponds to Tantra. Through the power o f initiation, man is able to attain self-consciousness and master the reality o f what he has perceived in orgiasm. It is this that constitutes enlightenment. Through orgiasm, man first feels the reality o f certain forces within and without himself. Only then will he be able to grasp the principles involved and comprehend the nature o f the world and o f the divine. (140)
96
The term orgiasm tends to evoke thoughts o f a modern orgy, meaning unrestrained indulgence, or unrestrained sexual activity. However, the context in which Danielou uses it is rooted in the Greek religious term orgia, meaning secret rites, worship.
11
Thus, Danielou interprets the rites o f Dionysos as being essentially a Western version o f Tantrism. The equating o f Tantrism and orgiasm is not intended to dignify either. These secret rites can include love-play and worship o f the principle o f life: The act of love may thus be used as a means to perfection and subtle knowledge, o f returning to the beginning and o f direct contact with God. Moreover, intoxication can play a role: Physical drunkenness, induced by wine or other intoxicants, may equally facilitate and prepare man for mystical ecstasy by freeing him momentarily from his inhibitions, material worries, attachments and ties (140).78 Sexual license and intoxication are among the reasons why both traditions are counter-culture. Whenever they appeared, their cults are [ . . . ] banished from the city, where only those cults in which man is given paramount importance are acknowledged, allowing and excusing its depredations and condemning all forms o f ecstasy which permit direct contact with the mysterious world o f the spirits (17). The counter-culture aspect o f both gods is illustrated by Danielou with the characterization o f the gods followers, the bhaktas , bacchants and vratyas, as described from the point o f view o f the dominant culture: In the Mahabharata, the vratyas are called the trash o f society, incendiaries, poisoners, pimps, adulterers, abortionists, drug addicts etc.. {Mahabharata, V,35,46,1227.) Livy uses practically the same words to
77 American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd edition. 78 The equating o f Tantra and orgiasm (like the equating o f Shiva and D ionysos) is a bit dicey. W e use information from Tantra tradition to fill in the m issing details o f orgiasm. This may be valid, but it might be equally valid that lack o f evidence o f som e Tantric practices in orgiasm is proof that the traditions are not identical.
97
describe the activities o f Dionysiac sects: incest, rape o f young boys, stealing, false-witness, drunkenness, etc. This kind o f argument against the bhaktas has been employed in all periods o f puritanical, conservative society and in Greece served as a pretext for persecuting groups o f bacchants. (102) These cults have existed, and continue to exist, on the fringes o f society. Thus, we can be informed of them not only by their own mythologies, but also by the mythologies o f the dominant culture, which tend to demonize them. This counter-culture attribute speaks clearly to one of the most salient attributes o f Dionysos (and Shiva): his insistence on being recognized for the god that he is and the resistance that he encounters in seeking that recognition. It speaks to a god-demon polarity, both within our collective culture and our individual psyches. Important in this culture/counter-culture polarity is the distinction between the city and the wilderness.79 Much o f the history o f Dionysian ritual that we are familiar with comes from a later point in time when Greece had developed city states. In this drama, Dionysos, who was now reconciled and integrated with Zagreus, is the stranger to the city. There may be many reasons for this, but much o f it is pragmatic. In cities, people live in close proximity to one another. Organization, codes o f conduct, and morality become important for the smooth functioning o f society. Moralistic religion is a means o f imposing this control. In the wilderness, it is more important that people find harmony with nature than with one another. The need for moralistic religion is lessened, and the need for naturalistic religion is increased.
79 Zafiropolu noted the conflict between bull worshippers and goat worshippers. Since the bull worshippers held the better land and were not nomadic, they did tend to develop fortresses for protection, which might be viewed as early cities. Thus there may have been an overlay o f city versus wilderness in the D ionysos versus Zagreus conflict.
98
Danielou makes a case for Dionysian religion being a derivative o f earlier Shivaistic religion, which he can date to the sixth millennium BCE, having evolved from animistic concepts. Starting from this period, Shivaite rites and symbols begin to appear both in India and in Europe: the cult o f the bull, the phallus, the ram, the snake, the lady o f the Mountains, as well as ecstatic dances, the swastika, the labyrinth, sacrifices, etc. (32). O f particular interest is the discovery o f tombs along the Danube where the interned are buried in a yoga position (33). Danielou acknowledges that India cannot be proven to be the birth place o f Shivaism, but India is the only place that has an unbroken tradition o f Shivaism dating back to pre-historic times and continuing until today. It is interesting that Danielou doesnt claim India to be the birthplace o f Shiva. As we continue to turn over rocks looking for the gods source, we only encounter more rocks begging us to go deeper. Ultimately, however, the source of Shiva/Dionysos/Osiris/Zagreus/Sabazios can be nowhere other than within ourselves. Otto emphasized the notion that Dionysos was a god o f epiphany he appeared rather than arrived. It is doubtful if we will ever be able to look back into the recesses o f prehistory to find that exact place and time that the god made his first appearance to a human being. It may be similarly difficult to look back in our lives to the time when he first revealed him self to us. The Shivaist viewpoint on this would be only subtly different. In his introduction to Swami Muktanandas Nothing Exists That Is Not Siva, Swami Shantananda notes that the leitmotif o f the book is that each o f us is Shiva: that we are searching for God, yet we are God (xxiii). We are born from Shiva. Thus, our discovery or epiphany o f Shiva is an act of self-discovery. Muktanandas interpretation o f the first Shiva Sutra is
99
Consciousness is the S e lf (5). Therefore, it is pointless to ask where Shiva came from. We can only ask when did we become aware o f Shiva? We become aware o f Shiva when we become self-aware, aware o f our awareness, conscious o f our consciousness. Danielous specific path for the spreading o f the cult is that a Shivaite civilization arose in the Indus plain in antediluvian times, probably the fourth millennium. The cult was bought to the Middle East by the Sumerians, who probably migrated from the Indus plain to Mesopotamia, and from there spread to Crete (34). Presumably, Egypt was influenced in the process, but unlike Herodotus, Danielou places neither the Egyptians nor Osiris specifically on path leading to Crete. He argues that three important centers o f Shiviast worship developed during the third millennium: Mohenjo Daro in the Indus plains, postdiluvian Sumerian civilization (Sumer), and the Minoan civilization at Knossos. It is in Knossos, argues Danielou, that Shivaist worship, in the form of Dionysos, makes its contribution to Western civilization. To make his case, Danielou cites references in myth and archeology. He notes that the myths of both Dionysos and the Egyptian Osiris include stories o f those gods visiting India. Conversely, Shivaist myth includes references to spreading the cult to the West. The archeological evidence includes many instances o f artifacts with similar motifs scattered world wide. Danielou suggests that the god worshipped on Crete was originally named Zan, and that his name morphed into the Hellenized Zagreus as Zan became identified with Zeus. He argues that Zagreus became Dionysos, the god o f Nysa, in the late second millennium when Crete was conquered and destroyed by the Achaeans. Once
100
Dionysos/Shiva was ensconced in Crete, the cult spread to Greece and developed along the lines suggested by Kerenyi. An association presented by Danielou is the connection with the ancient civilization o f the Indus plain. Anyway that the cult is dated, it is stunningly old. Danielou has the Shivaist cults o f the Indus plain dating back to the fourth millennium, but as mentioned, there are artifacts from similar cults in Europe and Asia dating back to the sixth millennium. This sinks its roots deep into human history: before patriarchal religion, and before agriculture and matriarchal religion. It takes us back to hunter/gather societies and shamanic religion. Another connection that can be made is to the people from whom the Indian Shivaist culture sprang: the dark-skinned Dravidians, now called the Tamils. In the past century, dark skin would have been associated with the shadow, the unconscious, and/or wild primitivism. Such associations are no longer acceptable. A non-racist perspective would be to see it as a call to diversity if something so spiritually primal is appearing to us from dark-skinned people, the universe may be saying get over your racism. There are some specific areas where Shivaist practices can shed light on Dionysian rites. A clear point o f comparison between the two cults is the importance o f the Phallus, or Linga, as a principal of life. Usually phallus worship is associated with fertility rites, and seems to be inspired by awe for the act of creating life. However, Danielous interpretation o f Tantra extends the phallus beyond its importance in sexual reproduction. From the point o f view o f Shivaite mysticism, as in also the case with Dionysiac orgiasm, erotic ecstasy is not a means o f reproduction, but purely a seeking after pleasure (57). Thus, Tantra gives us permission to enjoy pleasure for its own sake.
101
Moreover, an intense experience o f pleasure can be a vehicle for carrying us into the immediacy o f the moment. Danielou argues that the cult o f the goddess in India is paralleled by similar cults in other parts o f the world. One manifestation o f the goddess in India is Shivas wife, the mountain goddess Parvati, who invites comparison to the Phrygian mountain goddess, Cybele. He argues that this cult o f the goddess remained underground in India during the period o f Aryan conquest and reemerged as Tantrism (77). In a passage that I find very interesting, Danielou makes a declarative statement about tantrism that firmly connects it to nature based religion: Tantrism is opposed to Vedanta, since it rejects the concept of the world as an illusion, or Maya, from m ans point o f view. On the contrary, it recognizes the worlds reality as a form o f power, or Shakti (149). My reading of Danielou is that o f nature religions and cults contain the seeds o f Tantrism. Their spirituality is physically embodied.80 The goddess, Shakti, is the first manifestation o f Shiva and is his energetic counterpart. Without the creative energy o f represented by the goddess, Shiva is like a corpse (shava), incapable o f acting, o f revealing himself, o f accomplishing his ideation of the world (Danielou 76). Mythically, this connects the physical world to the energetic/spiritual world with neither standing on its own. One o f the principal aspects o f Shiva identifed by Danielou is the Ardhanarishvara , the hermaphrodite. It represents the union o f the feminine and masculine principles, providing an image for the non-division o f opposites. Danielou quotes the Upanishads in stating that the divine is that in which opposites coexist (63).
80 A s opposed, for example, to religions that separate spirit and body, one being sacred, the other being profane, or opposed to religions that posit the material world to be an illusion from the start.
When Shiva and Shakti are united, their union is sensual delight (63). He notes that this image is similarly found in the Greek world. Dionysos is alternatively pictured both a masculine, bearded male, and an effeminate adolescent, who was raised by women. Cybele, herself, originally had both male and female sex organs. Danielou argues that bisexuality is imbedded in the very nature o f gods, and that the progression o f the human race [. . .] progressive reintegration o f the sexes until androgyny is achieved, more evolved human beings tending towards bisexuality (66-67). Interestingly, he cites research on the brain indicating that m ans81 intuitive, sensitive and receptive elements are in the left side (right side o f the brain) and the logical, active, aggressive, male element is connected with the right side (left side o f the brain). He further suggests that the reason so many artists are bisexual is that they have more fully integrated these two sides (67). I find Danielous portrait o f Dionysos particularly rich. Even if his history is not literally true, the development o f the Dionysian archetype using Shivaistic/Tantric metaphor breathes real life into an ancient cult. Practitioners o f the old religion are alive and well in India, with subtle tentacles infiltrating the west (e.g. the Siddha Yoga Path of Swami Muktananda and his successor, Gurumayi Chidvilananda). Doubtless, few Western practitioners o f Tantra are aware that their tradition had an analog in the orgiasm ancient Greece.
81 Danielou uses the term man in this description. It is not clear whether he means human or male I suspect the former, but since I am not com pletely sure I use his terminology rather than speculating on his meaning.
1 03
Themes and Motifs One major theme was alluded to in the etymology o f the gods name. Dionysos seems to be simultaneously from everywhere and from nowhere. In searching for his origins before arriving in Greece, he can be located in Egypt, Phoenicia, Macedonia, Crete, Thrace, Phrygia, India, and the prehistoric caves in Asia and Europe. This mirrors the ubiquitousness o f his mythical home o f Nysa, which is seemingly located all around the eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, he is from nowhere. As Otto says, he is the god o f epiphany, one who simply appears. And, as Harrison noted, Dionysos may be an umbrella name for an entire constellation of similar gods. His history shows him to be a god o f ecstasy, dating back to shamanic cultures.82 He is associated with dance and music. He is associated with fertility, the most primal creative urge. He a god o f sex, not only sex for procreation, but as Danielou suggests, sex for pleasure and enjoyment. Whether ecstasy is being experienced as sacred journey o f a shaman, the emotional madness o f a Phrygian mountain top religious orgy, the pleasure o f a decadent Roman sex orgy, or the bliss o f a Tantric mystical rite, Dionysos is there. I suggest that a common element in all o f these is the sense o f being completely present and completely in the moment. Even in writing this dissertation, Dionysos is present when I get lost in my work and lose my sense o f time, and experience writing as the universe working through my fingers on the keyboard. The awareness o f the present moment is clearly a facet o f Dionysos when we connect him to India, Shiva, and Tantrism. In a later chapter, I will portray this picture more vividly when we discuss theater, a derivative o f Dionysian ritual.
82 Eliade argues that the essential and defining element o f shamanism is ecstasy the shaman is a specialist in the sacred, able to abandon his body and undertake cosm ic journeys in the spirit (in trance) (320).
104
The focus on the now has important implications. Writing in The Power o f Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle asserts that not being fully in the experience o f the moment leaves us unavoidably in our thinking mind. Identification with our thinking mind [ . . . ] creates a false self, the ego, as a substitute for your true self rooted in Being (39). As a negative, this speaks to precisely to the nature o f the Dionysian experience. Stated positively, by being in-the-moment there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence. Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, emanates Being (42). By being in-the-moment we cross the boundary o f our finite ego and become connected to other living things. Nietzsche recognized this part o f the Dionysian experience: Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged once more by the magic o f the Dionysiac rite, but nature itself, long alienated or subjugated, rises again to celebrate the reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. (23) The crossing of our ego boundary is, in fact, very close to the definition o f ecstasy as standing outside o f oneself. This speaks to his nature as a boundary crosser, a god o f liminality. This characteristic is clear in his myth and also apparent in his history. He has roots in primitive/barbaric cultures, places where cultural/social taboos are broken: incest, human sacrifice, eating raw flesh, cannibalism.83 In breaking each of these taboos, a boundary is crossed. His nomadic life is a story o f boundary crossing. Mythically, this is reflected in his stories o f arrival, most notably at Thebes and at Delphi. Historically, it is reflected in his long journey from Egypt, Phoenicia, Thrace, Phrygia, Crete, and India to Greece and Athens. We will later see that his temple was placed in the swamps, suggesting the
83 Some the alleged taboo breaking recedes so far into that past that its hard not to wonder if it ever literally occurred at all. Whether it did or didnt, w e can still think o f this as a place in our psyches.
105
blurring of the land/water boundary and the above ground/below ground boundary. Experientially, it is reflected in the crossing o f ego boundaries when we are in-themoment. One method he uses in helping us cross boundaries is intoxicants. Each o f the proto-Dionysian gods is associated with an intoxicant: Zagreus is associated with mead, Sabazios with beer and hempseed fumes, and Shiva with marijuana. Dionysos himself, o f course, is associated with wine. Some scholars have theorized that stronger intoxicants were involved. Graves, for example, speculates that the maenads may have consumed hallucinogenic mushrooms (9). These intoxicants help the initiate cross his or her own
boundaries to achieve communion with the god. Recall that mythically, the mentor of Dionysos was the wise Silenus, a notorious drunk. Silenus is the image o f wisdom associated with the intoxicated state. The historical and mythical stories o f Dionysos arriving are accompanied by a simultaneous arrival o f an intoxicant, usually wine. Intoxication takes us across a psychic boundary into an altered state of consciousness enabling us to acquire the wisdom that comes when we see life from a new perspective.85 The crossing o f boundaries is a double-edged sword. On one side, there is human need to cross the confining boundaries o f rationality in order to experience ecstasy. On the other side, this crossing brings danger, for the boundaries that we cross typically exist for good reasons. The danger is particularly acute if we associate the experience of ecstasy with the thrill of crossing a boundary or breaking a taboo, for such an association means that ecstasy can be achieved only by going further and further and taking more risk. The metaphor o f homeopathic medicine strikes me as being very illuminating in this
84 There has also been speculation that entheogens played a role at the Eleusinian Mysteries. 85 Kerenyi identifies zoe as the primary characteristic o f D ionysos. Downing suggests that zo e is libido (73). Interestingly, intoxication often stimulates the libido, or at least removes restraints on the libido.
106
regard. A small amount o f madness (ecstatic Dionysos) is carefully administered by the doctor (rational Apollo) as means o f preventing uncontrolled hysteria, or as Freud might suggest, a small amount of madness placates our repressed instincts so as to moderate our neuroses.86 The key to the effective administration o f the medicine is controlling the dosage, and having a safe place in which digest the experience. The history o f Dionysos is one marked by a struggle to control the dosage and to develop the safe container for the experience. Rohdes description o f his incorporation into Delphi, a home to Apollo, is perhaps the clearest mythic example.87 In the next chapter, I will discuss a series o f festivals and rituals that took place in Athens. These were the containers used by Athenians to allow the safe experience o f the power of Dionysos. The presence o f the festivals is evidence that Athenians did not think that Dionysos could be experienced all the time around the clock. However, I want to acknowledge that this is an Apollonian view o f Dionysos, the rational, thinking mind
86 Freuds C ivilization an d Its D iscontents offers an interesting perspective on this, though the book does not specifically discuss D ionysos. If I understand him correctly, Freud sees civilized humankind as caught in a vice, the jaw s o f which are the individuals quest for freedom and societys demand for conformity. The source o f the individuals quest is instinctual desire: the most significant desires being libido and aggression. These desires are identified with the id. The uncivilized, primitive D ionysos can be loosely equated with this psychic zone, particularly libido. These desires are thwarted by the demands o f civilization, which are internalized in the form o f the superego. Once developed, the superego leads the individual to the experience o f guilt and to neurotic symptoms, even when the individual has committed no crime (103). This experience is so severe that Freud describes the relationship between superego and ego as sado-masochistic (100). A s a palliative measure, humans adopt strategies for coping, deflecting our desires into professional achievement, finding substitute satisfactions (e.g. religion and art) or by retreating into intoxication. A Dionysian festival/ritual can be seen as a place where these palliative measures are entertained, and equally important, as a place where the super-ego is sent packing on a mandatory vacation so that instinctual desires can be entertained directly without guilt. That Flomer and Hesiod paid little attention to D ionysos may reflect the state o f civilization at that time i.e. it was not until the full flowering o f the city state and the corresponding repression o f instincts that the god o f those instincts arrived on our doorstep demanding deification. 87 Invoking A pollo carries the implication that restraint is non-Dionysian, i.e., that the Dionysian impulse is for more, more, more and must be reined in by our thinking mind. However, recall his myth: although his followers are prone to excess, he is not. He is not a drunk, he is not promiscuous. There may be more restraint im plicit in D ionysos than is generally acknowledged.
107
struggling to control what it knows it cannot repress. This is a theme I will expand on in the next chapter. History has him coming from primitive and barbaric places: prehistoric caves and mountain-tops. He is seemingly rooted in human sacrifice and cannibalism. Yet, the Dionysos that we know from Athens had evolved from these beginnings to a more humane and civilized figure. Who is the real Dionysos, the Hellenized god o f classical Greece or the wild Sabazios/Shiva/Zagreus/Osiris figures from which he evolved? Although it is important to recognize the roots from which he came, it would be a mistake to identify him as being no more than those roots. He is the god o f death and rebirth; of dismemberment and reassembly. Part o f his identity is change and revolution. His initiation by Rhea, his accommodation at Delphi with Apollo, and the influence o f multiple imported cults all contributed to shaping the nature o f the god.
108
Chapter 4 Dionysian Festivals Chapter 3 covered the history o f the importation and early development of the Dionysian cult in and around Athens. Once established, the cult blossomed into a system o f festivals that was full flower in the Classical Period. These festivals tended to fit into one o f two patterns. Key Dionysian festivals were rooted in the cycle o f growing grapes and making wine. Thus, wine becomes the cults primary metaphor. In addition, Dionysos became important in several major festivals dedicated to the agricultural goddess, Demeter. In some cases he became as important in the festival as the goddess herself. Mythically, Demeter and Dionysos are neither married nor are they related as mother and son. However, their close relationship in these festivals makes them a divine couple. The purpose o f this chapter is to give an overview o f the important Athenian festivals involving Dionysos, and to highlight the themes in each. This chapter looks for meaning in the rituals o f the god rather than in the myths o f the god. One particular ritual, theater, will be discussed more fully in the next chapter. It is my view that theater strikes at the very core o f Dionysian worship. It is not my intent to cover all o f the festivals in Greece, or even in Athens, for there were far too many. And it should be noted that although the Dionysian festivals were important in Athens, the primary cults o f the aristocracy continued to be those o f Zeus and Apollo. Dionysos was primarily associated with common people. At the end o f the chapter, I provide a chart o f the festivals for easy reference. In writing this chapter, I rely on many o f the same classicists that were covered in chapter 1, especially Burkert, Harrison, and Kerenyi. In addition, I also rely on three additional texts: The God Who Comes: Dionysian Mysteries Revisited , by Rosemarie
109
Taylor-Perry, The History o f Greek and Roman Theater, by Margaret Bieber, and The Festivals o f Attica: An Archaeological Commentary, by Erika Simon. The festivals that I cover are the Oschophoria, the Haloa, the rural Dionysia, the Lenaia, the Anthesteria, the Agrai, the Katgogia, and the Eleusinia. At the outset, I emphasize that the fact base associated with some o f these festivals is small. Indeed, some were shrouded in secrecy. Thus, it is often difficult to separate fact from conjecture. The scheduling o f these festivals was done in accordance with the Greek lunar calendar. I provide the lunar dates o f the festivals and also approximate the range o f dates for festivals in the solar calendar that we use.88 The calendar date o f a festival is often significant, in that the date is often a reflection o f an important step in wine-making, the growing/harvesting o f grain or an important mythological event.
Oschophoria This one-day festival was held on 7 Pyanpsion (corresponding to October or early November) and coincided with the harvesting and crushing o f grapes. The festival shared its date with Pyanopsia, a festival o f Apollo. Simon notes the significance o f this sharing: Here we can see with certainty the influence o f Delphi, because Apollos oracle regulated and controlled the Dionysiac cults in Greece. Moreover, the two gods also shared the sanctuary in Delphi: in summer Apollo was venerated there, in winter
OA
Dionysos {Festivals o f Attica 89).
88 Since twelve lunar months does not exactly correspond to one solar year, a lunar date w ill not correspond to the same solar date each year. 89 According to Rohde, D ionysos reigned at Delphi for three winter months: Gamelion, Anthesterion, and Elapheblion, roughly January through March. These were the months in which the major Dionysian festivals took place, and the months in which D ionysos walked the earth (309-10). Taylor-Perry agrees (56). Kerenyi (D ionysos), however, starts the three month cycle earlier with the rising o f the Pleiades, roughly Novem ber 8 on the solar calendar (215). That would result in the Dionysian cycle beginning at
110
Arguably, this was the beginning o f the Dionysian season, the grapes having died and now entering the underworld awaiting their rebirth as wine. Transvestism played a role in the ceremony. Plutarch argued that the festival was instituted in memory of boys disguising themselves as girls in order to escape the Minotaur in the labyrinth o f Knossos, Crete. The festival celebrates the slaying o f the Minotaur and the spiritual escape from the labyrinth o f death into the eternal realm of rebirth (Taylor-Perry 48). This interpretation seems likely, given the parallel between the life of the grape and the boys escaping the Minotaur. It also provides a bridge back to Crete and Minoan culture. However, the transvestism also recalls the childhood of Dionysos in which he was raised by Athamas and Ino as a girl, and his escape from the wrath o f Hera. The theme o f transcending gender is one that repeats itself in the story of Dionysos and the gods from which he evolved. The m otif plays itself out in the form of transvestites, hermaphrodites, and the sacred marriage. I do not mean to suggest that these three variations on the m otif are identical, but all three do share some form o f uniting the masculine with the feminine. I will expand on this theme in my discussion of the Anthesteria. Simon indicates that the festival was a thanksgiving to Dionysos (90). TaylorPerry goes further, speculating that it was a thanks-feast, instituted in gratitude at that point when a shaman or priest announced there would no longer by any need for human sacrifice (Festivals o f Attica 48). It is clear that the myths of Dionysos echo the theme o f human sacrifice. It is one o f the most primitive and horrific aspects o f the god. A festival
least one month earlier on the lunar calendar. Simon (Festivals o f Attica) has a Dionysian cycle running from the O schophoria to the Anthesteria, which approximates the cycle proposed by Kerenyi (92).
Ill
that gives thanks for the ending o f the practice speaks to the civilizing and Hellenizing effect that Greece had on the god. While Dionysos may have come from a place (physically, temporally, or psychologically) where humans were sacrificed, the Dionysos of Athens does not demand human blood. This raises a fundamental question about who the god really is. Is the real Dionysos the primitive, raging, mountain-top god who has been only temporary contained and controlled by the influences o f Greece and Apollo a god who at any moment could revert back to his former nature? Or is the real Dionysos changed, tamed, and thus different than Sabazios, Zagreus, Osiris, and Shiva? A consequence o f civilizing Dionysos is that some aspects o f his former self are projected into his shadow. Remember that the cult o f rational Apollo sponsored the integration o f Dionysos into Greek society, albeit with controls. Presumably, the integration o f the civilized Dionysos into society occurred because it offered some efficacy in guiding/channeling the ecstatic impulse to a safe and productive purpose.90
Haloa Taylor-Perry describes this festival as a celebration o f Dionysos and Demeter: grapes and grain. It also celebrated the cutting-back o f vine stocks after the harvesting o f their fruit. At this time, the threshing-floors were cleaned and blessed (39). Harrison (1922) notes the significance o f the sharing between Dionysos and Demeter: The affiliation o f the worship o f the corn-goddess to that o f the wine-god is o f the first importance. The coming o f Dionysos brought a new spiritual impulse to the religion o f Greece [ . . . ]
90 This begs a comparison to a similar god-man, Jesus, for whom the shadow is explicitly personified as Satan. Satan w as then banished from society, and persecuted anywhere he reared his head. Given the somewhat violent history o f Christianity, w e can at least question the efficacy o f this approach.
112
(146). She further contends that the Haloa was a primitive prototype for the Eleusinian Mysteries.9 1 This festival took place on 26 Poseideon (late December or January), which is a bit incongruous for a threshing festival. Harrisons explanation is that the date was moved because o f Dionysos. The rival festivals o f Dionysos were in mid-winter. He possessed him self o f the festivals o f Demeter, took over her threshing-floor and compelled the anomaly o f a winter threshing festival [ . . . ] There could be no clearer witness to the might o f the incoming god (Prolegomena 147). Both Harrison and Taylor-Perry describe the Haloa as bloodless (no animal victim) and both describe the sacrificial offerings as being presented by a priestess rather than a priest. Taylor-Perry suggests that the offerings were wineless, although Harrison indicates that the climax of the festival was a great banquet, at which wine was served (148). Paraphrasing Lucian, Harrison also suggests that the festival was instituted in memory o f the death o f Ikarios after his introduction o f the vine into Attica (Prolegomena 148/ O f this festival, I would emphasize the joint ownership by Demeter and Dionysos. This sharing o f status reflects the basic compatibility between a goddess religion (Demeter) with an ecstatic religion (Dionysos). This sharing also speaks to a transcending o f the feminine and masculine.
Rural Dionysia Sometimes called the lesser Dionysia, these were multiple festivals held throughout Attica in Poseideon (December/January). Revelries were performed in honor o f Dionysos
91 Since the Eleusinia began mid-second millennium BCE, the H aloa is thus very old.
113
and a phallic chant recited. These chants and processions led Herodotus to connect Dionysos with Osiris (see chapter 3). Theater was part o f these festivals and in some cases plays that had done well in the city (Athens) were later performed at rural Dionysia. It is theorized (by Aristotle, for example) that comedy evolved from the rural Dionysia. Drinking wine was part o f the celebrations. Celebrations in some o f the larger districts took on notable importance. For example, those in Piraeus, Icaria, and Aixone were well known (Bieber 51). The rural Dionysia blurs with the Lenaia. Kerenyi (Dionysos) calls the rural Dionysia the Lenaia o f the countryfolk, and further suggests that a differentiation between what occurred in the country and what occurred in the city in the winter months o f Maimaktrion, Poseideon, and Gamelion is probably unjustified (296). Pickard-Cambridge states that [ . . . ] it is as least highly probable that the festival called at Athens by the name Lenaea was the Rural Dionysia o f primitive Athens itself [ . . . ] (237). Taylor-Perry doesnt distinguish between the rural Dionysia and the Lenaia. Theater will be addressed in several o f the festivals that follow below, and then will be discussed more fully in the following chapter.
Lenaia The Lenaia92 was held on the first full moon after winter solstice, 12 Gamelion, which is mid-January to mid-February. During the Lenean period, the populace o f Athens attended plays and dithyrambic93 events held in honor o f what was, in essence, the birthday o f the god, performed by bands o f amateur actors, singers, and playwrights
92 In passing, I should mention another Dionysian festival: Agrionia. This festival w as not held in Attica. Burkert considers it to be the Boeotian Lenaia (290), w hile Otto considers it be the Boeotian Anthesteria (118-19). It was held in the spring, celebrated the death-rebirth o f D ionysos and interestingly, women at the festival were pursued by an ax w ielding priest. Otto suggests that, on occasion, the women being pursued actually were killed. H e also considers the festival to underscore the connection o f D ionysos with the dead, and thus his identity with Hades. 93 A hymn.
114
which may have wandered from village to village performing on behalf o f the Dionysian nativity since the solstice itse lf (Taylor-Perry 55).94 Taylor-Perry stresses: Lenaia was first and foremost the celebration o f the nativity o f the Lord of Souls, who entered and would leave the world o f men through the chthonic swamps, bringing with him a mystic horde o f departed spirits avid for the new life implied by the yearly rebirth o f a Child o f Wonder (56).95 The dithyrambic melodies were dedicated to the reborn Dionysos. The festival coincides with an important step in the wine-making process. Kerenyi tells us: The festival name Lenaia is derived from lenos, pressing vat, and lenaion, the place where the wine was pressed and preserved until fermentation was complete (298). When wine ferments, the partially fermented wine must be periodically siphoned (or ladled) off from the lees (sediment). In modern wine-making, this process is called racking. It is around this processing step that the Lenaia evolved. As the wine was being born, so was the wine god. It was at the Lenaia that Dionysos sacred Lenean mask was on public display. The meaning o f the mask is summarized by Taylor-Perry: There are two main theories regarding the meaning o f the Dionysian mask. I subscribe to both o f them, because they combine into a premise which gives deep meaning to the rituals o f both Lenaia and Anthesteria, as well as to theatrical performance in general, which began with the mask. The combined premise states that the masks direct and unblinking stare is a form o f primal confrontation, capable o f driving civilized impulses and the world o f everyday living to the back o f ones mind and calling forth the reflexive matrix of the autonomic nervous system, from which novel
94 A long, continuous celebration culminating on 12 G am elion is consistent with the idea o f the rural Dionysia not being distinct from the Lenaia. 95 Paris (30) suggests the alternative view that the Lenaia w as in honor o f Sem ele and that at the Lenaia, Sem ele w as enjoined by a priest to rejoin D ionysos, the spirit o f spring. D ionysos, represented by an ox, was sacrificed, recalling the old customer o f sacrificing the consort o f the Great Goddess. The ox was then cut up into nine parts, o f which one was burned and the others eaten raw. N ine moon priestesses took part in the ritual.
115
emotions and impulses may arise including but not limited to that o f spiritual awe. (57) She goes on to compare this to the effect o f the modern movie, where the larger-than-life, two-dimensional characters appear to be more than human. Her comment underscores the importance o f theater to the Lenaia in Classical times. But it also emphasizes a facet of theater the manner in which it brings us into the immediate now, and the sense o f awe that such a moment inspires in us. Other important rituals occurred in the Lenaia season, though they were not part o f the Lenaia per se. Most marriages took place during this time o f the year.96 TaylorPerry theorizes that: Spirits were believed to rise from the underworld through the newlybreached fermentation vats, following the infant Lord o f the Souls upward from their chthonic abodes, in hope o f reincarnation. With luck, this would be provided by the newlyweds whose marriages were customarily held in the lucky time between mid-December and mid-February in Greece as well as within Greek diaspora communities (62). Another important ritual occurred near Delphi at the time o f the Lenaia by the Thyiades, female worshippers o f Dionysos in the role o f nurturing mothers. This group would climb the mountain (Parnassos) near Delphi to the natal cave o f Bacchus carrying a sacred winnowing basket called a liknon. Harrison (Prolegomena) describes the functional uses o f this basket: In primitive agricultural days, the liknon , a shovel-shaped basket, served three purposes: it was a fan with which to winnow grain, it was a basket to hold grain or fruit or sacred objects, it was a cradle for a baby (401-2). All three functional uses had a corresponding ritual use. First, the winnowing of grain is a separation process in which this basket (sometimes more like a fan) is used like a sieve. A mystical interpretation would be that
96 At this time o f the year, the G am elia, the sacred marriage o f Zeus and Hera, also took place.
the liknon is able to separate the good from the bad. Second, the basket would be used to hold a series o f sacred objects. Some o f these objects would be toys, e.g., dice, tops, bells, and mirrors. These toys in the ritual parallel the toys used by the Titans to beguile the infant Dionysos Zagreus. In addition, there would be other sacred objects, most notably a phallus. Taylor-Perry notes: No winnowing-basket could be rightly be called a liknon unless it held a carved wooden phallus, reminiscent o f the Sacred Childs heart, a symbol of indestructible life rescued from the awful Titanic feast and the wrathful fires o f Zeus by Athena (63-64). Other items would include snakes (typically in the form o f an amulet), golden apples, and votive offerings. The basket could serve as a cradle for a baby, and in some vase paintings, the infant Dionysos is pictured in such a basket, and is called Liknites. Thus, the basket is well suited for a ritual in which the god dies and is reborn. Accordingly, the Thyiades were awakening Liknites. It was their purpose to act as nurturers to the infant. Rituals involving the carrying o f the liknon are called (by Harrison) liknonphoria (Prolegomena 577). Near the time o f the ritual o f the Thyiades, a sacrifice took place at Delphi itself. A goat was sacrificed, cut into seven pieces, and placed in the tripod over the oracle. Taylor-Perry suggests that this ritual reenacted the sacrifice o f Dionysos by the Titans. She further seems to infer that it took place at the same time the Liknites was awakened by the Thyiades, making for a simultaneous death and rebirth o f the god. She quotes Plutarch in making her case (66). Harrison suggests that the ritual sacrifice took place weeks later and that it was ritually connected to the opening o f the Oracle. Both agree that the ritual took place; they differ on timing and purpose. The Lenaia and the
117
corresponding rituals at Delphi marked the beginning o f the Dionysian season. It was during this season that Dionysos reigned at the oracle, and during which the influence of Dionysos was at its annual peak.97 A key m otif in this festival is the emphasis on theater and choral performances (e.g. dithyramb). Although this is addressed in the next chapter, I would emphasize here the focus on creativity. As the wine is being bom, the god is being born, and the individuals creativity is giving birth. The festival is a veritable orgy o f creation. One o f the fundamental laws o f the universe is that nothing is created without something being destroyed. Thus, the creative process is a death-rebirth process, which is clearly an element o f the Lenaea. The death and rebirth m otif is clear with the parallel rituals taking place at Delphi, and also in the folk custom of marriages taking place during this time o f year and the belief in the souls rising from the swamps in search of reincarnation.
Anthesteria This was a three-day-long festival that was also known as the more ancient Dionysia, the flower festival, and/or the festival of souls. The name, according to Taylor-Perry, contains the innuendo o f the promise given by the mysteries that the human soul could be reborn like a flower out o f the mud (33). It was celebrated on 11-13 Anthesterion, mid-February to mid-March. Simon (Festivals o f Attica) believes that it originally was the end o f a Dionysiac cycle that began with the Oschophoria; the Oschophoria for the
97 Again, there is som e disagreement regarding the dates o f the beginning o f the Dionysian season (see the footnote at the beginning o f the chapter). Rohde and Taylor-Perry subscribe to this later date.
118
vintage and the Anthesteria for the first drinking. She further argues that it was originally
AO
a vegetation festival and dates from the late Bronze Age (92). The first day was Pithoiga: the day o f the crocks or ja r opening. Richard Hamilton, in his book, Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian Iconography and Ritual, writes that what little is known about this day comes from Plutarch, and what Plutarch tells us comes from inferences about the name itself: that the pithos (of new wine) was opened." Since this festival was in February, the wine casked in the fall would have fermented enough for drinking. Thus, Hamilton believes that Plutarch is correct in suggesting that the casks were opened for drinking on this day (6). More is known about the second day, Choes, or wine jugs, since Aristophanes gave an account o f it in his Achornians. According to Taylor-Perry, this day was considered by ancients to be a day o f pollution, Choes Day was the only day o f the year when the Temple to Dionysos o f the Swamps (Limnaios )100 was officially open to the public. Poetry, songs, and plays were performed in honor o f Dionysos as Divine Bridegroom.101 Young girls honored the end o f the wanderings o f Erigone by swinging on chairs hung from trees.102 Young boys were inducted into their family clans, and received their first taste o f wine. There was a feast, in which each person ate alone and in
98 Thus, her cycle is at odds with the cycle proposed by Rohdes. See footnote 2 at the chapter beginning. 99 Apparently this w as not the first time the w ine w as opened and tasted. Kerenyi (Dionysos) alludes a tasting occurring at the beginning o f winter at the Temple, w hile the wine was still sw eet (291). 100 This tem ple is interesting. Its dedication to D ionysos o f the Swamps underscores his liminal nature. Burkert contends that there were no swam ps or marshes in the city limits o f Athens, so the name must have com e with the cult from elsewhere (237). Taylor-Perry argues that the swamps had been drained years earlier. She also says that this w as the only tem ple dedicated to Dionysos in Greece (86). 101 Her statement is controversial. Many scholars insist that plays were not performed during this festival. 102 Erigone had hung herself from a tree that had grown from the corpse o f her father, Ikarios. Ikarios had been killed after giving wine to a group o f farmers they believed that they had been poisoned. The act o f swinging, itself, is indicative o f boundary crossing.
119
silence, contemplating the crime o f eating (71 ).103 Presumably, this was an effort to be absolved of the guilt o f killing animals for food. Burkert describes the drinking as a contest (in silence), in which the winner is the first person to drain their jug. Each jug contained more than two liters o f wine, though the wine was diluted by the addition o f water (237-38). He also describes the mythical underpinning o f the event, a connection to the myth o f Orestes, who had killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge her murder o f Orestes father, Agamemnon, immediately following the Trojan War: The aetiological myth tells how the matricide Orestes was entertained in this way in Athens, so that the house and table fellowship extended to him was simultaneously retracted by a ban on communication, whether through eating or drinking or speech. Such is the atmosphere o f the ritual: the participants drink at the Choes like persons defiled by murder; that is why they are excluded from the sanctuaries. (238) The day ended with a ritual procession o f female worshippers from the Temple of Dionysos to the Boukoleon (bulls stable) in the central marketplace o f Athens. Here a sacred marriage would take place between the Athenian Basilinna (a ceremonial priestess-queen: Ariadne) and Dionysos. Burkert believes that the nature o f the consummation was unclear: a literal woman was involved, but it is not clear if a literal man (versus symbolic man) was involved (239). During the night-long ritual between the Basilinna and the god, a symposium was held by the men at the Temple o f Dionysos, which included a considerable amount of wine-drinking and calling forth o f the god.
103 This allusion is interesting. The Orphics, a cult on the fringe o f Dionysian worship, were vegetarians. However, Anthesteria predates the Orphics. Thus, the Dionysian cult was in a psychic space between obstaining from meat (the Orphics) and indifference to the killing that takes place to put food on the table (modern society). It is unclear to me whether this space was one o f feeling guilt or one o f giving thanks to the animals. Moreover, it should be recognized that in eating an animal, a form o f communion was taking place with the animal. I f the animal w as identified with a god, then the communion w as with the god.
120
On the third day, the Chytroi, or the day o f potholes, a ritual offering, Chytroi, was made to the chthonic spirits who had risen into the living world when the wine jugs had been opened. This particular ceremony was overseen by the priests o f Hermes, a god noted as a psycho-pomp. The offering was typically grains and seeds that were placed into naturally occurring fissures in the earth.104 The offering was a purification o f sorts, for the offering chased away the spirits o f the dead by placating them. The Anthesteria is particularly interesting because it is such an old festival. Dating back to the Bronze Age, it predates some o f the influences o f gods that were later imported to Greece (e.g., Sabazios). O f course, it is possible that the festival evolved as foreign influences were introduced, but the core o f the festival must reflect elements of the Dionysian cult dating back to Bronze Age times. The Anthesteria incorporated many o f the major themes o f Dionysian festivals: the cycles o f grape growing/wine making, death/rebirth, and the sacred marriage. The only major theme not included was theater, though as mentioned earlier, there is some disagreement amongst scholars on this point. Like so many activities o f the Greeks, this festival had a competitive element: a drinking contest. The festival also served a social purpose in that young men were initiated into their clans. The theme o f death/rebirth has long been associated with Dionysos in that he is twice-born himself, and is connected with annual vegetative cycles. The Anthesteria takes on a special twist in that the meal on the second day, Choes, was taken in silence. The silence has a mythic underpinning: the story o f Athens simultaneously extending and
104 Chthonic offerings typically differed from Olympian offerings in several ways: they were usually bloodless (Olympian offerings often being animal), nocturnal (Olympian usually being during the day), solely for spirits/gods (Olympian food offerings were typically shared at a communal feast), and the prayers offered were in silence.
121
retracting hospitality to Orestes, who was guilty o f murder. But as Taylor-Perry notes, the diners also contemplated their own crime, the crime o f eating. Thus Anthesteria not only is a ritual of death and rebirth, but it also acknowledges our participation in killing. We are not only the victims o f death, but agents in bringing death. The silence acknowledges the pollution that killing brings to us, but also acknowledges its inevitability. We cannot change the fact that we kill; it is inherent in the workings of the universe. By recognizing what we have done, we contain and limit the toxicity. Rituals o f death and rebirth are pregnant with meaning. The most obvious meaning is the literal: that like the grain in the fields, or the god himself, our death is only an appearance; we will descend temporarily into the underworld before being reborn again in a new season. Our particular life, bios, may be mortal, but life itself, zoe, is immortal. Metaphorical interpretations o f death/rebirth abound, and are limited only by the limits o f our imaginations. Almost any life change or metamorphosis that takes place can be interpreted as a death o f our old self and birth o f a new self.105 Significant in the Dionysian myth is that his own death/rebirth involved his dismemberment, which is recalled in the liknonphoria performed at Delphi. Paralleling this is that the grapes being transformed into wine are crushed, a form o f dismemberment. Thus, the death/rebirth m otif is one where the subject is taken apart, deconstructed, and then reassembled into something new. It is a ritual o f metamorphoses. Paris suggests that dismemberment, the deconstruction o f ourselves, comes with a risk. We may never return from its madness. She notes that the dismemberment can come
,05Ego deaths would be prime candidates for such interpretations, particularly if w e have identified ourselves with our ego. Such an interpretation would then have the mortal ego dying, but the immortal se lf living on. This interpretation can actually be experienced in meditative states, where the ego melts away and a larger concept o f se lf is born.
122
from the denial o f Dionysos too little Dionysos or from identification with Dionysos too much Dionysos (23). When we consciously visit our madness, we can learn and return. When we unconsciously act out our madness, we are neither conscious that we are acting nor conscious that our madness has written the script. There is no guarantee that we come back. The m otif o f pollution is highlighted by the drinking contest, the winner being the first to drink two liters o f wine. Arguably, the pollution experience from the drinking is reflective o f the pollution experienced killing o f animals for food. It is almost certainly the case the pollution experienced led to intoxication: two liters is a lot o f wine! Moreover, following the drinking contest, the men continued to drink at a symposium held at the Temple o f Dionysos o f the Swamps (Limnaios ). The women, however, went on to the Boukoleon for the sacred marriage between the priestess-queen, Ariadne, and Dionysos. Again, as Burkert notes, the woman was a physical person, while the god may have been symbolic.106 A multitude o f meanings are possible for the sacred marriage. One obvious meaning is literal the sexual union o f male and female. Kerenyi identifies zoe as the essence o f Dionysos. Downing argues that Kerenyis zoe is pure libido (73). The life-creating sexual union is a result o f the Dionysian zoe/libido. The role that wine plays in stimulating libido is notable. Related to this is marriage as a more general union o f the feminine and masculine. The blurring of gender distinction is a theme repeated throughout the myth o f Dionysos and the gods he evolved from. It suggests the male discovering his anima, or the female discovering her animus, and uniting with them to achieve wholeness. From the
106 There are many similarities between Hermes and Dionysos. However, this is an area where the two clearly diverge. Dionysos is deep into his relationship with his w ife, Ariadne. Hermes has no w ives and avoids relationship.
123
perspective o f the male, it is a rediscovery o f matriarchal values that were set aside after being initiated into the brotherhood of men. A third meaning, alluded to by Robert Johnson, is the union o f the physical/mortal and spiritual/immortal (40-41). This meaning would be particularly poignant if a man was present at the marriage symbolically rather than literally. Transcendence o f the physical/spiritual, mortal/immortal divide is a theme throughout the myth o f Dionysos. The god himself transcends the divide by being part human, part god. His marriage to the mortal Ariadne, taking her to Olympus, similarly transcends the physical/spiritual divide, as does his taking his mortal mother, Semele, to Olympus and making her the immortal Thyone. This is consistent with the approach o f Jung himself.
107
More generally, the sacred marriage is a union o f opposites. It reverses the discernment o f the thinking mind and propels the experience o f oneness and unity as the ultimate reality. In this sense, the sacred marriage is ecstatic it is standing outside o f ones limited self, our consciousness o f the particular, in order to experience unity with the phenomenon o f consciousness. Recall that in his myth, Dionysos is dedicated to his mother and faithful to Ariadne. He is a male devoted to women and as such is an object o f worship by women. The image o f the sacred marriage is not incidental to Dionysos it is central.
Agrai A grai refers to both a place-name and a ritual. The place was located on the banks o f the Ilissus River near Athens. The ritual was sometimes called the lesser Mysteries.
107 My reading o f Jungs A ion is that he specifically sees hieros gam os as sym bolic o f the integration o f the unconscious and conscious (CW 9.2: 72). More generally, it would be symbolic o f the mysterium coniunctionis, the nuptial union o f opposite halves (CW 9.2: 117). From a Jungian perspective, it is the road to individuation.
124
Similar lesser or primary initiations were held throughout the Greek-speaking world. Taylor-Perry connects these lesser Mysteries to the greater Mysteries held later in the year: The Agrai ceremony was held late in the month of Anthesterion,108 as the initiatory experience that set the stage for over half a year of Mystery teachings which would culminate in the rites o f Eleusinia, the greater Mysteries. The seven months between the lesser and greater Mystery ceremonies mythically represent both Kores period o f sojourn in the House o f Hades, and the seven months that Dionysos was nurtured in Semeles womb. Though the lesser Mysteries are often referred to solely as rites o f Dionysos, they were equally rites o f Persephone, as inscriptions o f vows taken by ancient dedicants confirm. (81) Thus, the festival was connected to the rites at Eleusis and the seven-month differential in timing is reflected in two different myths: the birth o f Dionysos and the abduction of Persephone by Hades. Kerenyi (Dionysos), however, argues that it was not until the fifth century BCE that these lesser Mysteries were a necessary precondition for initiation into the greater Mysteries at Eleusis (48). This observation opens the possibility that the Agrai previously had a purpose beyond preparation for Eleusis. Taylor-Perry theorizes a dual purpose: one being preparation for Eleusis, and the other being an initiation into a Dionysos-specific cult (94). Also, while both Taylor-Perry and Kerenyi acknowledge that the ceremony honored both Dionysos and Persephone, Taylor-Perry puts more emphasis on the importance o f Dionysos where Kerenyi puts more emphasis on Persephone. According to Diodorus Siculus, Demeter instituted the Lesser Mysteries in honor o f Heracles, that she might purify him o f the guilt he had incurred in the slaughter o f the centaurs (IV. 14). This story provides the myth that was reenacted at the ritual. All individuals participating in the Mysteries were required to go through this purification
108 Anthesterion is the name o f a month in the lunar calendar used by the Greeks. It takes its name from the Anthesteria, which w as held mid-month. The Agrai, held later in the month would translate into late February or March on our calendar.
125
ritual. Since it can be reasonably assumed that not every initiant was guilty o f murder, Taylor-Perry infers that humans needed to be purified from all forms o f killing, including the killing of animals for food (82). The purification rituals have been inferred from myth and also artifacts at grave sites and from the walls o f the Villa de Mysteri at Pompeii. Preparation for the initiate included fasting, abstinence from sexual intercourse and abstinence from alcohol (which began before attending these lesser Mysteries). The ritual purification at the Agrai included scouraging (driving evil out), scarification,109 and ritual baths (which TaylorPerry argues are forerunners o f Christian baptism). The ritual also included a sacrament o f raw meat, ending the ascetic period (85-102). In addition, the initiate would undergo a ritual recreation o f death and rebirth, one goal of which was to experience oneness with the god. The m otif o f this death and rebirth was the seed. The initiate would, for a period o f time, be covered with chalk and/or clay, and hidden away in a cave or mystery house, as if planted in the ground. The initiate would then be washed in a ritual bath, as if washing soil away from a plant being prepared for consumption (82).no Taylor-Perry speculates that the epiphanous portions o f this ritual were aided by the use o f entheoginic agents, which she surmises to have been poppy resin opium (91). Finally, Kerenyi (Dionysos) emphasizes that in addition to the purification function, these rites also served the purpose o f instruction (48).1,1
109 Taylor-Perry theorizes that scarification may have been for Dionysian adherents: the scars reflecting the flaying o f the divine child by the Titans. Those attending the Agrai only as a portal to Eleusis would not undergo scarification (94). 110 In addition to being metaphorically related to the m otif o f a seed, this ritual also is related to the m otif o f the Titans w ho dismembered D ionysos. Stephen o f Byzantium said that the mysteries at Agrai were an imitation o f what happened about D ion ysos {Prolegom ena 559). 1,1 In some sense, instruction can also be regarded as purification, i.e., purification o f the mind.
126
Katagogia The Katagogia, held from 9 to 13 Elaphebolion , m roughly mid-March to mid-April at the close of the Dionysian season, was commonly known as the City Dionysia {Festivals o f Attica 102). It takes its name from a word meaning ancestry or tribe. At the center o f the celebration was a panoplying party113 for new military cadets. The festival was not particularly ancient, having been devised circa 500 BCE, approximately at the same time as democracy and the development o f the soldier for the sake o f society, as opposed to the old Homeric ideal o f the soldier fighting for personal fame and glory (Taylor-Perry 4 0-41).114 The city Dionysia was one o f three festivals which celebrated the literal presence o f Dionysos, the others being the Anthesteria and the Lenaia. Dionysos was called forth by a double-throated trumpet known as a salpinx. During the Katagogia, this occurred during the pompe, a procession o f cadets from the Acropolis to the theaters. The pompe was an all-male, phallic procession, which also included a goat, padded dancers, and a ship car. Burkert theorizes that the padded dancers symbolize people in the act o f submission to a greater power. Taylor-Perry suggests that they were defeated enemies. The ship car (carrying Dionysos) suggests Athenian naval power, and is an allusion to the story o f the Tyrrhenian pirates. O f course, theater was the central feature of the festival. Theater performance began with a procession that carried Dionysos Eleuthereus (a pillar-shaped idol o f
112 Farnell has it occurring on 8 to 18 Elaphebolion, with a sacrifice to A sklepios opening the ceremony (V .235). Bieber suggests that the dates may have shifted during the Peloponnesian War, which might resolve the confusion (53). 113 A party in which cadets were given their swords, shields, and armor. 114 The traditional dating is that it was organized in 534 BCE by the great tyrant Pisistratus to celebrate the common m ans god (Else 49). Pisistratus was exiled and democracy established shortly thereafter. Pisistratus and the other tyrants o f the Archaic period o f Greece had encouraged the cult o f D ionysos for the benefit the peasant population, from whom they got support.
127
Dionysos) from his temple south o f the Acropolis to a small shrine located on the road to Eleusis (Farnell V.235). At any given theater during the five-day festival, either three tragedies and one satyr play were performed, or five satyr plays and twenty dithyrambs (large circular formations o f men or boys chanting hymns). The theatric aspect o f this festival is discussed in the next chapter. It is noteworthy that this particular festival was the last major Dionysian festival to be instituted. Although it had religious aspects, this festival had a clear state purpose (the panoplying of new cadets) and a commercial purpose. The City Dionysia brought tourists to the city. In many ways, this festival served the role that Hollywood plays in modern American society in that it was both artistic and commercial.
Eleusinia The greater Mysteries were held at Eleusis, approximately fourteen miles outside o f Athens on the Via Sacre (Sacred Way), in honor o f Demeter and Persephone. The mythic reflection o f these rites was the abduction o f Persephone by Hades, and Demeters quest to be reunited with her daughter. Although they took place outside o f Athens, for much of their long history, they were under the auspices o f the city. Most, but not all, Athenians were initiated (Burkert 285-86). The rites took place over a nine-day period in the month o f Boedromeon, which corresponds to our mid-September to mid-October and was the most famous and influential religious cult in the ancient Greek world. Kerenyi argues that the mysteries were inaugurated in the middle o f the second millennium BCE (Dionysos 21). They ended with the proscription o f the cult by Theodosius and the destruction o f the sanctuary by the Goths circa 400 CE (Burkert 285). Diodorus testified to their efficacy:
128
Now the details o f the initiatory rite are guarded among the matters not to be divulged and are communicated to the initiates alone; but the fame has traveled wide o f how these gods appear to mankind and bring unexpected aid to those initiates o f theirs who call upon them in the midst of perils. The claim is also made that men who have taken part in the Mysteries become both more pious and more just and better in every respect than they were before. (V.49) As said by Diodorus, there was secrecy to the Mysteries, but that secrecy largely applied to the last night of the rites. The days leading up to that night were relatively public, and o f course, there is much speculation about what occurred on the last night. Also, I again emphasize that for much o f the history o f the rites, the initiation was in two parts, the first part being the Agrai seven months earlier. Harrison suggests that the fame o f the Eleusinian Mysteries can be attributed to two factors: they came under the auspices of Athens, and at some unknown date, they became affiliated with Dionysos (Prolegomena 150j. The rites took place in the fall. Harrison considered them to be a harvest festival. Taylor-Perry disagrees. She argues that in Greece, the planting season is reversed from what we are accustomed to in cooler climates. Crops were planted in the fall and harvested in the spring. During the dry hot summer months, the fields appeared to be dead. The agricultural connection is thus associated with the planting o f grain: harvested grain going into the ground to be reborn (105).115 The beginning of the festival is known with a high degree o f certainty, for it was not a secret. The first few days consisted o f preliminary rites held in Athens involving additional purification. On the third day, each mystai bathed ritually in the sea with a piglet. Taylor-Perry suggests that the piglets absorbed evil. The piglets were later
115 Harrison was aware that the planting season for grain w as reversed, but still considered it a harvest festival because other crops (e.g. grapes) were harvested.
129
sacrificed. On the sixth day, the dedicants and their guides participated in a long procession from Athens to Eleusis in which they carried a number o f ritual items including a statue o f the sacred youth Iacchos. At the end o f the trek, they reached the Bridge of Rhiti where they passed a gauntlet o f observers who hurled insults at them. After traversing the bridge, they lit torches and entered the town, dancing as they went. The next few days were spent resting, fasting, and preparing for the last night (TaylorPerry 107-9). The secret mystery that occurred on the last night, in the Telesterion , is subject to much speculation. According to Burkert, there were several classes o f celebrants: mystai, who took part for the first time; the epoptai, watchers who were there for at least a second time; and mystagogos, escorts who took the mystai into the sanctuary. Inside the Telesterion (which held several thousand people) was the Anaktoron, a smaller chamber that held the head priest, the hierophant (288). There is no shortage of theories about what took place inside. The important conjectures that are put forth include the following: The handling o f unnamed sacra, possibly small items like the toys that the Titans used to lure the baby Dionysos to his demise; A sacred birth, the birth of the divine child, Iacchos (Dionysos), by the Queen o f the Dead, Persephone. It is sometimes suggested that the birth was by fire (recalling Demeters placement o f baby Demophoon into a fire); A sacred marriage between the hierophant and a priestess. The marriage is sometimes assumed to be literal, and sometimes symbolic;
130
A liknonphoria, a ceremony in which a priestess holds a liknon (a winnowing fan or harvest basket) over the head o f the initiant; The production o f a play depicting the reunion of Demeter and Persephone; and/or The use o f different entheogenic drugs to enhance or deepen the experience o f the mystai. Finally, Herodotus tells an interesting story about the Eleusinia that underscores its importance to Athens. It comes from 480 BCE, when Attica was under attack from the Persian king, Xerxes. It specifically took place during the scheduled time for the Eleusinia. Two Greek exiles were in the retinue of the Persian king: Dicaeus (an Athenian) and Demaratus (a Spartan). They were camped near the Sacred Road. The whole countryside around Athens had been laid waste. Able Athenian men had taken to ships and the women and children had been evacuated to the mountains. In the distance, the two saw a cloud o f dust coming up from the road, such as would be raised by an army of 30,000.116 Dicaeus recognized the sound o f the Iacchus song. Knowing that there were no Greeks available to be going to the Mysteries, he concluded that the singing was the divine voice itself and that it was a portent. When the cloud o f dust lifted and moved toward the Greek fleet anchored at Salamis, Dicaeus knew that the Persian fleet was destined to be destroyed (VIII.65). The mysteries at Eleusis were arguably the most important rites that took place in Attica. By classical times, Dionysos had become important in these ancient mysteries of
116 The story may give an indication o f the magnitude o f a typical class o f initiants. At the time, the entire population o f Athens w as only about 30,000.
131
Demeter.117 Again, this highlights the manor in which Dionysos gained status within the goddess cult. That Dionysos became important at Eleusis is a natural extension of myth. Hades, o f course, would be important as the husband and abductor of Persephone. In fact, there was a temple dedicated to Hades at the entrance to Eleusis. However, Dionysos is often identified with Hades. Herakleitus said that Hades and Dionysos are the same. Downing summarizes several interpretations o f this identity: that the way up and the way down are the same, that there is a covert death wish in the midst o f life and that Dionysian passion resembles initiation into the domain o f Hades (46). Oblivion may be an outcome o f ecstasy completion o f the union with the one may require us to experience death, certainly figuratively and perhaps literally. Table 1, Festival Summary Chart, captures the highlights o f each festival as they occurred in the Classical Period and can be used as a reference.
117 The magnitude o f this importance is uncertain. D ow ning notes that some scholars (i.e. George Mylonas) deny any role for D ionysos at all (46). However, the connections between D ionysos and Hades, as w ell as D ionysos and Iacchos convince m e that he had som e presence there, perhaps a dominating presence.
Table 1 Festival Summary Chart

Festival Oschophoria Date Agricultural Purpose Social Function Mythological Event Ritual Themes
7 Pyanpsion Oct-Nov
26 Poseideon
Harvest/crush grapes
Feast
Escape from Minotaur
1st Fruit Offering
Haloa
Cutting back vines
Feast
Death of Ikarios
1st Fruit Offering
Dec-Jan Rural Dionysia

Poseideon
Theater
Dec-Jan
Lenaia* 12 Gamelion
Anticipation of birthday of Dionysos Birthday of Dionysos & death at Delphi
Theater
Racking wine
Jan-Feb
Marriages Theater
Lenian Mask on Disp. Theater

Liknonphoria
Anthesteria *
11-13 Anthesterion
First drinking of wine
(ancient Dionysia)
Feb-Mar
Boys initiation into clan Theater Drinking contest Initiation into Mysteries
Orestes in Athens Marriage of Dionysos & Ariadne
Sacred Marriage Theater Pollution/Purification Placation of Spirits Purification
Agrai
Anthesterion
none
(lesser Mysteries)
Feb-Mar
Dionysos/Semele Persephone/Hades Herakles' purification State/Military Myth
Katagogia *
9-13 Elaphebolion
none
(city Dionysia)
Eleusinia
Mar-Apr
Boedromeon
Cadets panoplied Theater Initiation into Mysteries
Phallic Procession Theater Purification/Initiation Sacred Marriage Rebirth

Liknonphoria
Harvest festival
(greater Mysteries)
Sep-Oct
Demeter's search for Persephone
* Festival includes the literal presence of Dionysos
Reproduced w ith permission o f th e copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
133
Themes and Motifs An obvious theme connecting these festivals is how they tie into the cyclical nature of agriculture. Most of the festivals reflect a stage in the annual grain cycle or the cycles involved in growing grapes and making wine. This cyclicality directly reflects the image o f the seed, and the fashion in which death and rebirth take place in agriculture. This gets further mirrored not only in the myth o f Dionysos (as well as the myth o f Demeter and Persephone), but in specific rites o f his death and rebirth, a m otif that is repeated throughout the entire cycle. The myths and rituals are so pregnant with the cyclicality of death and rebirth that mystical interpretations seem to be a natural outcome. A second and connected theme is the honoring o f marriage. Marriage, or at least the sexual union that accompanies marriage, is a necessary condition for the life/death/rebirth cycles. Symbolically, the sacred marriage takes places in the Anthesteria and possibly the Eleusinia , but it also takes place literally around the Lenaia, a time when young Greek couples were wed.118 Not surprisingly, many o f these festivals included a ritual closely identified with Dionysos: either liknonphoria a ritual use o f the liknon or a phallic procession. The liknon, o f course, would itself contain a phallus. The phallus has obvious fertility symbolism, connecting it to death/rebirth cycles as well as agricultural cycles. The liknon has additional symbolism. It carries the toys that the Titans used to beguile the infant god and lead him to his death, and thus to a rebirth where the liknon would serve as the babes
118 In W om ens D ionysian Initiation: The Villa o f M ysteries in Pom peii, Linda Fierz-David makes the case that the individual frescoes o f the villa [ . . . ] portray individuation processes in a form suitable to our tim e (17), and that the union o f Dionysos-Ariadne is the [ . . . ] sym bol o f the S e lf (15). The nature mysteries o f the villa, however, are somewhat uncertain. Fierz-David acknowledges that Bieber, for example, was o f the opinion that the mysteries at the villa were the initiation rites o f a bride before her wedding (14). I will return to the meaning o f the m otif o f marriage in chapter 6.
134
cradle. Moreover, the liknon could be used for winnowing (its everyday practical function), and was thus symbolic o f separation and purification. Purification (and pollution) played an important part in this cycle o f festivals. Theater is, o f course, an important part o f the festivals and plays that were performed at the three major Dionysian festivals: Lenaia,119, Anthesteria,120 and Katagogia. Interestingly, all three o f these festivals occur during the Dionysian time o f year, i.e., that portion of the year when he reigned at Delphi, and during all three of these festivals there was a literal presence o f the god. The next chapter expands on the nature o f theater. One sidelight that impressed me was the extent to which these Dionysian festivals lock into the rest o f Greek mythology. 121 The connection to the Demeter myths is clear; Edith Hamilton (Mythology) considers Dionysos and Demeter to be the two great gods o f Earth (47). However, there are also connections to the Cretan Bull or Minotaur cycle, the Heracles cycle, and to the House o f Orestes cycle. Moreover, some of the festivals in which Dionysos is a major figure overlap with festivals for other gods (e.g., Demeter, Persephone, and Apollo). Finally, his system o f festivals locks in to not only agricultural cycles, but with the Katagogia and its panoplying o f cadets, it also locks in to state myth. Thus, in spite o f Dionysos reputation as a revolutionary, his festivals are part o f an all-encompassing system o f myth and ritual that reinforced meaning, aesthetics, and a sense of belonging in the culture o f Ancient Greece.
119 Here I include the rural D ionysia as part o f the Lenaia. 120 Again, there is som e disagreement whether theater took place at the Anthesteria. 121 A discussion o f social classes is outside o f the scope o f this paper, but it is worth noting that the Dionysian cults were most popular with peasants and other common people. That his myths and rituals lock into the rest o f the Olympian system probably added to the cohesiveness o f Athenian society.
135
This connection between myth and ritual is woven deeply into Greek culture. Although these festivals do not necessarily exhaust the totality o f a worshippers ritual life, they do give us at least a glimpse into the ritual life o f Dionysian cults. One immediate observation is that the myths are more extreme, especially in terms o f violence (e.g., human sacrifice), than the rituals at the festivals. It could be that the Dionysian cults o f Attica represent a watered-down, Hellenized version o f Dionysos, implying that wherever and whenever he came from, the rituals may have been more intense, the myths containing echoes o f long discontinued ritual violence. Or it could be that this is a natural gulf that occurs between myth and ritual, that rituals need only symbolically reference myths rather than literally act them out. The gulf between the two, however, provides detail on the shadow projected by Dionysos. Dionysos is a boundary crosser, which is a double-edged sword. On one side, there is human need to cross the confining limitations established by our rational minds in order to experience the free flow o f ecstasy. On the other side, this crossing brings danger, for the boundaries that we cross typically exist for good reasons. The danger is particularly acute if we associate the experience o f ecstasy with the thrill o f crossing a boundary or breaking a taboo, for such an association means ecstasy can be achieved only by going further and further and taking more risk. Again, the metaphor o f homeopathic medicine strikes me as being very illuminating in this regard. A small amount of madness (ecstatic Dionysos) is carefully administered by the doctor (rational Apollo) as a means o f preventing uncontrolled hysteria. The secret to the effective administration o f the medicine is controlling the dosage, and having a safe place in which digest the experience. The history o f Dionysos
136
is one marked by a struggle to control the dosage, to develop the safe container for the experience. Rohdes description o f his incorporation into Delphi, a home to Apollo, is perhaps the clearest example o f the development o f the safe container.122 The festivals we just discussed were the containers used by Athenians to allow the safe experience o f the power o f Dionysos. The presence o f the system o f festivals is evidence that Athenians thought Dionysos needed to be contained. Paris speaks to the psychology o f this: Where societies have allowed them, Dionysias have always been welldefined in time, like a break in the daily routine, as if to underscore the exceptional quality o f the moment which cannot and should not last. JeanJacques Wunenburger point out that, when the celebration claims to go on forever, it becomes meaningless and is only a complacent exploration o f a thrill, losing its sacred dimension. Play must be an interval, a rest, an opening, a balance between the tension o f performance and the violence o f play. Dionysias as endless party become like those commercials that are ever more creative, more appealing, more imaginative, but to sell what? The God is left out. (22-23) However, the medical metaphor applied to the system o f festivals is reflective o f a rational point o f view. It is Apollo, looking back from his winter home, telling us what amount o f irrationality to allow, in order balance our system. The implicit ethic is that life is best when some sort balance is achieved moderation in all things. The Dionysian ritual is beneficial because it ensures a psychological and emotional stability. I want to acknowledge, however, the possibility o f an alternative view, a Dionysian perspective on Dionysos. From his viewpoint, life is an exercise in more ecstasy. The key is focusing the pursuit on what Robert Johnson calls high quality ecstasy : more love, more presence, more connection with others. Arguably, this experience o f ecstasy need not be bounded. While our head identifies risks and trades in
122 Invoking A pollo carries the implication that restraint is non-Dionysian, i.e., that the Dionysian impulse is for more, more, more and must be reined in by our thinking mind. However, recall his myth: although his followers are prone to excess, he is not. He is not a drunk, he is not promiscuous.
137
fear, our heart trusts the universe to protect us. From this perspective, the ecstatic need not be confined to festivals and rituals. Finally, an important facet o f the Dionysian festivals is theater. Theater bridges ritual and myth, since it provides the forum where the myths can be interpreted and reinterpreted. Thus, virtually any mythical or epic story known to the Greeks could be ritually acted out, if a poet wrote and presented a play. Moreover, theater gave these festivals an artistic bent. Arguably, this is a natural product of ritual, i.e., a ritual performed with real gusto takes on a theatrical flair. However, a special contribution of the Greeks in general, and the Dionysian cults in particular, was to put more artistic expression into ritual acts. This will be addressed in the next chapter.
138
Chapter 5 The Immediate Now o f Theater Imagine yourself at the open-air theater o f Dionysos during the city Dionysia in the late fifth-century Athens.123 The city has been locked in a long and futile war with Sparta. You, like virtually everyone else in Athens, have experienced a personal loss a friend or family member lost in either the war or the disastrous expedition to Syracuse that triggered it. The Dionysia is a welcome reprieve from this harsh reality. It is early morning, and you have taken your seat on a wooden bench.124 The benches form concentric half-circles, fanning out from the central orchestra, the stage, a circle at ground level that is approximately twenty meters in diameter. The theater is built into the south side o f the Acropolis, which elevates it above the city and also provides elevation for the seats farthest from the orchestra. The orchestras circular shape mimics the many threshing floors throughout Greece that do double-duty as performance areas for dithyramb, the choruses and dances performed for Dionysos. You scan the crowd in the theatron, that portion o f theater devoted to seating the spectators. There are citizens from all walks o f life, from the prestigious city fathers to the lowly slave.125 In the mixture are some foreigners merchants and travelers who have been attracted to the city for the spring festival though with a war going on the foreigners are few in number. Seated in his place o f highest honor is the priest o f
123 While this section is imaginary I have made every attempt to make the description accurate. Theater and costume descriptions com e from Simon, Bieber, and Pickard-Cambridge. Set and stage direction com e from the translations o f The Bacchae by Roche, Vellacott and the commentary on The Bacchae by Dodds. 124 We tend to imagine stone seats, but stone seats were installed later, during the reign o f Alexander the Great. 125 There were slaves present, though their numbers were probably small. There is a question o f whether any women were present. Clearly, no women were actors. Female parts were played by men. Whether or not there were women in the audience is open to debate. Pickard-Cambridge, in D ram atic F estivals o f Athens, seem s undecided and not inclined to speculate (264-65). I w ill take my lead from PickardCambridge and not speculate either.
139
Dionysos. His marble throne is in the center o f the front row and is decorated with fighting cocks, symbolic of the competitive nature o f this event. Seated near him are other important persons: the archon eponymos, the state official in charge o f the Dionysia, the choragus, a leading (and wealthy) citizen appointed to produce, and pay for, the plays presented that day, and other priests, including several from the cult o f Apollo. There is anticipation in the air. The play about to be staged is Euripides The Bacchae. Unusual for the Dionysia, this play is not new, for it was written over one year ago. It is now to be performed in Athens for the first time and is preceded by rave reviews. The timing is even more poignant by the fact that Euripides recently died while in self-imposed exile. You look behind the orchestra at the skene, a wooden building used by the production and the face o f which is used for painting the scene. For the tragedy now unfolding, the scene is the palace o f Pentheus in Thebes, and the skene is adorned with Doric columns to produce a palatial effect. Just to the rear o f the skene is the Temple of Dionysos Eleuthereus, the god o f theater. The god himself, in the form o f a pillar and a mask, had long ago come from his Boeotian home in the north to take up residency in the temple. At the beginning of the festival he was taken to a temple in the neighborhood o f the Academy where he was honored with a bull sacrifice, then ceremoniously returned to the theater to witness the production taking place. In the orchestra itself is the thymele, an altar to Dionysos. The altar has been decorated as a tomb, the tomb o f Semele, mother of the god. Around the altar is a trellis o f grapevines and from the tomb burns a low flame.
140
Your attention shifts to the single actor who has just stepped into the orchestra. The actor is dressed in a long-sleeved robe and wearing a special type o f boot that increases his height and makes him appear larger than life. He wears a large mask with the face o f a young, effeminate Dionysos. The mask has dark features, a dark beard and long flowing hair that is wreathed in ivy. In the actors hand is the sacred thyrsus, the long ivy-wreathed staff topped by a pine cone. There is no outward trace o f the actor, for he has renounced his individuality to become the god he is playing. He turns to address the audience, announcing to all who he is: I am Dionysos, son o f Zeus. My mother was Semele [ ...] . Moving to the edge o f your seat, you confront the masks direct and unblinking stare. Your thinking mind suspends judgment. The figure on stage is no longer a man playing Dionysos, but Dionysos him self appearing in the form o f a man. You are riveted by a moment o f spiritual awe: the god in front o f you shimmers with an increased brilliance. In a blinding flash you experience an epiphany a knowing o f a primal truth the divinity o f Bacchus. The chorus then enters from the parodos, the area on either side o f the skene. They are fifteen in number.126 They are the maenads o f Dionysos. They begin their song, also called parodos, singing the praises o f Dionysos. As they sing, you experience an emotional release. During the remainder o f the day, you experience a full gamut o f emotions: pity, fear, grief, joy, angerpurging yourself o f the unvoiced emotions that you have accumulated in your daily life, emotions that the rational society in which you live
126 In earlier times, the number w as twelve. The members o f the chorus were ephebes, the military cadets who were panoplied at the festival (Taylor-Perry 41).
141
expects you to keep in check. After a full day o f being emotionally drained by three tragedies, you are entertained by a satyr play, which mocks everything that you have just witnessed. It allows you to laugh and leave the theater in an emotional state appropriate for civic life.127 Other poets will present their plays on subsequent days. This was the experience o f the theater at the city Dionysia. Religious in structure, it was ecstatic for spectator and performer. In the tragic theater, as in the Bacchic ecstasy, the participant stands outside o f himself: he temporarily relinquishes the safe limits o f personal identity in order to extend him self sympathetically to other dimensions o f experience (Segal 215). It presented the participant with a safe container in which to be purified o f otherwise toxic emotion what Aristotle described as catharsis or purgation (IV).128 This chapter examines the history o f classical theater, with the emphasis placed on tragedy. It looks for theaters connection to Dionysos, its ability to induce ecstasy and what it brings to our daily lives. Although I use history as the organizing principle o f the
127 A ll four plays, the three tragedies and the satyr play, w ould be by the same poet. It is not known which plays by Euripides were performed with The Bacchae. 128 Aristotles observation came from the perspective o f a philosopher, but also from perspective o f som eone trained in medicine, and his observations are replete with medical imagery. It is worth expanding his point o f view . Aristotles view o f ethics was that man should live his life in accordance with the purpose or function o f a human being a life o f contentment, serenity and activity what the Greeks called endaimonia, or good spirit. Such a life would result in fewer m edical problems. He believed that perfect happiness could be achieved from intellectual contemplation and philosophical inquiry. Implicit in this is a religious belief: a b elief that the Supreme Being consists entirely o f reason, that w e have a spark o f this divine being within us, and thus when w e contemplate philosophy w e are being a divine as humans can be. H e did not leave em otions out o f the equation. Aristotle acknowledged that the soul has both a rational and an irrational component, the irrational portion being the home o f emotions. He viewed emotions as having a powerful influence on our actions, thus controlling them is important. He didnt suggest repressing themjust controlling them, so that w e feel the right emotion at the right time in the right amount. Applying his m edical training, he argued that tragedy was, in effect, a homeopathic remedy for excess emotion, achieved by catharsis or purgation (W oodfin and Groves 119-57). His observation is confirmed by modern psychologists. For example, Corey observed that in group psychodrama, there is a catharsis. W hile he does not view catharsis as an end in itself, he offers that it clears the way for gain new perspective on old problems and behaving in new ways (226). Moreover, Corey suggests that the audience in psych odram a can experience the same benefits as the protagon ists in vicarious w ays (232).
142
chapter, it is not my purpose to articulate the definitive history o f theater. Rather, I wish to outline the major theories about its beginnings and demise, for these histories are themselves mythic, epic stories about the beginning and ending o f a literary genre and a story about what we project onto it. I will establish four important propositions about theater: 1. theater had is origins in rituals and religion, primarily devoted to Dionysos, the god o f wine, ecstasy , epiphany and zoe, indestructible life; 2. an important purpose o f theater was to evoke the presence o f the god, to bring about his epiphany and to do so by inducing a state o f ecstasy. 3. theater performed an important therapeutic function, helping to keep the psyches o f Athenian citizens in a healthy state; and 4. theater and acting are wonderful metaphors for how we approach our daily lives.
Aristotle and the Classical History o f Theater The first notable history o f theater was presented by Aristotle in his Poetics'. [ . . . ] Tragedy as also Comedy was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the authors o f the Dithyramb, the other with those o f the phallic songs, which are still in use in many o f our cities. Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped. (IV) The dithyramb he refers to is a chorus o f men or boys singing hymns. Though Aristotle does not specifically reference Dionysos, a dithyramb is an indirect reference, since dithyrambs are usually (but not always) associated with Dionysos and the word itself refers to Dionysos double birth from Semele and the thigh o f Zeus. Gilbert Murray
143
(2002) describes the dithyramb as the dance of the Kouroi, initiate youths, who celebrate and hasten the coming o f spring. His viewpoint underscores the connection between dithyramb and agricultural cycles. He notes that while the Kouroi can appear as Dionysos, they also can appear as Apollo, Ares, Hermes and even Zeus him self (27). Though he does not specifically mention him, Aristotles history is consistent with the tradition that Thespis added (and was) the first actor, who then entered into a dialogue with the chorus (singers o f the dithyramb). Aristotle adds specific further developments to tragedy: Aeschylus added the second actor, diminished the importance o f the chorus, and brought the dialogue forward to the lead role. Sophocles added the third actor and introduced scene painting. Plots became longer and more complex. The gruff language o f the satyric form was replaced by a more stately language. The meter shifted from trochaic tetrameter, a meter with an affinity to dancing, to iambic, which is more like conversational speech (IV). Note also his comment that tragedy passed through many changes until it found its natural form then stopped. By Aristotles time tragedy had stagnated, an issue with which I will deal after addressing the beginnings. Although the history o f tragedy is well known, according to Aristotle, comedy has had no history, because it was not at first treated seriously. [. . . ] Who furnished it with masks, or prologues, or increased the number o f actors these and other similar details remain unknown (9). Although the history o f comedy is obscure, he does suggest that it comes from some sort o f phallic song. The phallic songs were chanted by komoi, gay revelers, at the rural Dionysia. He also reiterates a tradition o f his day, without supporting or denying it, that comedy originated among the Dorians and that something that could be called comedy was found in Megara at a date earlier than 486 BCE
144
(III),129 which would put it in the sixth century BCE. He also argues that comedys plot came from Sicily and it apparently originally had an iambic, lampooning form (V). Aristotles historical insights were relatively casual;130 his book was focused on a critique o f the various literary genres, not their history. However, because o f his closeness in time to the actual events131 and because o f his stature in the history o f thought, his observations have formed the foundation o f all subsequent historical writing on theater. I now more closely look at modern theories o f the history o f tragedy and comedy.132
Tragedy Most modern theories o f the origin o f tragedy start with Aristotle and add evidence from other sources. Gerald Else, in The Origin and Early Form o f Greek Tragedy , provides an historical survey o f the categories o f theories. He outlines four general types (12-13). In the first general type, tragedy begins with a choral performance that goes through
t i l
evolutionary development.
This theory is a continuation of Aristotles line o f thinking
and is generally considered to be the conventional wisdom on the topic. A. E. Haigh, A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, and M argaret Bieber are proponents o f this view.134 The second line o f thinking is that tragedy has its roots in other orgiastic or mystery rituals,
129 Aristotle dates this as being before Chionides appearance in Athens. Pickard-Cambridge puts this appearance at 486 BCE. (Dithyram b 225). 130 His overlooking Thespis might be considered exemplar o f his casual attitude toward the theaters history. Presumably, he thought it obvious that everyone knew o f Thespis and his contributions. 131 He wrote P oetics in 330 BCE, about 200 years after the events that to which he alludes. 132 The totality o f theater includes not only tragedy and com edy, but also satyr plays. Since the satyr play was short and few o f them survive, I address them only tangentially and do so as part o f the history o f tragedy. Gerald Else takes a similar approach, considering satyr plays to be [ . . . ] a satellite o f tragedy. That is the only explanation o f its form and its existence. (81) 133 In articulating this class o f theories, Else is more specific, citing dithyramb and satyrikon as the types o f performances that spawned tragedy. I have broadened dithyram b and satyrikon to choral performances so as to more gracefully include Pickard-Cambridge. 134 Else suggests U. von W ilam owitz as the leading exponent o f this theory. Unfortunately, his work is not readily available in English.
145
and reflects the Cambridge Ritualist line o f thinking. Gilbert M urrays theory o f the Eniautos-Daimon, which was outlined in Harrisons Themis is a leading example o f this approach. The third theory is the tomb theory that associates theater with the cult o f the dead, or a hero-cult. William Ridgeway and Martin Nilsson135 exemplify this approach. Else, himself, offers a fourth approach which divorces theater from ritual and religion. I examine each in turn, with the greatest emphasis on the first approach. Conventional Wisdom. The mainstream history o f classical theater has been articulated by Haigh, Pickard-Cambridge, and Bieber and has been expanded upon by others. Haigh opens his 1907 book, Attic Theatre: [. . . ] with an overview o f the traditional thinking: The Attic drama, like most ancient forms o f art and poetry, was originally the off spring o f religious enthusiasm. It was developed out o f the songs and dances in honour of Dionysos, the god o f wine and vegetation. In the course o f time, as it assumed a regular dramatic shape, its range o f subject was extended far beyond the limits o f Bacchic mythology. Its religious significance was also gradually diminished and it began to be written more and more from the purely human point o f view. But in spite o f these changes, its outward connexion with Bacchic worship was preserved unimpaired throughout its history. (1) I would emphasize that he connects theater to religion in general and Dionysos in particular. Haigh credits the development o f tragedy to various innovations upon the old hymns to Dionysos (5). His statements are consistent with Aristotle, particularly if we interpret old hymns to Dionysos as being dithyramb. In Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy, A.W. Pickard-Cambridge plots the specific turns in the development o f the art form more closely. He calls attention to several types of performance that spread through Greece with the worship o f Dionysos: dithyramb, a dance o f satyrs, and other unspecified choral performances. The dithyramb, came from
135 Like Wilamcrwitz, N ilsson is not readily available in English, so I focus on Ridgeway.
146
Thrace or Phrygia with the cult of Dionysos. The early dithyrambs were often sung in a drunken state. Thomas Cahill likens these dances to the modern conga line (98). However, Pickard-Cambridge states that dithyramb underwent development as it spread through Greece and became a literary composition in the hands o f Arion at Corinth (219).136 The typical Athenian dithyramb consisted o f a chorus o f fifty boys or men who sang in a circle. They were organized by tribe137 and were under the direction a choragus, who hired a poet to write the lyrics and a flute player to provide music. The group o f dancer/singers was crowned in ivy and flowers (but, according to PickardCambridge, did not wear masks). The singing o f the dithyramb was associated with Dionysian festivals and was competitive (47-50). Separately, there was also a tradition o f a dance o f satyrs and/or sileni, as another form o f performance associated with Dionysos which similarly developed and spread through Greece, finally making its way to Athens at the end of the sixth century. The satyr dance developed into the satyr play.138 Finally, there were other unspecified types o f choral performances, which could include both singing and dancing. Pickard-Cambridge argues dithyramb and satyr dances developed on their own path and eventually became competitive events at the city Dionysia (Dithyramb 220). It was the other choral performances that developed into theater and became competitive at the city Dionysia in the theatrical form. He attributes this development o f tragedy from choral performance to Thespis (see below), and suggests that this development possibly
136 Arion lived at Corinth during the reign o f Periander circa 625-585 BCE (Pickard-Cambridge 19). 137 Tribes were no longer important politically in Athens, but did have some importance socially. 138 The satyr play was a tragedy o f sorts. It w as the fourth play in the tetralogies performed in the fifth century. The chorus o f the satyr play w as all dressed as satyrs, was led by Silenus, and was generally indecent and obscene. The play tended to burlesque the legend or myth that w as the subject o f the first three plays in the tetralogy (Pickard-Cambridge 90).
147
happened in the home of Thespis, Icaria, which ironically was where Dionysos introduced wine to humankind. He allows that dithyramb and satyr dances became partly assimilated into tragedy and influenced tragedy and further allows that these other choral performances may have spawned dithyramb and satyr dances, or that some fourth type of performance may have spawned all three. What he argues against, however, is that the line o f development went from dithyramb to satyr dance to tragedy.139 Rather, he proposes parallel development o f multiple forms o f performance. Bieber explicitly argues that Arion gave to the singers o f dithyramb the costumes o f satyrs, and that this dress was taken over into satyr plays. She argues that the first form o f drama may have been the satyr play and that: The initial step towards mimesis was taken when the dancer-singer was changed, through ecstasy and a corresponding disguise, into a mime, one who represents someone other than him self (9). Thus, she places the dithyramb, satyr dance, and satyr play in direct and sequential line of development leading to tragedy. The evolution from dithyramb and satyr plays into tragedy occurred as the dithyramb became more serious, solemn, and dramatic in nature. Bieber emphasizes that the Dionysiac religion was inclined to disguise individual personality in favor of a transformation into a higher being, and that this mimetic action
139 In my own reading o f Pickard-Cambridge, I cant help but wonder how much o f this distinction is semantics, i.e., whether the term dithyram b is only applied to the polished and literary performance at the city D ionysia, or applied to this an d the coarser earlier performances which may have been indistinguishable from the choral performances that he places in tragedys line o f development. It is also clear that Pickard-Cambridge is a stickler for proofhe is unwilling to theorize anything that he cannot back up with hard data. I am not entirely clear whether he is absolutely convinced that tragedy did not develop from dithyram b , or if he is open to the idea but unable to find the hard evidence to support it.
148
is inherently an aide in doing so (2).140 This reinforces the connection between religion and the theatrical.1 41 All agree that the key development came from Thespis, who created a part for a single actor to interact with the chorus, and then brought his plays to Athens at a time when the spring Dionysiac festival was being reorganized and extended (PickardCambridge 219). By tradition, Thespis brought to Athens a wandering troupe that traveled in a wagon shaped like a ship.142 Thus, Thespis also represents a commercial development: theater moving from something performed by amateurs, to a troupe of professionals, and then to professionals performing in a state-sponsored festival. The city Dionysia had a commercial importance to Athens: it attracted tourists and merchants from the eastern Mediterranean region to the city. After Thespis, the format continued to evolve and improve, as suggested by Aristotle. Aristotle, Haigh, Pickard-Cambridge, and Bieber all have tragedy developing out o f a choral performance dedicated to Dionysos. While they differ on the specifics o f the line of development, the line always ultimately leads back to a choral performance of dance and/or song designed to evoke an epiphany o f the god, and it is the transition from the choral performance to tragedy that is emphasized the golden moment being when a dancer/singer stepped forward to interact with the chorus and thus became the first actor.
140 Simon (The Ancient Theater) argues that satyr plays were the invention o f Pratinas o f Phlius, and was modeled on early tragedy, not the other way around (15). This reverses Biebers sequencing and highlights the uncertainty that classicists have about the unfolding o f events. 141 Bieber draws parallels between Dionysian theater and traditional dance-dramas performed in modem Bali. In both cases she cites dance-drama resulting from ecstatic states, the use o f w ine and an interplay o f jest and earnestness (17). 142 D ionysos w as thought to have arrived in Attica each spring by ship. The ship-car survives into modern times as the float in carnivals (Bieber 19).
149
It is worth connecting this first approach back to the theater scene with which we opened the chapter. According to this first theory, the origin o f theater is rooted in the chorus. At the birth o f theater, the chorus was made up men, possibly costumed as satyrs. They sang and danced the praises o f the god. At some point, a single performer (possibly Thespis) broke away from the collective group. That person stepped out o f his individual persona and became the god and through voice, gesture, mime and dance, entered into a dialogue with the remaining chorus. Once improvised, Thespis formalized the ritual with costumes and a written script. The ritual called forth the god and brought about his epiphany. Theater may have developed and flourished because it was entertaining, but it can equally be argued that it developed and flourished because it was a powerful ritual, one that called forth the god more effectively than the choral performances it sprang from. To better express my interpretation o f what occurred, I relate it to two modern experiences. The first is the experience of a Pentecostal church. Picture the choir singing and dancing the praises o f Jesus. The congregation is likewise singing and dancing in the aisles. Then an individual steps forward from the choir, overcome with the Holy Spirit. He or she begins to shake, to dance, and to speak in tongues. The Holy Spirits appearance brings a sense o f awe not only to those it falls upon, but to all who are present .143 The structure of religious service in the church is designed to induce its appearance, designed to bring about its epiphany. The service is designed to bring about an experience not unlike the experience o f that first actor who stepped out o f the chorus to feel oneness with the god.
1431 refer to Corey, who suggested that the audience in psychodrama can experience that same benefits as the protagonists in vicarious ways (232). More w ill be said on this later.
150
Another modem experience to which I relate the birth o f tragedy is an experience o f my own in a group meditation. The group was formed in a circle. Once deep into the meditation, I experienced a dissolving o f ego boundaries and a union with the others present. I felt like a follicle o f sea-weed in warm ocean water. The leader o f the meditation asked us to extend our awareness to the person on our left, then to the person on the right. As I did this, it felt like the sea-weed was swaying in a current, first to the left, then to the right. The leader then asked us to extend our awareness to a teacher or religious symbol with which we resonated. Before I was able to think o f a symbol or teacher, I felt the presence o f Jesus in my body. I felt like I was Jesus. The feeling was a brilliant flash that lasted only moments, but in those moments a whole world opened in front of me. I felt like I was in the Garden of Edenthere was no fear and only bliss. I had no thing, but had everything. I felt like a vessel through which the power o f the source could be channeled. I felt connected to the primordial oneness o f the universe in which there was no future and no past, only a vibrating, pulsating now. It was a stunning, if only momentary, experience. I settled back into a more relaxed state and tried, but failed, to induce the experience to occur again. In each o f these experiences (theater, church, and the group meditation) there is a breaking down o f boundaries between person and person, person and god, and between reality and illusion. This breaking down o f boundaries emphasizes the liminal status of Dionysos, and his ability to transcend opposites.144 The breaking down of boundaries is also key in evoking the ecstatic state, for it is boundary crossing that enables us to have
144 A s Segal points out, by making D ionysos, the patron o f tragedy, the subject o f this tragedy, Euripides reflects upon his liminal status and what it means to question reality versus illusion, truth versus delusion, divinity versus bestiality civilization versus the wild and order versus chaos. The play itself becom es an infinite regress o f illusions (2 1 6 ,2 3 3 ).
151
an experience larger than our egos. Robert Johnson suggests: When we transcend the cross o f opposites, we will find ecstatic jo y (52). Segal, focusing on the liminal status o f Dionysos, his place in between truth and delusion, reality and illusion, comes to a similar conclusion: In tragic theater, as in the Bacchic ecstasy, the participant stands outside o f himself: he temporarily relinquishes the safe limits o f personal identity in order to extend him self sympathetically to other dimensions o f experience (215). In each o f these experiences (theater, church, and the group meditation), the ritual provides a safe container in which the participant can experience the ecstatic. The container is safe in the sense that the experience is marked off and separated from ordinary life, and that one has the unspoken permission to move out o f ordinary consciousness and social roles, and give oneself over to the experience. E. R. Dodds speculates that Dionysian festivals (in which theater was a centerpiece) may have been developed out o f outbreaks of mass hysteria, with the development o f an organized festival to keep it within bounds and give it a relatively harmless outlet. By canalizing such hysteria in an organized rite once every two years,145 the Dionysiac cult kept it within bounds and gave it a relatively harmless outlet (xiv). Implicit in his comments is the idea that the Dionysian is going to occur, the question is whether it is spontaneous and possibly dysfunctional or planned and made both safe and functional. Events like the festival and theater becomes a safe place for the actor, the chorus and the spectator to experience the ecstatic. The alternative, according to Dodds, is catastrophic. To resist Dionysos is to repress the elemental in ones own nature; the punishment is the sudden complete collapse o f the inward dykes when the elemental breaks through perforce and civilization vanishes (xvi).
145 Some Dionysian festivals were originally on a two-year cycle.
152
Cambridge ritualist theory. A second approach is exemplified by Gilbert Murray, an important classical scholar o f the early twentieth century. M urrays theory is contained in Harrisons Themis. He reiterates the key points that he believes to be generally agreed upon by classical scholars: that the origin o f tragedy is a ritual dance (a sader Indus),146 that the dance represented the historical cause o f some current ritual practice, that the dance was originally performed for Dionysos, that Dionysos is an Eniautos-Diamon and that comedy and tragedy represent different stages in the life o f the year spirit. He regards comedy to be related to his marriage feast, and tragedy to be related to his death and rebirth (340). He specifically cites Famells Cults and Cornfords Origin o f Attic Comedy in this. If we assume that his ritual dance is akin to the dithyramb alluded to by Aristotle, or other choral performances, then his historical argument is not diametrically opposed to the more traditional theory, though the concept o f the year-daimon was not universally embraced. His special contribution is to focus on the structure o f tragedys plot not the plot in an individual tragedy, but the structure of the plots in all tragedies. He then projects that structure back onto the ritual dance and suggests that this structure is the residue from a ritual older than even the ritual dance. Murray argues that the form o f this structure is (1) an agon (a contest, conflict or debate, e.g. year against its enemy or the summer against the winter), (2) a pathos o f the yeas:-daimon, in which he is slain (3) a messenger announcing the pathos (since the pathos itself is seldom seen by the audience), (4) a threnos (lamentation), (5) an anagorisis (discovery or recognition) o f the slain daimon, followed by (6) his theophany, a resurrection, apotheosis or epiphany (343-44). He applies this form to various Greek tragedies, most notably The Bacchae o f Euripides,
146 It is not clear to me whether or not Murrays ritual dance is the same thing as a satyr dance.
1 53
to show its applicability.147 Implicit in this structure is the idea that Pentheus is the yeardaimon , and that he is a double o f Dionysos. Murray explains this, in part, to be fundamental in the notion of Dionysos. It is inconceivable that life itself should die; thus his human double has to die instead.148 My understanding o f M urrays argument is that even in plays which have no apparent connection to Dionysos, the plot structure follows a form which fits the life o f Dionysos and also fits the structure for rituals performed for Dionysos. Murray theorizes that this structure in tragedies is an echo o f ritual performed before the development o f the genre o f theater, though he does not specifically state what that ritual was, nor does he the trace developmental steps needed to accomplish this shift. He keeps theater firmly planted in the soil o f Dionysian religion and ritual, and uses its structure as additional proof of the connection. Murray shows us not only the ritual origin o f the ritual o f theater, but gives us the ritual origin for the structure o f the plot, i.e., the ritual origin of the myth. Lets reflect on the image created by Murray. The two key figures in the drama are Dionysos and Pentheus. They are related in that they are doubles o f one another:
147 In The Bacchae, the agon takes place from lines 787-976, when Pentheus (the year -daimori) and D ionysos debate and Pentheus is conquered by D ionysos, i.e., he is now under D ion ysos power and ready to go to the mountains. The pathos takes place and is announced by the m essenger in lines 10241152: Pentheus has been violently killed by the maenads. The rather elaborate threnos (lamentation) takes place in lines 1153-1329. It includes within it a dance: A gave dances with the maenads celebrating what she has done, not realizing that she has murdered and dismembered her son. This is follow ed by her recognition o f what she has done and a proper lamentation. Included within the threnos, is the anagorisis, the discovery and recognition o f the slain daimon, as w ell as an effort to put the pieces back together, i.e., A gave realizes that she has her son s head on a platter. Finally, on line 1330 is the epiphany o f D ionysos. Associated with this structure is a p erip eteia , an extreme change o f emotion, which Murray suggests to be common to tragedy (Harrison, Themis 343-46). 148 A lso in the spirit o f E lses second approach is a theory proposed by Famell in his Cults o f the Greek States. Farnell suggests the possibility that tragedy evolved from a ritualistic battle re-enacting a fight between Melanthus and Xanthus. The names mean swarthy and fair respectively. Thus, Farnell suggests this to be a battle between the dark god and the fair god, in which the dark god wins. He further argues this to be a fight between winter and summer, in which winter wins. This fight would be reversed in the spring, with summer winning. The aspect o f D ionysos com ing to the aid o f Melanthus w as D ionysos Eleuthereus, the god w ho presided over theater (V 234-37). The battle between summer and winter is consistent with the notion o f the year -daimon. Though proposed by a great scholar, this theory has not been as influential as Murrays, and certainly not as influential as the mainstream thinking.
154
Dionysos standing for indestructible life, zoe, and Pentheus for perishable life, bios. By its nature, zoe cannot be destroyed. But bios, by denying its identity to zoe, does destroy itself, and is thus doomed to the yearly cycle o f death and rebirth. The individual, by separating itself from the imperishable source o f life, makes itself mortal. It is as if the egos desire for individuality separates it from the immortal life source, and dooms itself to mortality what is mortal is the idea that we are separate individuals. The action between Pentheus and Dionysos is ordered by ritual {agon, pathos, messenger, threnos, anagnorsis, and theophany ). This particular drama plays out that ritual in a particular way. The theophany o f this particular play is an epiphany, itself an ecstatic moment. And since the structure contains a peripeteia, a dramatic reversal of emotion, it has an excellent chance o f triggering a cathartic emotional release in the audience. Murray tells us how to structure a ritual that brings about an epiphany o f the god. Murray leaves us wondering what ancient ritual might be echoed in the ritual o f theater. Frazers year king is a possibility the king annually sacrificed to ensure the fertility o f the fields. Certainly the myths o f Dionysos are open to this. The story o f Lycurgos, the cousin o f Pentheus, immediately comes to mind a king who denies Dionysos and ultimately is torn apart by his own subjects in order to bring fertility back to their fields. However, these are suppositions. Murray is not specific. Pickard-Cambridge did much to show that the ritual sequence suggested by Murray could not be demonstrated in more than a few tragedies. Else points this out and laments that even though M urrays theory is discredited within the circle o f classical scholars, it continues to enjoy acceptance outside o f that circle (3).
155
Tomb theory. There is a third strain o f thinking whose primary proponents were Martin Nilsson and Sir William Ridgeway.149 Ridgeway, in his Origin o f Tragedy, argues that the beginnings o f tragedy go back further in time than the introduction of Dionysiac worship in Attic. He doesnt deny a role played by the Dionysian cult, but argues that the real roots go back to plays enacted at the tombs o f heroes. Part o f his argument is that the dithyramb, while associated with Dionysos, was also used in the commemoration o f dead heroes (5-6). Ridgeway argues that the thymele, the altar in the orchestra, is a vestige o f a tomb (38-39), and that performers (like Thespis and presumably, many before him) traveled from tomb to tomb putting on plays about the interned hero. Dionysos appropriated theater when he appropriated festivals dedicated to dead heroes.150 Ridgeway puts tragedy in the line o f development o f epic poems. Along this general line o f thinking are theories that theater was performed or originated at the Eleusinian mysteries, Eleusis being the tomb o f Persephone in the sense that this is where she entered Hades. In 1908, Albrecht Dieterich proposed that tragedy originated from mourning and lamentation at both the Anthesteria and the Eleusinian mysteries. His theory was rejected by Pickard-Cambridge (Dithyramb 180). Paul Francios Foucart suggested that the mysteries involved a theatrical reenactment o f the story o f Persephone and Demeter, but this theory has not found favor with scholars (Taylor-Perry 112). Kerenyi flatly rejects the notion that theater was part o f the mysteries (Dionysos 26). Bieber, however, maintains that In Delphi the story o f the killing o f the dragon by Apollo, in Eleusis the story o f the rape of Persephone and her return to her
149 N ilsson s article, Der Ursprung der Tragodie, has not, to my knowledge, been translated. Thus, 1 rely solely on Ridgeway. 150 An exam ple o f a festival that he uses is the Anthesteria, a spring festival with H alloween-like overtones, which almost certainly predates the Dionysian cults. However, Pickard-Cambridge uses this to discredit Ridgeway, arguing that theater w as never performed at the Anthesteria.
156
mother Demeter as a symbol o f death and resurrection, were repeated in the same form every year (16). Thus, she acknowledges the possibility that stories were being re enacted in some fashion, but does not think that these performances gave rise to tragedy. Thus, there is considerable ambiguity about what, if any, theater was performed at Eleusis. Putting aside the objections, the image o f this third line o f thinking is interesting. Going back to our theater scene, Ridgeways theory would put the focus on the tomb o f Semele, the thymele. The play being performed is in the spirit o f a performance at the actual tomb. A connection is being made to an ancestor; in this case the ancestor is mythic. Dionysos, a chthonic god who is sometimes identified with Hades himself,151 appropriated the performance by appropriating the tomb as his altar. Lets amplify this image by picturing a drama performed at the tomb o f a personal relative.152 That relative is brought to life by an actor, and the event may unfold as a theatrical seance, allowing the witnesses to bring unconscious emotions and thoughts into consciousness, to experience emotional release and to make peace with the departed. This makes vivid the therapeutic nature o f theater. It also has parallels in the work on psychodrama of J. L. Moreno. Moreno demonstrated that by acting out past, present, or future life situations in a group-therapy setting, a client gains deeper understanding, achieves catharsis, and develops new behavior skillsparticularly the ability to be spontaneous and creative. It enables the client to rewrite his life as if he or she were the playwright (Corey 221). Importantly, the benefits (especially those associated with catharsis) accrue not only to the client who is the protagonist, but to those playing other
151 Heraclitus famously equated the two. 152 Ridgeway does not suggest that theater began at the tombs o f personal relatives, unless that relative happened to be a great hero.
157
roles and those only watching (Corey 232). A drama performed at the tomb o f a relative has the potential to serve the purpose o f a psychodrama, helping the relatives to achieve a deeper understanding o f the departed and their relationship to him or her and achieve catharsis. They are in a position to rewrite the script o f their relationship to the departed. Now shift to a tomb o f a hero, a hero so great that he or she is buried in the collective psyche. A tragedy performed at this tomb resurrects thoughts and emotions from the darkness o f the collective unconscious into the light o f day. The collective psyche is now able to experience a catharsis and rewrite the script o f their relationship to the heroic figure. In The Bacchae the tomb on stage is that o f Semele. Though the plot o f the play is about Dionysos and Pentheus, the dead hero is Semele,153 the mother o f the god whose honor is restored when Dionysos proves him self to be divine. The tragedy thus becomes an opportunity for the poet to examine the archetype o f mother, and for Athenian society to examine, both intellectually and emotionally, its relationship to the mother. Ridgeways tomb theory casts tragedy as a powerful ritual that enables a society to dissolve the boundaries between itself and past generationsto dissolve the boundary between life and death.154 Great man theory. Else proposes his own theory, which I call the Great Man Theory, for reasons that will soon be apparent. Else follows the traditional sequencing events but rejects the evolutionary interpretation o f that sequencing. In his view, [ . . . ] tragedy was not the end-result o f a gradual development but the product o f two
153 A s Paris notes, Sem eles death is in som e ways the opposite o f Pentheus, she dies from too much Zeus, too much intensity o f emotion (21). 154 A lso recall the theory o f Rohde, that the Greeks in the era o f Homer had no b elief in the immortality o f the soul for ordinary humans, and that the only thing approaching immortality was to be remembered. Theater at the site o f a tomb would be a vivid remembering.
158
successive creative acts by two men o f genius. The first of these men was Thespis, the second was Aeschylus (2). At first blush, it may seem like Else is merely demanding that we give Thespis and Aeschylus their due. However, the Elses criticism is deeper. He suggests that all o f the existing theories o f tragedy have at their core, a [ ...] pervasive phenomenon: the determination at all costs to find the origin o f tragedy in religion, and therefore in ritual (4). Thus, his theory distances tragedy from this origin and aligns it as the product o f the creative action o f two individuals. It gives voice to an alternative approach that calls into question the ritual roots o f theater. Else believes that tragedy [ . . . ] grew out o f rhapsodes recitations o f Homer [ . . . ] (63). He argues that it did not begin with the transposition o f epic material into dramatic form, but began as a self presentation o f the heros fate. Moreover, he argues that the focus is not on his glories, but on his defeats and humiliations (65). He goes on to say that the whole development o f Greek tragedy from beginning to the end o f its life span was a flowering from this single root, the heros pathos (65). The image presented by Else is interesting. On one hand, it can be seen as a rejection o f the religious/ritualistic origin o f tragedy, replaced by the conscious creativity o f a few great individuals, presenting the suffering (pathos) o f a great hero. In Elses view, tragedy had nothing to do with Dionysos right from the beginning (80). On the other hand, this itself can be regarded as a religion o f sorts a cult of rationality and ego, i.e., the cult o f Apollo.155 The priests o f Apollo were present at the theater in greater numbers than the priests of any other cult. Moreover, it was Apollo who ostensibly invited Dionysos into Delphi, and thus incorporated him into mainstream Greek religion.
1551 was tempted to call his theory the Apollonian theory, but that would not do justice to his insistence that tragedy did not have its origin in a ritual or religion.
159
The introduction o f Apollo into the equation takes on more meaning when we look at acting (below). The image presented by Else parallels the Socratic image presented by Nietzsche. As described by Nietzsche (84), Socrates believes that the creative act occurs consciously with instinct as the critic, rather than the other way around. It is as if Socrates was saying that the creative energy comes from Apollo, with Dionysos acting as the guide and controller. Else perceives theater as an Apollonian creation.156 Nietzsche, o f course, attributed the demise o f theater, not its creation, to this influence. By emphasizing the suffering o f the hero, Else also points us to the tragic situation o f the hero that the heros pathos is co-ordinate with his greatness (83). It is as if the hero does not understand the weakness in his own strengths, his own lack o f wholeness, until it is too late. Tragedy s demise. Though much has been written about the origin o f tragedy and about tragedy at its peak during classical times, comparatively less has been written about its demise. Aristotle only said that having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped (IV). Bieber, in covering theater from its beginnings through Roman times, says only that after Euripides, the growth o f Attic theater came to an end. The festivals continued and plays were written. According to ancient sources, the style o f Euripides was continued, but none o f the new poets were o f the stature o f the master. The dramatic festivals often supplemented the new material with revivals o f older plays. The only new tragedy to survive was Rhesus, sometimes wrongly attributed to Euripides and considered by Bieber to be insignificant. Her own explanation for the demise o f Attic tragedy is that [ . . . ] Euripides had destroyed the religious meaning o f
156 This might overstate Else, for the great men who created theater may have done so through the workings o f their unconscious, but it w as A pollo w ho made room for D ionysos at Delphi, metaphorically giving us permission to work the unconscious.
160
tragedy without being able to cast off the fetters o f the cult (34).157 Nietzsche is more specific. He attributes its demise to too much rationality, too much ethical sensibility, too much Euripides and Socrates. Nietzsche notes the famous Socratic maxims: Virtue is knowledge; all sins arise from ignorance; only the virtuous are happy these three basic formulations o f optimism spell the death o f tragedy (88). Without blaming Euripides (or Socrates), Segal acknowledges that The Bacchae embodies a fin-de-siecle self awareness about a literary form that was now nearing the end o f its creative life (216). He terms this self-conscious awareness that dissolves the boundaries between the work as self-contained and life as its metatragic dimension. He argues that Euripides questions the nature o f reality, both on stage and in life. Though this is not the focus o f his writing, he suggests that similar preoccupations occur in Aristophanes The Frogs. The demise of tragedy and old comedy was signaled when the art form became the subject o f the art. It is worth contemplating the demise o f tragedy in its historical context. The tragedies o f Aeschylus were essentially conservative. They were rituals performed to reinforce the values o f the Athenian culture. During the years o f Athenian hegemony over Greece, tragedy shifted. Rather than reinforcing collective values, the tragedies of Euripides questioned them, much as Socrates questioned the wisdom o f leading citizens. The self-reflective stance o f Euripides tragedies was inappropriate at a time when Athens was subject to an immediate and serious external threat. The end result was the defeat o f Athens and the replacement o f Athenian democracy by Spartan tyranny. Indeed, even comedy passed judgment on tragedy. In The Frogs , Aristophanes, speaking through Dionysos (or Dionysos through Aristophanes), chooses Aeschylus over Euripides
157 Comedy, on the other hand, continued to develop. See below .
161
as the better poet to bring back from the dead to save Athens. Unfortunately, life didnt imitate art Aeschylus didnt return to save the city.
Comedy As suggested by Aristotle, the history o f comedy is obscure. And, as with tragedy, Aristotles sparse comments form the basis o f the conventional wisdom on the topic. He believed that comedy evolved from improvisations on phallic songs and phallic ceremonies. The word comedy comes from komos; it is the song o f the gay revelers. Aristophanes, in his earliest extant comedy, Acharnians , gives clues to the nature o f the komos. In this play, a procession is organized during the rural Dionysia in which licentious songs are sung, as well as derisive songs targeted at unpopular people in the town. The singers, not wishing to be recognized, wear animal masks. These masks carried over into the more modern genre, old comedy. Typical dress for a comedic actor included not only a mask, but padded bellies and behinds, and for male roles, a large artificial phallus protruding below a short robe (Simon, The Ancient Theater 28). PickardCambridge argues that phallic actors o f comedy are to be derived from Doric mime, farce or burlesque (Dithyramb 240). Bieber speculates that the transition from the collective komos to a comedic play was the acting out o f farcical scenes. Although these scenes may have been developed in Attica, Bieber suggests that their origin was in the Peloponnesus and that Aristophanes elevated comedy. His plays follow a format much like tragedy, and are much longer than earlier comedy. She surmises that this development may have occurred when comic plays were first allowed in the city Dionysia in 486 BCE (3638).158 However, his plays cannot be confused with tragedy. As old comedy, they
158 Comedy may have been performed earlier at the rural Dionysia.
162
loosely knit a series o f episodes into a unified whole, contain rude and crude jokes, lampoon important public figures, and offer political satire. They very much reflect their origin. An alternative history was proposed by another Cambridge Ritualist, F. M. Comford in The Origin o f Attic Comedy (1914),159 and has been revived by Kenneth J. Reckford in Aristophanes Old and New Comedy. Cornfords approach to comedy parallels M urrays approach to tragedy. Comford proposes that comedy has a specific structure: prologue, parodos (the ode sung by the entering chorus), agon (the conflict or contest), parabasis (a moment when the choms turns and addresses the audience in the voice o f the poet), sacrifice, feast, and sacred marriage. Pickard-Cambridge simplifies this structure (or presents its core) as agon, pathos, and resurrection. Murray further suggests that this is the stereotyped action o f a folk drama. Reckford supposes that Comford had in mind something like Punch and Judy shows (447). Much like M urrays interpretation o f tragedy, Cornford arrives at his conclusion by reading his structure into the extant comedies of Aristophanes and supposing that the structure is an echo o f a past ritual. This past ritual is presumed to involve the year spirit, the Eniautos-Daimon, and the agon is presumed to be a battle between the good spirit and the bad spirit or winter versus summer.160 Pickard-Cambridge devotes an entire appendix in his own Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy to addressing, and rejecting, Comford (329-49). Like M urrays theory, Cornfords is no longer taken seriously by classicists but continues to have
159 Unfortunately this book is long out o f print. I know its central themes from one o f Cornfords critics, Pickard-Cambridge, and one o f his defenders, Kenneth J. Reckford. 160 In the context o f The Frogs, w e can apply the simplified template proposed by Pickard-Cambridge. The agon would be the contest for the throne o f tragedy. The path os is implied, since D ionysos has descended into Hades to interview the two contestants, A eschylus and Euripides, who are both already dead. The resurrection is the victory o f A eschylus and his return to save Athens (Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyram b 339).
163
something o f a following outside o f classical scholarship. Reckford suggests that, in part, Murray and Cornford have both suffered because the Cambridge Ritualists are now unfashionable (39). Pickard-Cambridge argues that they suffer because there is no evidence to support them. Reckford acknowledges problems with Comfords theory and proposes his own three step process in an appendix to his book (449-51).161 The first step in the development o f comedy is what he terms the festive play. This is a play that he believes is inherent in humankind and has a magical intent: promote the wellbeing o f the community, drive out bad spirits, improve the harvest, and reconcile the world o f animal nature with the world o f spirit. From this developed groupings o f play forms: the chorus, the animal masquerade, insult contests, and phallic processions. From these came the basic building blocks o f the comedy: the parados, the agon, the parabasis, and the exodus.162 The second step was the integration o f the Olympian religion into this early form o f comedy. The elements o f comedy began to be performed in honor o f the gods. O f all o f the gods, Demeter and especially Dionysos became the focal points for rites o f fertility and renewal, and for carnival concentration o f these elements. The third step was the combination o f state support, the example o f tragedy and the gifts o f a few creative individuals (e.g. Aristophanes) who elevated the genre to what is now called old comedy. It is not clear that Reckford succeeded in salvaging Cornfords theory. Once started, comedy then passed through an evolutionary process, which is relatively well documented. After its beginnings, it becomes old comedy, an art form
161 Reckford credits Francisco Adrados with having devised this. 162 Note that for each theorist, the basic building blocks are similar but not identical.
164
associated with Aristophanes. Old comedy could be characterized as farce, satire, and/or burlesque. It usually explored a situation through a series of loosely connected scenes that ended in some sort of unity: a marriage.163 Like tragedy, it had a chorus. Important public figures were lampooned, and it was often political in nature. It exhibited its roots in the crude jests that occurred in the phallic processions. Old comedy evolved into middle comedy during the lifetime o f Aristophanes. Aristophanes wrote some plays that would be considered middle comedy. A key event shaping this next generation of comedy was the Athenian defeat at the hands of Sparta, and the loss o f freedom that came with it. Middle comedy dispensed with the chorus, was less political, and, understandably, no longer lampooned public figures. One theme was to parody a past tragedy.164 Finally, during the time o f Alexander the Great, the genre evolved into new comedy, which was more literary, less satirical, and often romantic in character, i.e. it represents the beginnings o f the modern romantic comedy. It largely dealt with the conditions existing among the wealthy and educated upper classes. The most important poet o f new comedy was Menander, who wrote in the late fourth century and was, incidentally, not only a contemporary but a friend o f the philosopher, Epicurus. Thus, unlike tragedy, which stagnated after classical times, comedy continued to grow and develop into the Hellenistic period, though it clearly lost its political bite. The image that these histories present is that comedy is both entertainment and social/political criticism. Public institutions and public figures are lampooned. In doing
163 Indeed, efforts have been made to connect com edy to the marriage o f D ionysos. I find the efforts to do so to be a bit strained, in that the marriage o f D ionysos was celebrated at the Anthesteria, at which no theater took place. Comedy was popular at the rural D ionysos and Lenaia, the time o f year in which Greek marriages took place, but not the time o f D ion ysos marriage. 164 This type o f parody becam e popular in Greek settlements in southern Italy, and would thus influence the development o f theater in Rome.
165
so, people become more authentic, saying what they really think rather than what is politically or socially correct. Presumably, a catharsis o f sorts takes place when we laugh at ourselves. Maybe more important, behavioral course-corrections might take place when we see how we are being laughed at. Comedy is Dionysos as the social revolutionary or boundary crosser. With the loss o f democracy came a loss o f freedom o f speech, old comedy was no longer acceptable. In a time o f crisis, it is Dionysos who recognizes that the conservative Aeschylus is the poet best suited to save Athens. It is the reverse image o f the Apollonian personality searching the unconscious to connect to his anima. In this case, Dionysos searches his unconscious to find the father-like bearer o f conservative values.
Acting In the earliest plays, the function o f the actor was undifferentiated from that o f the poet. When Thespis, disguised as a god or a hero according to the role he had to play, stepped forward to answer the chorus, he became a hypocrite, an answer, and thus created the first actor simultaneously with the first tragedy around the middle o f the sixth century (Bieber 80). Aeschylus was also his own chief actor, but by adding a second actor, he created the first dialogue between actor and actor and created a place for specialist in acting. Sophocles added the third actor, but only acted him self in some o f his earliest plays. When the poets first began to use actors other than themselves, the choice o f actors was left to the poet. Kleandros, Mynniskos, and Tlepolemos were actors employed by Aeschylus and Sophocles. Beginning in 449 BCE, the choice was taken from the poet and was made by the state, i.e., the archon selected three actors and apportioned them to
166
the poets. Secondary roles were played by actors selected by the chief actor, the protagonist. At that same date, a prize was awarded to the best actor (in addition to the prize for best poet). It was then recognized that the poets chances o f winning were partly dependent on the allotment o f actors. Thus, in the fourth century, each actor played in one o f the plays from each poet, thereby assuring that acting quality was the same for each poet (Bieber 80-81). In the fourth century, the classic tragedies o f Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides continued to be performed along with new material, which was generally considered inferior. The emphasis shifted to showcasing actors. Aristotle stated that in his own time, the actor counted for more in contests than the dramatist. In some cases, famed actors were selected for diplomatic embassies, just as poets had been in earlier years. For example, the actor Thettalus was invited to the court o f Alexander the Great and sent on important missions (Bieber 83). Actors were organized into a guild in the third century BCE. The guild was essentially a religious organization, and as such its members were exempt from taxes and military service. Comedy followed a similar path, with the early poets acting in their own plays, followed by the use o f professional actors. Awards for actors in comedy came later than the awards for actors in tragedy, first in the Lenaea circa 422, and in the city Dionysia much later, circa 325. The members o f the chorus were not looked upon as actors either in comedy or tragedy. They were ordinary citizens, though they were paid and were trained by a chorus trainer (Bieber 81). The overall trend (in both comedy and tragedy) was one o f declining importance o f the poet, declining importance of the chorus, and increasing importance o f the actors.
167
Nietzsche noticed the diminishing importance o f the chorus (the voice o f the collective) and increasing importance o f dialogue between the individual actors and read into that a transition from the collective to the individual and from the Dionysian to the Apollonian. Central to his thesis was that tragedy flowered in this transition, and when the Dionysian element was finally choked off, tragedy died. In much the same vein, it is also important to note in the increasing importance o f the actors was a new consciousness. As Paris notes, there was a shift away from the Homeric view of human activity being shaped by the gods and destiny, to a new consciousness where humans shaped their own destiny (45). It is as if tragedy discovered the notion o f an individual free will. Whether tragedy invented this concept, or merely reflected a development that was taking place, is unknown. An important element for the actor is his mask. A first step, according to Bieber, was taken by dressing one o f the satyrs as Hermes, as Heracles, as Perseus, as Prometheus, as Jason, or even as Dionysos, whichever the needs o f the individual play demanded.165 At second step toward the development o f tragedy came when the mask o f the leading satyr was replaced by that o f a god or hero, the exarchos (the leader o f the chorus) appearing in the dress o f such a figure and impersonating him with an appropriate mask rather than the satyr mask. A third step came when the exarchos, as an actor, was entirely separated from the satyr chorus. (Bieber 15) Thespis is said to have first treated the face o f his actors with white lead, then covered it with cinnabar or rubbed it with wine less, and finally introduced masks o f unpainted linen. Choerilus, the successor o f Thespis, made further experiments with masks, and Phrynichus, the pupil o f Thespis, introduced womens masks (Bieber 19).
165 Remember that Beiber has the satyr dance in the direct line o f development o f theater.
168
Thus, the trend in masks was to unmask the satyr and then to re-mask him as a hero or god, first using improvised make-up, and then moving to a formal mask. The use o f white lead is interesting in that it mimics the masks used by the Titans in their dismembering o f Dionysos. It is also noteworthy that within the Dionysiac religion, the thiasote (follower o f Dionysos) who dances or plays in honor o f the god must at all times wear a mask (Bieber 23). The mask clearly has religious roots. And the mask is an obvious metaphor for the roles that we play in our daily lives. Finally, the mask is one o f the primary symbols o f Dionysos, for as Paris asserts, Dionysos is not the God behind the mask. He is the mask. (49). The rest o f the costume also underwent development. Aeschylus [ . . . ] introduced a definite actors costume. He gave the players sleeves, a long robe with train, and increased their height by means o f taller cothurni, buskins, and by a high hairdress. (22) It is difficult to prove that the long, floating sleeved robe came from the Dionysiac worship. We know it as belonging to the Eleusinian cult, worn by Iacchus, by the priest, and by the dadouchos (the torch bearing boy). Hence, the former belief about Aeschylus, who was bom at Eleusis, borrowed the robe from the Mysteries. The monuments that show the hierophant, Iacchus, or the dadouchos in the sleeved robes are all, however, the products of later periods. Therefore, it is quite possible that it was not actors who copied their dress from the Eleusinian priests, but rather the Eleusinian priests who borrowed this costume from the actors (Bieber 24-25). Thus, theater not only had its roots in ritual and religion, but ritual and religion borrowed theatrical elements from the arts. The sleeved robe and the high boots were the costume o f Asia Minor, and the Orient as well as o f Thrace and North Hellas. When the Dionysian religion entered
169
Greece, it brought with it an outlandish costume that to the lightly clad Greeks appeared solemn. Soon the dress was indissolubly bound up with the sacred plays o f Dionysiac worship (Bieber 27). A second reason why this dress should appear as peculiarly suitable for the actors is the fact that it covered the whole person from head to foot, with the exception o f the hands which were used for gesticulation. This complete covering made the wearer unrecognizable. The individual actor must give up his identity in order to represent the character o f a higher life (Bieber 27-28). The development o f the personality of the actor was both hindered and shaped by the religious costume. Facial expression, for example, was hidden by the mask. Thus, emotions and passions were expressed through posture, body and hand movement, and gesture. Bieber, basing her views on artistic representations o f theater from ancient Greece, suggests strong, simple motions in tragedy, and lively exaggerated motions in comedy (82). Greek actors spoke and sang, often to the accompaniment o f a flute or lyre. There was, o f course, no voice amplification, but the excellent acoustics o f the theaters helped to ensure that the actor could be heard. More important than a booming voice was clear diction and enunciation accuracy counted for more than volume in representing a god. Since the actors played multiple roles, an ability to speak in different voices was also useful. Clearly, the ability to be expressive at multiple levels was key to being a successful actor. To be in the play, the actor must, o f course, play his role, as determined by the mask, costume, and script. The role constrains the otherwise unfettered expression o f the actors personality. The actors self expression is channeled into subtler means: gesture,
170
posture, and expressive voice. An actor who is unable to express himself using these subtle means is lifeless, and not much o f an actor. Return, for a moment, to the image o f the actor stepping out from the chorus. This actor gives all indications of having, as Bieber describes it, renounced his individuality. However, there are two opposing ways to look this. On one hand, the actor may be exactly as he appears: ecstatically possessed by the god.166 On the other hand, the actor may be only acting, outwardly mimicking what a person possessed by the god should look like.167 This is no small issue, for it establishes one o f the early dichotomies in the art o f acting Dionysian versus Apollonian approaches. Two nineteenth-century commentators on acting famously addressed this: Denis Diderot and William Archer. The French materialist philosopher, Diderot, was best known for his Encyclopedie, but also wrote several plays and The Paradox o f Acting, which was published posthumously in 1830. His central contention the paradox was that the best actors do not experience the emotion that they express on stage; their intellect is in complete control o f their outer persona. Appealing through reason and logic rather than data, he argued that the tone o f their voice, their facial expressions, and their gestures are calculated to mimic those o f a character who is, in fact, experiencing the emotion.
166 In his Five S tages o f G reek R eligion, Gilbert Murray argues that this is a two step process. The union o f man with God cam e regularly through Ekstasis the soul must get clear o f its body and Enthousiasmos the God must enter and dwell inside the worshipper. But the means to this union, which sometimes allegorized and spiritualized to the last degree, are som etim es o f the most primitive sort (144). Robert Johnson also addresses enthusiasm which he defines as being filled with god, and distinguishes it from inflation, which he defines as being filled with air. H e warns that too often, D ionysos is served up to us inflated ways (48-51). 167 For explanatory purposes, I som ewhat overstate this dichotomy. Moreover, Paris notes that [. . .] often the feeling that w as being acted becom es ours, and w e becom e one with the mask (48). By attempting to mimic an em otion, w e succeed in inducing the emotion within ourselves.
171
Archer, a Scottish drama critic, disagreed, and published his own classic, Masks or Faces?, in 1888 as a reply. Archers approach was empirical. He surveyed a number o f actors who were acknowledged to be masters o f their craft and asked them in a variety o f ways how much emotion, if any, they felt when they performed. The response that he received strongly supported his contention that the best actors are immersed in the characters that they portray, and experience the emotions that they mimic. He addressed the problem o f experiencing emotion at the right time and describes a common method: to stand at the wing and drink in every word o f the dialogue leading up to the difficult entrance in order to be impregnated with the spirit o f the situation (175). In other words, Archer argues for being in the moment. These two positions establish a tension in approaches to stagecraft that continues to this day.168 It also describes a tension in the individuals own psychological stance in daily living. These two positions in acting have their analogue in Jungs psychological types. Jung describes the Apollinian as [ . . . ] a perception of inner images o f beauty, of measure, o f controlled and proportioned feelings [. . .] an inner perception, and intuition o f the world o f ideas (Jung, CW6: 144) This very much matches Diderot, who approached the problem from an intuitive, rationalist perspective and whose ideal actor was a thinker who mimicked the outer manifestations o f the emotions that he portrayed. The Dionysian, o f the other hand, is described by Jung as [ . . . ] a flood of overpowering universal feeling which bursts forth irresistibly, intoxicating the senses like the strongest wine. [ . . . ] It is an extraversion o f all those feelings feeling which are inextricably bound up with sensation, for which reason we call it feeling-sensation
1681 am obviously going to extremes by presenting this as a dichotom y. A really good actor probably does som e o f both. Indeed, in imitating the outward affects o f an experience, the actor might start having the actual experience.
172
(Jung, CW6: 144). This approach is much more like Archer, who approached the problem by doing a survey and whose ideal actor was a feeler o f the emotions that he portrayed.
Themes and Motifs At the beginning o f this chapter, I posed a series o f four propositions about theater and its history, i.e., the myth o f the birth o f theater. The first o f these propositions was that tragedy had its roots in ritual and religion, and that the religion that it was rooted in was the religion dedicated to Dionysos. The evidence heavily supports this contention. The ancient theory o f this history, as outlined by Aristotle, clearly suggests the beginnings to be in the Dionysian dithyramb. The mainstream modern theory, outlined by Pickard-Cambridge, Bieber et al. follows in the line o f Aristotle. Most o f the alternative theories are located in this church, though not necessarily the same pew. The Cambridge Ritualist theory is consistent with history proposed by Aristotle, but adds an additional layer connection in the structure o f the plot. The tomb theory, proposed by Ridgeway, moves away from Dionysian ritual, but by maintaining a connection to the underworld it stays in the realm o f the chthonic god. Only the theory o f Else rejects a ritual beginning, and as I argued in the section on Else, his theory could be recast as an Apollonian beginning to tragedy. Comedy is similarly rooted in Dionysian festivals, and the ritual o f phallic processions and insult contests. Second, tragedy is a ritual designed to evoke an epiphany o f Dionysos. It does this by pulling the participant deep into the immediate now o f the moment and by crossing the boundaries between the reality and illusion; our beast nature and divine nature; and our individuality versus the oneness o f all existence. Such a boundary crossing is arguably the essence o f a religious experience and state o f ecstasy. Other gods might
173
direct our attention to the perfection o f a nonphysical other world, a heaven to be enjoyed at some future date. But Dionysos brings us to the here and now, and in doing so shows us the sacredness o f the world as it is, with all o f its imperfections, in the infinity o f this moment. He beckons us to be the actor who, paradoxically, plays a role, but brings all of his artistry and creativity to that role. Third, classical tragedy had a therapeutic function. As Aristotle observed, participants in the theater (including the audience) experienced an emotional release that he described as catharsis or purgation. The release allowed us to be able to control our emotions so that we can feel the right emotion, at the right time, in the right amount. Aristotles observations are confirmed by modern psychology and come across most vividly in the psychodrama work o f J. L. Moreno. Theater is able do this by providing a safe container in which we can homeopathically release repressed emotion that would otherwise manifest itself in a dysfunctional fashion. Theater (like psychotherapy) provides a means for bringing the light o f day to material that would otherwise remain in our unconscious. Finally, theater is a metaphor for life, and it is worth playing out the metaphor. An image that stands out is Thespis being the actor in his own play. According to Aristotle, the first plays were improvised, but soon a script was being written. The poet wrote (or rewrote) the script for his own life. He consciously decided what his life was to be and then lived it, not allowing himself to be a victim o f destiny. Similarly the actor, though working from the poets script, has room for self-expression within the script. An inability to find room for expression within a role renders the actor lifeless, and renders us lifeless in our daily lives.
174
Two additional images from classical theater illustrate the power o f writing our script, or at least breathing life into an existing role. The first is the story o f Polus, who played the role of Electra in the tragedy o f Sophocles, just after the death and cremation o f his own son. During the scene in which Electra bewails the supposed death o f her brother Orestes, Polus carried the urn containing the ashes o f his own son onto the stage, playing the scene with such depth of feeling that his audience was deeply stirred (Bieber 83). It was Polus who consciously decided how to focus the emotion within him to produce the effect that he desired. At the other end o f the spectrum is Pentheus, in the fourth episode o f The Bacchae.169 After unsuccessfully attempting to suppress Dionysos, the tables are turned. The scene unfolds with Dionysos acting as a director, dressing the macho Pentheus as a woman and leading him through Thebes and on to Cithaeron for his own rending. The unconscious within Pentheus has taken charge o f his life. To paraphrase Jung, we either have our unconscious (Polus) or our unconscious has us (Pentheus).
169 This begins at line 910.
175
Chapter 6 Conclusion and Interpretation
In the preceding chapters, I have attempted to shed light on the nature o f ecstasy by delving into the myths and rituals of the Greek god o f ecstasy: Dionysos. Although Dionysos is a god o f ecstasy, he is not the only god o f ecstasy, and although his story illuminates the topic, it does not exhaust it. Rather, Dionysos provides a particular perspective on the experience o f ecstatic states. This chapter sums up the themes and motifs from previous chapters. It tallies a series o f individual images that, when woven together, create a coherent picture o f ecstatic experience. Equally important, it shows how the ecstatic fits into ordinary life. The images are arranged in a fashion that outlines a structure for the ecstatic. Those images are then amplified and mapped to the human psyche, using depth psychology as the metaphor.
The Images The first image that emerges is, o f course, that o f the god himself: Dionysos. Amoral, intense, demanding, and sometimes childish, he is capable o f bringing us great highs or hurling us to great depths. He was naturalistically described by nineteenth-century scholars as a vegetation god, a fertility god, a god o f the annual growing cycle. Centuries earlier, this earthiness had led to his demonization by Christians. Early twentieth-century scholars abstracted him from nature and described him as the year-daemon, duree (indivisible life that is one), zoe (indestructible life), life-force, and libido. His connection to libido and life force is captured in the m otif of the phallus, and the phallic processions that were often included in this worship. His inseminating phallus is the source o f new
176
life, and the image o f nascent life is captured as a shoot o f ivy or budding vine o f grapes. Indeed, a translation o f Bacchus is bud or shoot. He is the bringer o f both madness and ecstasy. His call o f praise, evohe, translates as rejoice: to have or give praise. Although creativity, life and libido are most prominent in his image, we must not forget that every creative act is also a destructive act and that new life feeds on the decay o f death. Destruction and death are part o f the gods image, as captured in the famous statement o f Herakleitos: I f they [the worshippers o f Dionysos] did not order the procession in honor of the god and address the phallus song to him, this would be the most shameless behavior. But Hades is the same as Dionysos for whom they rave and act like bacchantes (Kerenyi, Dionysos 239-40). Thus, Herakleitos speaks to a unity o f life and death, reflected in the image o f Dionysos/Hades. Dionysos is not only the life-force, he is the death instinct as well. He is the image of life-death-rebirth o f particular life occurring against a background o f the indestructibility o f life itself. A chthonic, underworld god, Dionysos/Hades finds his home in our unconscious. As a personification of libido (in the broad sense o f life force) and death instinct, his realm is the Freudian id.170 Themes repeated in his stories are his insistence on being recognized as a god, the resistance he encounters in gaining this recognition, his power, his impatience, his aggressiveness, his intensity, and his ability to impose his will on the strongest personalities, bending them to his bidding. Denial o f the gods divinity inevitably leads to disaster: possession by the god, madness, dismemberment, and self-destruction. Dionysos has a dark, aggressive, vindictive side.
1701 am not hypothesizing that D ionysos equals the Freudian id. Rather, I am using the concept o f the id as a descriptor o f the god.
177
Noteworthy in the story of Dionysos is the presence o f his half brother: Apollo. Apollo is nothing if not conscious, rational, clear-headed, competitive, and distant. His clear thinking is rooted in his power o f discernment: the ability to separate this from that. That power leads to his individualism (I am this, you are that), as opposed to Dionysian connectedness. Apollo operates in the realm o f the ego. It is easy to pose Dionysos and Apollo as a pair o f opposites-their personalities seem oppositional. However, in the rituals and festivals o f Dionysos, their relationship is not oppositional. It is collaborative. The great Dionysian festivals o f Attica could not have happened without the support o f both gods. According to Rohde, it was the priests o f Apollo who spread the cult o f Dionysos in Attica and it was Apollo who brought Dionysos to Delphi. Although the rituals/festivals honor chthonic, irrational, and unconscious forces within us, they were rationally and consciously designed. Their creation mirrors the cooperative relationship established between Apollo and Dionysos at Delphi. As noted in chapter 5, at the great theatrical events, the priests o f both Apollo and Dionysos were honored. The two gods need each other. For the rituals to be efficacious, Dionysian forces are unleashed. We know these forces to be both powerful and unpredictable. To play with Dionysos is to play with fire. His suppression in everyday life is a result o f society having been burned by that power and unpredictability. Thus, Apollo and Dionysos collaborate so that the Dionysian can be honored without risk o f the fire getting out o f control, destroying the individual and/or
178
society. Hence, we have the m otif o f ritual as a safe container. Dionysos lights our fire; Apollo provides the fire marshal to contain it.171 This relationship is crucial to the nature of the Dionysian experience. The experience o f ecstasy requires that the controlling ego loosen its reins on the range of experience that it will allow. Until the ego lets go, its constant vigilance prevents us from fully surrendering to the experience. It is the presence o f the safe container that allows the ego to let go. The structure o f the container is known and agreed to in the light o f day the ego is satisfied that the experience will be safe. Confident that the experience will be safe, the ego is able to step back and relax, allowing the ecstatic to occur. A non-Dionysian example o f the safe container is a boxing match. Fighting can be ecstatic, but it carries the risk o f injury and even death. However, a participant in boxing knows that this ritual has a container: a controlling set o f rules, officials to enforce those rules, a referee to stop the match if it gets one-sided, and medical personnel to tend immediately to injuries. The spectators are likewise protected: the fighting is contained within a ring. With their safety more or less insured, the boxers and spectators can immerse themselves fully in the event. A less extreme but more Dionysian example is theater. The theater itself forms a physical container, in both space and time. The spectators surrender their fears to the archon eponymos and the choragus, enabling them to relax, suspend disbelief, and enter into the drama. The stage (the orchestra) itself contains the actors who are animated,
171 This particular im age came to m e at Burning Man, a Dionysian festival that takes place annually in the Black Rock Desert o f Nevada. The culminating event o f the festival is the burning o f the main temple and the figure o f a man on top o f it. The fire is large enough that swirling vortices o f heat and sm oke spin o f f it like small tornados, and the heat can be felt from a distance o f 100 yards. The local fire department, however, is present hoses at the ready to ensure that the fire does not get out o f control.
179
filled with life, in a fashion not seen in ordinary living. The actors are further contained by the script and what takes place on the stage is understood to be play. An element related to the container is the creation o f transitional or liminal space (I use the terms interchangeably). Since this is important to the efficacy o f ritual, I will first describe what is meant by the concept, then capture the m otif in the Dionysian. Arnold Van Gennep coined the terms transitional stage and liminal rites for the transformative stage in a rite o f passage.172 The participant loses his or her individual and social identity while proceeding through transformation. Victor Turner expanded on the concept o f liminal space and broadened its applicability to all rituals. For Turner, the liminal space was an in-between place where one not only loses social and individual identity, but also identity as an individual, and thus enters into a state of communitas with ones community. Communitas is a state of connection/communion with the tribe/village on the basis o f equals equals who agree to submit to an unequal social order outside o f the ritual (Driver 157-61). The liminal space is thus a place where ego boundaries are crossed and individuals have the experience of being part o f a larger whole. Van Gennep and Turner brought an anthropological orientation to ritual, and thus an anthropological orientation to the concept o f liminality. However, the anthropological view isnt the only perspective on the topic. Another viewpoint was developed by child psychologist Donald Winnicott. In watching play between the mother and child, Winnicott observed a liminal space between them which he termed potential space : In order to give a place to playing I postulated a potential space between baby and the mother. This potential space varies a very great deal
172 Van Gennep theorized that rites o f passage had three steps: a rite o f separation, a rite o f transition, and a rite o f incorporation.
180
according to the life experiences o f the baby in relation to the mother or mother-figure, and I contrast this potential space (a) with the inner world (which is related to the psychosomatic partnership) and (b) with actual, or external reality (which has its own dimensions and which can be studied objectively, and which, however, much as it may seem to vary according to the state o f the individual who is observing it, does in fact remain constant). (55-56) His potential space is a place in-between the subjectivity o f the inner world and the objectivity o f the outer world. It is the space in which we have experience (3). I f I understand Winnicott correctly, play, and creativity take place in the potential space. When the object and the subject are sharply and clearly divided, there is very little space for experience, play, and creativity. However, when we extend our awareness outwards into objective reality, then the border between the subjective and the objective becomes porous and soft. It is liminal, neither fully object nor subject. It is this potential or liminal space that contains our experience. The larger the container, the larger the experience. The descriptions o f liminal space by Van Gennep, Turner, and Winnicott are compatible with one another, but not identical. However, they do share something important in common: they describe a place at the edge o f consciousness. This edge is not defined with a clear, thin, black line. Rather, it is a soft, gray, thick boundary in which our consciousness is altered and in which we have experiences outside o f the confines o f ego limitations. It is a space in which our consciousness overlaps with the other : objective reality, other people, our unconscious. It is the psychic zone in which we experience connection and the ecstatic. It is in this liminal space that Dionysos makes his appearance. Dionysian myth and ritual are replete with images o f liminal space. Striking examples come from one o f the oldest Dionysian festivals: the Anthesteria. Like most
181
Greek temples, the Temple o f Dionysos was located in a temenos, a plot o f land considered to be sacred, a plot of land where the human and divine come face to face: a plot of land that is liminal. The temenos o f this particular temple, however, was even more liminal. It was located in the swamps on the edge o f Athens marshes in between land and water. In this setting, the exact boundaries o f the temenos would have been vague. It was from this swampy place that the souls and ghosts o f the deadjoined the celebration and back through this space they went when the festival ended. Aristophanes had his frogs simultaneously living near the temple and in the underworld (Simon, Festivals o f Athens 93). Offerings o f grains and seeds to chthonic deities were made through naturally occurring fissures in the earth near the temple. The importance o f this imagery is that a boundary is obliterated. The space around the temple is not identifiable as land or water, as life or death, as consciousness or unconsciousness it is that gray and murky place in between. The Anthesteria had another powerful image for the liminal space: swinging. Maidens would swing on ropes and vines near the temple. Mythically, they honored Erigone, who hung herself after her father, Icarius, had been killed by shepherds who believed that they had been poisoned by the wine that they had received from him. Ritually, they swung between the worlds o f death and life. Interestingly, Robert Johnson notes an image on the Antioch chalice o f Jesus swinging on a seat o f grape vines, poised between two worlds (31). Swinging is the image o f being suspended between two worlds, between heaven and earth. Various means were used to bring the participant to a psychically liminal space. Most obvious was the use o f intoxicants. Dionysos is so closely identified with wine that
182
the migration o f his cult mimics the migration o f the vine. His kindred spirits, those gods who influenced the development o f the Dionysian cults, are also linked to intoxicants: Sabazios with beer; Zagreus with mead; Shiva with marijuana. Moreover, there is evidence o f the use o f other entheogens producing even stronger effects. Kerenyi suggests that poppies were used on Minoan Crete and possibly at Eleusis (Dionysos 2324). Paris, referencing the work o f Hofmann, suggests the possibility that the communion drink at Eleusis, kykeon, contained a hallucinogen similar to LSD-25 (15). These states themselves are not necessarily ecstatic. What is ecstatic is when the intoxicant enables us to cross our ego boundaries and gain the wisdom o f an expanded perspective. This wisdom is implied in the image o f Silenus, the drunk and debauched satyr who is the mentor o f the god. However, it would be a misrepresentation to suggest that intoxication was the only, or even the primary, means o f moving to the transitional state. The mountain-top worshippers o f Sabazios did so with dance. The modern-day rave mimics this rite. At one time, the rave scene was fueled by the use o f the drug ecstasy. But in recent years, ravers have found it possible to produce similar effects without the drug. New Agers enter liminal space by doing trance dances. Anglican Priest Matthew Fox has developed a mass that uses dance as a means to bring the worshipper to the transitional space.173 Worshippers o f Dionysos danced in circles on the threshing floors o f Attica. Dithyramb, the ritual dance and song devoted to Dionysos, developed into theater, with its powerful ability to pull both actor and spectator into the phenomenon o f being in the
173 This m ass was popularly called Techno Cosm ic M ass, and was held with som e regularity in Oakland, California. In the past year, the name has been changed to Cosm ic Mass. They are now held less frequently in Oakland, but are beginning to appear in other parts o f the country.
183
moment, into a state o f pure being, into the soup o f consciousness. Dance, song, and theater offer their own path into the liminal, and into the ecstatic. We also have Dionysos kindred spirit from India: Shiva. It is relatively uncontroversial to proclaim Dionysos and Shiva to represent the same archetype. Danielou, as we saw, takes the archetypal similarity a step further and makes a case that the Shivaist cult spread from India, through the Middle East, to Greece and became (or at least influenced) the cult o f Dionysos. He further argues that Shivaist Tantra and Dionysian Orgiasm are the same. Shivaists famously have a technique to enter the transitional space: meditation. It is possible that meditation was employed by the worshippers o f Dionysos. Although evidence that worshippers o f Dionysos meditated in the Shivaist sense o f the word is thin,174 they arrived in a comparable place using different means, e.g., theater and a theatrical attitude. Before leaving the concept o f liminal space, we should also address the liminal as an archetype. To the best o f my knowledge, Jungian psychology does not address liminality as a space.
17S
However, it does have a figure who is a psychopomp, mediating
the relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness. That figure is the archetype anima, Latin for soul. Jung clearly paints this image: [ . . . ] the anima plays the role o f the mediatrix between the unconscious and the conscious [ . . . ] (Jung, C W 10: 715).
There is, however, som e evidence. First, according to Kerenyi, there w as a D ionysian festival in Boetia in which women sought D ionysos, believing that he had fled and taken refuge with the m uses (D ionysos 178). The three Boeotian muses were A oide, Mneme, and M elete. M elete was the m use o f practice, exercise, and meditation. Second, there apparently is som e evidence that ancient Egyptians meditated. Dr. Muata Ashby, o f the Universal Zulu Nation, claims that meditation instructions were found on the w alls o f the Tomb o f Seti 1, in Thebes, Egypt. Sete I lived circa the thirteenth century BCE. If true, such a practice could have easily migrated to Greece. Third, there are several new age and neo-pagan Internet sites that claim meditative powers for D ionysos. Fourth, Thomas M cEvilley, in The Shape o f Ancient Thought, argues that Socrates and Plato meditated in the manner o f Indian sage Patanjali (180-81). Unfortunately, none that I reviewed documents its claim. 175 Though som etim es the space in the analysts office is referred to as a temenos.
174
184
The image o f the anima is somewhat confusing, because Jung sometimes makes the anima the symbol o f the unconscious (Jung, C W 16: 17), the collective unconscious (Jung, CW 10: 714), the soul (Jung, CW 9.1: 55), and/or the inferior functions (Jung, CW 18: 187). Because the anima is coming up from the depths o f unconscious to the edge o f consciousness, perhaps it should not be surprising that the image is blurry. However, if we stay with the anima as mediatrix or psychopomp, we then have an archetypal symbol o f liminality. Interestingly, Jung considers Persephone (one o f Dionysoss mothers) to be the image o f anima (Jung, CW 9.2: 41). Persephone, though Queen of the Underworld, spends a portion o f the year outside o f Hades. Thus, she embodies both anima as the unconscious, and anima as the mediatrix/psychopomp. Dionysos, the son o f Persephone, is thus the son o f liminality Dionysos, the god o f ecstasy, is birthed from a liminal place.176 I will explore this later in the chapter. Another m otif repeated throughout the festivals and rituals is that o f union, communion, and marriage. Turners concept o f communitas is itself a manifestation o f a social union. Moreover, these unions may be interpreted in other ways: male with female, wild with civilized, consciousness with unconsciousness, immortal god with mortal human. A case in point is animal sacrifice, which was a component o f Dionysian ritual. The sacrificial animal was typically a bull or a goat, the totem animals of Dionysian cults. For example, the dithyramb was often sung as the accompaniment for the sacrifice o f a bull (Kerenyi, Dionysos 315). Symbolically, worshippers communed with their god by eating him (in the form o f the sacrificial animal). He or she also did so by drinking the gods blood: red wine. Eating god and drinking his blood may appear to be a relatively
176 In som e sense, all births are a passage from a liminal space into the light o f day.
185
primitive form o f communion with the divine, but a modern version o f it continues in the Christian Eucharist. The m otif is also captured in the sacred marriage, which definitely took place at the Anthesteria , and probably took place at the Eleusinian Mysteries. The image o f the wife o f the archon basileus marrying Dionysos in the boukoleon (bull stable) clearly represents the union o f male and female, and mortal human with immortal god. The union m otif is also captured in theater, where the archetypal is personified and embodied on stage, e.g., an actor playing the role o f Dionysos him self in The Bacchae. The archetypal in the collective unconscious is revealed to the conscious, creating a union between conscious and unconscious, individual and collective. These unions are truly ecstatic, for in these unions, man stands outside o f himself, and experiences se lf as transcending ego boundaries. The experience o f self is thus transformative, a shift from ego awareness to self awareness. From these unions comes the expansive experience o f ecstasy. Thus, ecstasy is more than mere pleasure, for pleasure does not transcend ego boundaries. That is not to suggest that pleasure is a bad or unwanted thing. Rather, it is only to say that ecstasy goes beyond pleasure. The drunken sexual orgies popularly associated with Dionysos may be pleasurable experiences but if they do not lead to a transcendence o f ego and connection with others, then they are not ecstatic experiences.
The Psychological Amplification Turner suggests that society needs rituals that encourage the spirit o f communitas, for such rituals build cohesiveness within society. But paradoxically, civilization fears the
186
power and unpredictability o f such rituals.177 Conservative, moralistic societies attempt to repress the ecstatic. However, as we have seen from the story o f the god, attempts to resist or repress his power are futile and ultimately self-destructive.
17R
Dionysos is too
powerful to deny, and attempts to do so lead to his uncontrolled eruption at the most inopportune times. Liberal, pragmatic societies (such as ancient Athens) recognized both his power and his danger and thus find ways to manage his energy, e.g., allowing the Dionysian to be entertained in the safe container o f rituals and festivals. As discussed earlier in this dissertation, the medical/psychological metaphors abound as explanations for the efficacy o f these rituals and festivals. They are worth reviewing and amplifying because they help us understand the experience understand implying the manner in which our thinking rational mind attempts to grasp the irrational within the psyche. These explanations help us to understand how the images and motifs o f Dionysian worship fit together. An important step in this understanding is to recognize the underlying Apollonian ethic o f classical society: balance and moderation in all things. Apollo brings Dionysos to us because Dionysos brings balance to the psyche. In classical times Aristotle suggested a quasi-medical view that theater served a cathartic purpose, releasing excess emotion that might otherwise be difficult to control in our daily lives. In achieving catharsis, we purge ourselves of toxic material and thus
177 Freud, in Civilization an d Its D iscontents, essentially argues that civilization has to do so not only to ensure smooth functioning o f society, but also because it needs to appropriate libidinal energy for its own econom ic purposes, i.e., libidinal energy is sublimated into econom ic enterprise (58-60). 1781 need not repeat all o f the stories in the text. Clear examples include the myth o f Lycourgos, and that o f Pentheus (retold by Euripides in The Bacchae). Moreover, it appears that historically D ionysos w as resisted to no avail as w ell, with Apollo h im self eventually sponsoring the cult in Greece. Furthermore, individuals who repress the Dionysian are subject to his wrath as well: televangelists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart being well-known examples.
187
become purified by the ritual.179 Though Aristotle specifically addressed theater, his explanation could easily apply to a broader range o f Dionysian rites of ecstasy. In a similar vein, but with slightly different nuance, is the metaphor o f homeopathic medicine: a little bit o f madness/disease inoculating our psyche against mass hysteria. This model posits Apollo as the healing god controlling the dosage.180 The model of psychological balance was developed to a more sophisticated level by Freud. His id is an unconscious zone in our psyche that is the primary seat o f psychic energy, including life instincts (libido) and death instincts (which account for an aggressive drive): A cauldron o f seething excitement, the id cannot tolerate tension, and it functions to discharge tension immediately and return to a homeostatic condition. Ruled by the pleasure principle, which is aimed at reducing tension, avoiding pain, and gaining pleasure, the id is illogical, amoral, and driven by one consideration: to satisfy instinctual needs in accordance with the pleasure principle. The id never matures but remains the spoiled brat o f personality. It does not think but only wishes or acts. The id is largely unconscious, or out o f awareness. (Corey 97) The demands o f the id put it in conflict with the ego and superego, leading to the experience o f anxiety. Anxiety is a signal that unless something is done, the ego is in danger o f being overthrown the individual is in danger of acting unconsciously and out o f control. When the ego is unable to control anxiety by realistic means, it seeks unrealistic means, ego defenses, to relieve the anxiety. Common defense mechanisms
179 Indeed, the m otif o f pollution and purification runs through Dionysian ritual. For example, Choes D ay, the second day o f Anthesteria was considered to be a day o f pollution and was highlighted by a drinking contest. Other festivals (e.g., the A grai and the Eleusinia ) included purifications such as fasting, ritual baths, and abstinence from sex and alcohol. The pollution side o f this equation seem s to clearly be in the realm o f D ionysos and his penchant for excess. The purification side com es from A pollo. Indeed, Christine Downing considers purification to be the essence o f A pollo (89). In Totem a n d Taboo, Freud describes this dynamic in terms o f an obsessional neurosis an unconscious instinct being countered by a conscious prohibition against that instinct (37-38). 180 Christine D ow ning suggests such a role for Apollo (91), and the model fits Rohdes description o f the spreading o f Dionysian cults in Attica.
188
include (among others): (1) repression Pentheus and Lycourgos attempting to expel Dionysos from their kingdoms; (2) projection Pentheus blaming the stranger for his own desires; (3) sublimation, redirecting the life energy into creative behaviors Euripides writing The Bacchae; and (4) ritual undoing, performing an elaborate ritual to undo something that we feel guilty about the A nthesteria ritual o f eating in silence to contemplate the crime of eating.181 However, as Corey states, these defense mechanisms may reduce our anxiety, but do so at a cost: they distort reality and they operate at an unconscious level (99). Freuds solution is to make the unconscious conscious and to strengthen the ego so that behavior is based more on reality and less on instinctual cravings (Corey 114). The Freudian model would predict that a ritual can be successful when it creates a realistic means for the ego to deal with anxiety anxiety created by conflict largely initiated by the demands of Dionysos (id, libido, life force). The key to the realism is that we act consciously to identify and resolve the anxiety, i.e., the conscious and unconscious meet so that unconscious material can become conscious.182 Not to do so is to allow the anxiety to be resolved unconsciously. Unconscious resolution is a recipe for disaster: it is Pentheus dressing as a woman to spy on the maenads it is his mother as a maenad wildly assaulting him and killing him. Freuds recommended ritual, o f course, is psychotherapy.
181 The outline o f Freudian psychology com es from Corey (97-101). There are, o f course, many more ego defense mechanisms. 1 only use those that seem pertinent to the discussion. Corey does not address their application to D ionysos. 182 The meeting place o f the conscious and the unconscious is a liminal space. An exam ple in Freudian practice would be dreams, and their subsequent interpretation. However, 1 am not aware o f Freud using terms like liminal, transitional, or potential space.
189
The Aristotelian, homeopathic, and Freudian explanations are enlightening. However, they tend to pathologize and/or trivialize ecstasy in the process. The Aristotelian model o f catharsis treats the ecstatic as a byproduct o f an emotional finetuning. The homeopathic model treats ecstasy as disease or madness. In the Freudian model, the ecstatic is the release o f tension (catharsis) in accordance with the pleasure principle. It reduces ecstasy to the level o f a good bowel movement something pleasurable that needs to occur on a regular basis in order to maintain good for our health. The medical metaphors may contain literal truth, but in searching for mechanistic, medical explanations, the ecstasy gets lost.
183
To take the understanding o f ecstasy a step further, I turn to the metaphor o f Jungian psychology and his process o f individuation. Jung uses the term individuation to denote the process by which a person becomes a psychological in-dividual, that is, a separate, indivisible unity or whole (Jung, C W 9.1: 490). Individuation is a process of integrating the conscious and the unconscious, one in which the combination of conscious and unconscious leads to the assimilation o f the ego in a wider personality, described as the s e lf (Bennet 172). Before developing the concept o f individuation further, its worthwhile to clarify the terms consciousness and unconsciousness. Jung is precise in the first definition: By consciousness I understand the relation o f psychic contents to the ego, in so far as this relation is perceived as such by the ego. Relations to the ego that are not perceived as such are unconscious. Consciousness is the function or activity which maintains the relation o f psychic contents to the ego. Consciousness is not identical with the psyche because the psyche represents the totality o f all psychic contents, and these are not necessarily
1831 am aware o f Bruno Bettelheim s argument in F reu d an d M a n s Soul that Freud is misunderstood in English speaking countries due to poor translations o f his works. Bettelheim argues that the translations present Freud as more medical and less humanistic than he actually was. However, since I speak English and do not speak German, I have little recourse other than to accept the English translations as they stand.
190
all directly connected with the ego, i.e., relation to it in a way that they take on the quality o f consciousness. (Jung, CW 6: 700) Thus, the ego is the carrier o f consciousness, and everything directly related to the ego is conscious. He is less precise in defining the unconscious, perhaps necessarily so since the substance o f the unconscious is, by definition, unconscious. Moreover, early in their work, both Jung and Freud had difficultly persuading culture at large that the unconscious existed at all. If the psyche is the totality o f the personality, then the unconscious is that part o f psyche that is not conscious, i.e., not known to the ego (see the above quote). Both Freud and Jung describe a personal unconscious, made up largely of material that was at one time conscious, but for a variety o f reasons had receded into unconsciousness. However, Jungs unconscious includes an additional component, a collective unconscious; archetypal, impersonal material that never was conscious and therefore could not have been repressed. He likens these unconscious archetypes to instincts. Instincts: [ . . . ] form very close analogies to the archetypes, so close, in fact, that there is good reason for supposing that the archetypes are the unconscious images o f the instincts themselves, in other words, that they are patterns o f instinctual behaviour. (Jung, CW 9.1: 91) The collective unconscious is sometimes interpreted as psychic material shared amongst all humans (or all sentient beings) as if there was one universal unconscious, operating in support o f millions o f ego-nodes o f consciousness. However, my reading o f Jung is that he does not argue for such universality he only argues that we each have our own
191
unique unconscious, with some psychic material being personal, and other material bearing the imprint o f a collective archetype.184 Now, we can return to individuation. This process, like Freudian psychoanalysis, can be understood in the context o f mental health, a method o f balancing and fine-tuning the psyche. However, Jungs individuation carries with it more, perhaps deeper, meaning. For Jung, individuation is a myth to be lived, and can be understood in the language o f a quasi-religious quest. Individuation gives life purpose. For Jung, God is reality itself (CW 11: 631). Edward Edinger quotes an interview o f Jung that took place in Good Housekeeing magazine: To this day God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course o f my life better or worse (68). This view implies an unconscious god. However, Jung also argues that existence is only real when it is conscious to somebody (CW 11: 575). God (reality) needs humans to be the carriers o f consciousness, thus giving humankind a purpose. Edinger argues that Jung gives humans a new myth to live by, namely that [. . .] the purpose o f human life is the creation o f consciousness'''' (17).185 The process by which consciousness is created is individuation. Since Jung posits reality as being God, God then becomes a reasonable and noble object o f investigation for empirical science. The goal o f individuation, making the unconscious conscious, is making reality conscious. And in the process o f creating consciousness, God (reality) becomes known to humankind.
184In speaking o f the collective unconscious, Bennet comments: This term was, and is often misunderstood. It has been confused with a group mind, that is the unconscious action o f the crowd replacing conscious individual activity. N othing o f the sort w as in Jungs mind (65-66). 185 O f course, this is not out o f line with all o f psychoanalysis, which generally seeks to create more consciousness by bringing elements o f the unconscious into the light o f day.
192
The creation o f consciousness in a Jungian framework is articulated by Edinger. He argues three steps o f progressively higher levels o f consciousness. In the first step, undifferentiated, diffuse experience is split into subject and object, knower and known. The ego separates from the pleroma, the subject o f knowledge is separated from the object o f knowledge and the act o f knowing thus becomes possible (37). Ego is the knowing subject, and it is able to know through its power o f discernment, its ability to divide experience into pairs o f opposites. In the second step, the ego goes through the experience o f being the object o f knowledge, the known, with the subject residing elsewhere (41). Under the best of circumstances (e.g., a person who is individuating), the other, the subjective knower, is the self. In the third step, the ego reflects on the self, establishing a reciprocal relation between them, in which the s e lf s knowing promotes ego-awareness, and the egos knowing promotes self-awareness (55). In the space where consciousness is created, we simultaneously perceive each pair o f opposites as both an opposing pair and as a united whole. To only experience the opposites is normal ego consciousness an important step but not full consciousness, according to Edinger. To only experience the opposites as a united whole is to fall back
1o /
into an unconscious state.
Full consciousness is when we simultaneously experience
both, when the self and the ego can perceive one another, when we simultaneously hold the experience o f being both separate from and connected to the oneness o f reality. I would argue that the creation of consciousness, and the ecstatic experience that comes from it, occurs in the liminal space between consciousness and unconsciousness, between subject and object. It is the liminal space that both contains unconscious material and is
186 Indeed, Jung argues that the yogi in sam adhi is in an unconscious state (C W 9.1: 520).
193
subject to the light o f consciousness. It is the space where we can both discern differences, and simultaneously see connection. A series o f archetypes is contained within the collective unconscious, and bringing them to the conscious level is an important element o f individuation. One particular archetype, however, is especially important: the archetype of wholeness or self. It is the archetype o f the individuated person, one who has integrated the unconscious and conscious into a larger whole. If I read Jung correctly, individuation brings the archetype of self more fully into consciousness, and in becoming conscious of it, we ecstatically experience the self transcending the boundaries o f human/human, human/god, mortal/immortal, living/dead and consciousness/unconsciousness. Jung, a product o f Christian culture, regarded Christ as the symbol o f that archetype.
187
However,
it is the archetype o f self that is universal Christ as its symbol is cultural. In other cultures, the symbol will take different forms. Dionysos is also a symbol o f the self.
188 189
In one o f his birth stories, Dionysos is the offspring o f Zeus and Persephone. Jung regarded Persephone as an anima figure (CW 9.2: 41), and as such Persephone most decidedly can be anima as mediatrix and psychopom p.190 Thus, we have Dionysos
187 In proposing Jesus as the symbol o f the self, Jung recognized that Jesus was lacking an element in his wholeness: he lacks a dark side. Thus, one might argue that the complete image o f Jesus includes the Satan that is in his shadow. 188 In the same way that Jesus is an imperfect sym bol o f w holeness, so is D ionysos. A pollo and D ionysos stand in each others shadow. The tw o o f them together present the total image o f the self. Indeed, each offers a different perspective on the archetype; A p o llo s being from the perspective o f the ego looking at the self, D ionysos being from the perspective o f the s e lf looking back at the ego. Edinger alludes to something like this in offering Christ and Buddha as tw o opposing perspectives on the same archetype (22). 189 A s noted in chapter 4, Fierz-David considered Dionysos/Ariadne together as the symbol o f the S elf (15), but in other places she considers D ionysos as em bodying the S elf as the center o f life (21). 190 An important component o f Jungian psychology is the archetype o f anima. Since D ionysos has relationships with woman and goddesses, it is worth expanding this concept. Jung is not precise in defining anima: he variously equates it with the entire unconscious (C W 76.17), the collective unconscious (C W 10: 714), the soul (C W 9.1: 55), and/or the inferior functions (C W 75:187). However, the syzygy o f the ego and the anima represents the ultimate conjunctio, producing the self. D ionysos, as the image o f the archetype o f
194
fathered by Zeus, an Olympian, and mothered by Persephone, a mediatrix/psychopomp, i.e., Dionysos emerges from liminality, the result o f bringing the unconscious to consciousness. The appearance o f the symbol o f self is a quasi-religious experience. [ . . . ] the idea o f the self is at least in part a product o f cognition, grounded neither on faith nor on metaphysical speculation but on the experience that under certain conditions the unconscious spontaneously brings forth an archetypal symbol o f wholeness (Jung, CW 9.2: 124). Thus, the epiphany of Dionysos! His image appears to us in all o f its majesty, transcending the great divides that limit our psyche. Our experience o f the image is one o f awe and ecstasy. From the Apollonian perspective o f the skeptical, rational, thinking mind, such an epiphany is a psychological phenomenon, an experience o f an archetypal symbol, an unconscious archetype stepping into a liminal space to be consciously perceived. It is as if our psyche is hard wired to find a connection to the collective, hard wired to find a connection with the divine, and the epiphany o f the god is a manifestation o f that biological structure. However, Lionel Corbett reminds us that where God and man touch, they must do so within the psyche if there is to be human conscious o f the experience (211). Thus, there is a reason why we are wired the way we are a reason why the symbol o f the self steps forward. From the perspective o f Dionysos, who demands recognition as a divinity, the epiphany o f the god is divine revelation. Evohe!
the self, is the product o f such a conjunctio, the offspring o f the union o f the powerful Olympian Zeus, and anima figures Sem ele and/or Persephone.
195
Appendix The Myth o f Dionysos, In Detail The Sources Three o f the oldest sources o f information on Dionysian myths are Homer, Hesiod, and the Homeric Hymns. Homer, composing the Iliad and the Odyssey sometime in the eighth century BCE, identifies Dionysos parents, but says little else about his life. Hesiod, writing the Theogony in the last half o f the eighth century BCE, confirms the barest outline o f his birth and marriage. However, he does devote a section o f Works and Days to the making o f wine, which is related to Dionysos. More fertile ground is the Homeric Hymns, a collection o f poems or preludes 191 written by unknown authors over a period o f time ranging from 650 BCE to classical tim es.192 Three of the thirty-four hymns (approximately eight pages) in the collection are devoted specifically to Dionysos. Herodotus, the father o f history, wrote his Histories in the fifth century BCE. He was from Helicarnassus on the southwest coast o f Asia Minor, and wrote for a panHellenic audience. Given that much o f the Greek world was illiterate at the time, Herodotus may have recited sections o f his histories at a variety of performance venues. John Marincola, in his introduction to the Aubrey De Selincourt translation, speculates that Herodotus may have been in exile from his hometown. Perhaps because o f this, Herodotus was well traveled, and much o f his book captured local oral traditions. In doing so, he does offer some information on Dionysos (ix-x). His reputation for accuracy has waxed and waned over the millennia.
191 In his introduction, translator Charles Boer suggests that these poems were used as preludes to longer epics. 192 Boer notes that at least one poem , Hymns to the Sun and M oon, may be as late as the Alexandrian Period.
196
In the fifth century BCE, Euripides wrote The Bacchae. It is a detailed source of information on Dionysos and his conflict with Pentheus in Thebes, one o f the major episodes in the story o f the god. Moreover, being a tragedy that was performed at a Dionysian rite (the Greater Dionysia), the play itself is a combination o f myth and ritual. Like other literary renditions o f the story, we can wonder to what extent details are inventions o f the poet. In this case, when the play was performed in Athens, it was very well-received,193 indicating that the classic viewer, who would have been well versed in the myth, was satisfied with his rendition o f the story. Today, the play is so well known that the modern reader tends to consider it to be the story of Dionysos. Shortly after the Bacchae, Aristophanes wrote The Frogs. This was circa 405 BCE, a time in which Athens was under siege by Sparta, and also a time in which the government o f Athens was in disarray. The Frogs presents Dionysos in a humorous fashion as he descends into the underworld, searching for a poet to save Athens. It too represents drama (in this case a parody) combined with myth. The artistic success o f the play suggests that Aristophanes hit upon something archetypal rather than stereotypical. In addition to the plot, the chorus o f The Frogs is an important source o f information. Dionysos, at Eleusis, was known by the title o f Iacchos. J. E. Harrison notes that the chorus o f The Frogs is The locus classicus for Iacchos o f the mysteries [. . . ] (Prolegomena 540).194 Idylls, by the poet Theocritus, is a collection o f Boukolika (ox-herding poems). According to Richard Hunter, who wrote the introduction to Anthony Veritys
193 Euripides wrote the Bacchae w hile in a self-im posed exile. When it was first performed in Athens about one year after his death, however, it did win first prize (Roche viii). 194 In addition to the Bacchae and Frogs, numerous other plays directly dealt with D ionysos, most notably two tetralogies by A eschylus. However, these plays do not survive. D ionysos also appears in Sophocles Antigone.
197
translation, these poems were written, probably in Sicily, in the middle o f the third century BCE. The poems come from an era where written poetry was beginning to separate itself from performed poetry, such as the plays o f classical Athens (vi-xi). Idylls contains one entire poem (idyll) devoted to the bacchantes, and describes the death of Pentheus at the hands o f the maenads. The Library o f Greek Mythology by Apollodorus is a comprehensive collection of myths from classical times which includes several stories about Dionysos. It is not completely clear who Apollodorus was or when the Library was written. Until very modern times it was generally believed that the author was Apollodorus o f Athens, a distinguished scholar who worked in Alexandria in the second century BCE. Elowever, more recent thinking is that it may have been written a century or so later.195 Diodorus Siculus was an historian from Sicily in the first century BCE, who wrote a forty-book history o f the world. Although he claims to have traveled worldwide, most scholars believe that he traveled mostly to the library.196 A portion o f his collected works was devoted to mythological history, including important passages devoted to Dionysos, many o f which come from Orphic sources.197 Ovids Metamorphoses is a comprehensive collection o f myths, written from Roman perspective, dating from about the time o f Christ. During his lifetime, Ovid was a leading poet o f Rome, but committed an unspecified transgression which caused him to
195 Robin Hard, translator o f the Library, notes in his introduction that the text refers to an event which took place long after the death o f Apollodorus o f Athens. Either this event was added to the text at a later date, or the author o f the entire text is som eone else (who may have also been named Apollodorus). Because o f stylistic differences between this book and books known to have been written by Apollodorus o f Athens, Hard suspects that the later is true. 196 From C. H. Oldfathers Introduction to his translation o f Diodorus. 197 Orpheus w ill be discussed later. Orphism w as a religious cult that began no earlier than the sixth century BCE. Much o f the core mythology used by the Orphics involved D ionysos, and they are thus a source o f information about Dionysian mythology.
198
be banished by Augustus. E. J. Kenney, who wrote the introduction to A. D. Melvilles translation, argues that it would be a mistake to think that the Metamorphoses is only an entertaining collection o f stories. Ovid carefully selected and edited his material to paint a picture o f the world in flux, with the exception o f one thing: anima, the soul (xiv-xvi). Thus, the poem conveys the religious theme o f permanence in the face o f change. Ovid tells multiple stories devoted to Bacchus,198 a god who, as we shall see, embodies this theme. Pausanias was a native o f Lydia (modern Turkey), who lived in the middle o f the second century CE. He compiled a description o f Greece in ten books. In the introduction to his translation, W. H. S. Jones says: Without being a scientific critic, Pausanias can reject the improbable or relate it with a caveat lector. He is transparently honest, with no axe to grind and no object to be gained by intentional inaccuracy. His book exhibits no enthusiasms, either o f love or o f hate, but throughout it there is manifest a quiet admiration for the beauties and glories o f Greece, (x) His approach was essentially to write a travel guide for visiting Greece. Interspersed in his descriptions and travels, there are the myths and legends that go with the places he visited. Also in the second century, Achilles Tatius o f Alexandria composed a romantic novel: The Adventures o f Leucippe and Clitophon. The novel includes a short tale about Dionysos and the gift o f wine. The Orphic hymns are a collection o f eighty-seven hymns o f unknown authorship, which contain important information and several key plot twists in the story. The date
198 Bacchus is an alternative Greek name for Dionysos, which became his popular name in Rome. According to Kerenyi (G ods o f the G reeks 256-57), a rough translation o f this is the shoot, as in sprouting branches or vine tendrils. The term Bacchus w as often used for D ionysos in his connection to wine. In 186 BCE, the conservative Roman Senate had ordered the destruction o f m ost Bacchic shrines and put controls on Bacchic worship in Italy. Thereafter, Bacchus in Rome carried a connotation o f frivolousness that he did not have in Greece. In Rome, D ionysos was also known as Liber and Liber Pater.
199
and place o f their origin is also unknown, but Marvin Meyer, editor o f The Ancient Mysteries, speculates they date from sometime in the Roman Imperial period, though he concedes that they may be much older. He further suggests that the place in which they were written may have been Pergamum, the Aegean coast o f modem day Turkey (101-2). The hymns have an Orphic point o f view. It is not clear whether the stories are the invention o f the Orphics, or if the Orphics merely committed existing, possibly secret Dionysian myths to writing, or some combination o f both. In any case, the Orphic contribution has become part o f the mythology o f Dionysos. Nonnos o f Panopolis (in Egypt) wrote the Dionysiaca circa 500 CE. Its fortyeight books are considered by some to be the last o f the great (lengthy) epic poems o f the classical era. The poem purports to be primarily about Dionysos, especially his time in India, but weaves in many other stories o f the Olympian gods. However, the poem is not held in high regard by scholars. This is clear from several short articles contained in the introduction to the Loeb Classical Library translation. L. R. Lind says, the interest which classicists of the English-speaking world have taken during the last century and a half in the Dionysiaca o f Nonnos of Panopolis has shown an inverse ratio to the astonishing bulk o f the poem (xx). In another introductory article, H. J. Rose adds: To the student o f religion or mythology, as opposed to the degenerescence o f literature, Nonnos has here nothing to offer except the telling after his fashion o f a few stories not to be found elsewhere [. . .] (xv). However, J. E. Harrison speaks well o f The learned Nonnus [sic] who is steeped in Orphism and a most careful ritualist [ . . . ] (Prolegomena 544). I use Nonnos sparingly.
200
Finally, I also use four modern compilations o f myths: Robert Graves, The Greek Myths', Carl Kerenyi, The Gods o f the Greeks', Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth; and Pierre Grimal, The Dictionary o f Classical Mythology. In addition to guiding me to the classical sources, these four texts provide an indirect means to quote classical sources that were not readily available to me, and also provide context in which to fit the stories together.
The Story I tell the story in more or less chronological order o f the gods life, and where possible, anchor the story to historical events in the classical world. I use the Homeric Hymns, Apollodorus, Euripides, Ovid, and Aristophanes (Barrett) as my primary sources, where possible, because their renditions are so well known. I use the other sources to add detail to the episodes in the life o f Dionysos as told by the poets, or to add additional episodes. Quotes from Euripides, Aristophanes, and Hesiod will be by approximate line number in the Greek text. Quotes from Achilles Tatius, Apollodorus, Diodorus, Herodotus, Homer, Pausanias, and Ovid will be by book, chapter and section. Quotes from Theocritus will be by the poem number. Orphic hymns will be quoted by hymn and line number. Other quotes, will reference the page o f the translation that I used. In some cases, there will be indirect quotes (e.g., a classics scholar quoting a classical source to which I do not have access). In these cases, I will use standard MLA Style Manual practice. I do not pretend to have captured every version o f every story told in classical times about Dionysos. He is the god who appears and disappears, and he appears and disappears in many myths, often making only cameo appearances.
201
The most common birth story for Dionysos is report by Apollodorus (III. 4.3). Zeus fell in love with Semele and slept with her.199 The lustful Zeus promised Semele that he would grant her a boon. A jealous Hera then deceived Semele into asking Zeus to appear before her as he appeared to Hera. Zeus had to oblige, and appeared in her bedchamber accompanied by lightning bolts and thunder. Semele died o f fright, but Zeus snatched the aborted sixth-month fetus and sewed it into his thigh. When the appropriate time arrived, Zeus unstitched his thigh,200 and handed the ox-homed crescent201 Dionysos over to Hermes, who persuaded Ino (Semeles sister) and King Athamas (Inos husband) to raise him as a girl. In retribution, Hera drove Ino and Athamas mad and Athamas hunted and killed his eldest son Learchos thinking he was a deer. Zeus rescued Dionysos by turning him into a kid. Hermes again provided help, taking Dionysos to Nysa202 in Asia to be raised by nymphs.203 The above is the oldest and most popular birth story. The differences between the authors are details. Amazingly, the birth o f Dionysos by Zeus and Semele is actually dated by Herodotus, who puts it about one thousand years before his own time: roughly the fifteenth century BCE (11.145). There are, however, two alternative stories. The first
199 Though they offer no detail, both Homer (Iliad X IV 350-70) and Hesiod ( Theogony 940-50) at least confirm that the parents were Zeus and Sem ele. These are the oldest written sources and it is often presumed that in the eighth century and earlier, this was the Greek story o f the birth o f D ionysos. The lack o f detail provided by Homer and H esiod is often presumed to be a reflection o f his relatively low status among the gods at that time. 200 Euripides has the stitching done with golden brackets (95-100). 201 This description o f D ionysos com es from Euripides (100). 202 Graves has the etym ology o f D ionysos to be D io-Nysa: the god o f N ysa. He further suggests that N ysa means lame, thus D ionysos is lame god (759, 772). Herodotus has N ysa as a place in Ethiopia (11.146). 203 Ovid tells a similar story, with more detail around the deception by Hera: Hera disguises herself as an old nurse to fool Sem ele and persuades Sem ele to ask Jove (Zeus) for a boon, i.e., to appear to her in all o f his power and glory. Ovid omits the assistance o f Ino and Athamas (III. 260-321). The H om eric Hymn suggests that D ionysos was born and raised in N ysa, and explicitly discounts myths that his birth took place on Dracanum, or Icarus, or N axos, or by the river Alpheus, or at Thebes (Apollodorus and Ovid are both vague on the place o f the actual birth from Zeus thigh).
202
is a variation on the Semele story told by Pausanias, which contains elements o f the mythology of Osiris (to be discussed later). The second appears to be a late addition to the Dionysian mythology, and it comes to us through Orphic sources and is an adaptation o f the myth o f Zagreus.204 The variation told by Pausanias (III.24.3) comes from the coast o f Laconia. In this version, Semele secretly carried Dionysos in her womb, and gave birth to him in the palace o f her father, Cadmus. Cadmus, dishonored by these events, shut mother and child into a chest and threw them into the sea. The chest washed ashore in Laconia. When the chest was discovered, Semele was dead. The inhabitants buried her and raised Dionysos as their own. In a variation o f this story, Semeles sister, Ino, came to Laconia to nurse the child in a cave. The area in which this occurred is called the Garden of Dionysos (III.24.4). Diodorus suggests that on Crete, his mother was sometimes called Demeter rather than Persephone (III.64.1). A related birth story is that o f Iacchus, who at Eleusis is often identified with Dionysos. Graves reports that Iacchus was the son o f Demeter and Zeus, but provides no detail (24.a). It is possible, perhaps likely, that the Demeter-Zeus birth story is the same as the Persephone-Zeus birth story, with the baby god being called Iacchus rather than Dionysos. This would be consistent with the view that Dionysos is an umbrella name for a host o f similar gods. The better known alternative is the Orphic variation, which I paraphrase from Kerenyi (Gods o f the Greeks). Demeter came from Crete to Sicily, where she discovered
204 Zagreus, the great hunter, is a Dionysian-like god from Crete, who is both the son o f Zeus and is Zeus. When Cretan and Greek cultures mixed, Zagreus became an aspect o f Dionysos: Dionysos-Zagreus. Although it is a late addition to Dionysian m ythology, the Zagreus birth story is generally considered to be old than Dionysian birth story. The Zagreus myth, like the D ionysos myth ow es much to the myth o f Osiris (to be discussed later).
203
a cave. In that cave she hid her daughter, Persephone, and left two snakes with her to be her protection. While she was there, Persephone began weaving a robe on which was a picture o f the entire world. While she was engaged in this work, Zeus appeared to her in the form o f a snake and begat by her a son, Dionysos, who was to become the fifth ruler o f the world (Zeus had been the fourth). This was done, according to the Orphic sources, with the permission o f Demeter, because this took place at a time so ancient that mothers, rather than fathers, gave their daughters to husbands.205 The birth took place in the same
Once born, Dionysos was given a series o f toys to play with: dice, ball top, golden apples, bull-roarer, and wool. While Dionysos was playing with his toys, two Titans were sent by Hera, their faces whitened by chalk like spirits o f the dead. The Titans surprised the boy and killed him, tearing the homed child into seven pieces and throwing them into a cauldron standing on a tripod 207 Once the flesh was boiled, they roasted it over the fire on spits. Zeus intervened, hurled the Titans back into the underworld, where in Orphic mythology they become subterranean ancestors o f humankind. The pieces o f the child were given to Apollo who set them beside his own tripod at Delphi. There was one limb, however, that was not burnt nor devoured. This limb was said to be his heart, though Kerenyi notes that in Greek, this is a pun, for it can also mean
205 Demeter, the great grain goddess, was the daughter o f Cronus and Rhea and w as the sister o f Zeus. Persephone was the only daughter o f Demeter, and her father was Zeus. Persephone, o f course, w as to becom e the Queen o f the Underworld in her marriage to/abduction by Hades. N ote, however, that Hades was sometimes called Zeus Katachthonios, subterranean Zeus. It was in this aspect, according to Kerenyi {G ods o f the Greeks 250), that Zeus fathered D ionysos. Thus, Zeus=Hades. But, as w e know, in the usual telling o f the abduction o f Persephone by Hades, Demeter most definitely does not instigate the abduction. The story also runs counter to the usual notion o f Hades and Persephone being childless, like death itself. 206 The cave, called by Orphics the cave o f Phanes and the three goddesses o f night, figures prominently in Orphic mythology. 207 The H om eric Hymns (16-17) make a reference to D ionysos being cut into three pieces. This is an interesting reference, since nowhere else in the Sem ele story, which the Hymns accept as being the birth story, is there a reference to D ionysos being cut up into pieces.
204
an object made o f fig-wood, and in this case, a fig-wood phallus. This object was entrusted by Zeus to Hipta (a.k.a. Rhea) and was carried by her in a basket (a winnowingfan or liknon ) on her head. The liknort containing a phallus hidden under a pile of fruit would become a familiar object at Dionysian festivals. This final chapter in this birth story leads back to Semele. Instead o f a divine mating with Zeus, she is instead presented with a potion to drink, made from the heart208 o f the first Dionysos. It is this potion that made her pregnant and led to the birth o f a second Dionysos.209 Again, unless otherwise noted, this entire story is paraphrased from Kerenyi (Gods o f the Greeks 250-57), whose source is primarily the Orphic Hymns, and secondarily Nonnos (who Harrison considered to be steeped in Orphism) and Diodorus (who him self gives the Orphics as the source o f much o f his information).210 Thus, the totality of this birth story comes from Orphic sources, but may or may not be Orphic invention. At this point, the major birth stories are reconciled and we can move on.
911
Dionysos had many travels. Apollodorus tells us that Dionysos taught the art o f vine
208 Continuing with the aforementioned pun, the potion may have been the fig-w ood phallus or his actual phallus. 09 Diodorus specifically states that Orphic priests d en y that D ionysos was born o f Sem ele, thus the reconciliation o f the two stories might not itself be an Orphic invention. The Orphic story is that Orpheus visited Egypt and adopted the initiations and mysteries o f D ionysos. Cadmus, then a citizen o f Egyptian Thebes, begat several children, including Sem ele. Sem ele was violated by an unknown person and became pregnant, and gave birth in seven months. Cadmus protected his daughters honor by attributing fatherhood to Zeus. At a later time, when Orpheus w as visiting Cadmus descendents in Greek Thebes, he instituted a new initiation, the ritual o f which the initiates were given the account that D ionysos had been born o f Sem ele and Zeus (1.23). Moreover, he later makes it clear that both the Orphic and Egyptian position is that the Greeks owed much o f their learning to Egypt, that D ionysos was a Greek version o f Orsiris, and that Orpheus brought those rites to Greece (1.96). Herodotus also attributes much o f Greek learning and myth to Egyptian sources and specifically states that Egyptians believe Osiris to be D ionysos (11.42) 210 Diodorus does not attribute the birth from Persephone as being Orphic, but does attribute the death o f D ionysos at the hands o f the Titans as Orphic. 211 There are several more birth stories that are relatively fringe. At Eleusis, the term Iacchos had a double meaning: it w as a boisterous shout (Graves 766), and also the name for a god. This god came to be identified with D ionysos and w as som etim es called the Eleusinian D ionysos. According to Kerenyi (G ods o f the G reeks 274) w ho cites Apollonias o f Rhodes as his source, when Iacchos w as identified with
205
cutting and making wine to Icarios. Wanting to pass the gods blessing on to mankind, Icarios visited some shepherds, who, after a taste o f drink, enjoyed it so much that they drank it down in quantities without water, and then, imagining that they had been poisoned, killed Icarios (III. 14.7). Grimal adds that his daughter, Erigone, found his body buried under a tree and was so distraught that she hung herself from the tree. In revenge, Dionysos made the daughters o f Athens mad and they hung themselves (141). However, Apollodorus also records an alternative story: that Oineus, the king o f Calydon, received the vine plant from Dionysos. Dionysos named its product, oinos, wine, after the king. Achilles Tatius, in his novel The Adventures o f Leucippe and Clitophon, offers yet another story, suggesting that Dionysos first introduced wine to Tyrian212 herdsmen. His tale notes the interplay between Dionysos and Cupid: Cupid firing the soul with his flames, and Dionysos providing fuel for the fire (II.2-3). Diodorus also credits Dionysos (mythologically) with wine, without citing a specific myth. He goes further to credit him with teaching man how to store fruit for long periods o f time (V.75). Pausanias reports a recurring miracle at Elis, where three empty jars were brought into the shrine sacred to the god, and the next day the jars were miraculously filled with wine (VI.26.1-2). Pausanias is careful, however, to say that he did not personally witness the miracle.
D ionysos, his mother was considered to be Persephone, and he w as both a consort o f Demeter and the divine, laughing child in the womb o f Baubo. However, he w as apparently not always identified with Dionysos. Graves (2 4 .a), citing both Aristophanes and Orphic Hym ns, has the lusty Iacchos as the son o f Zeus and Demeter. To add to the confusion, Orphic Hymn 29 explicitly states that Persephone is the sole offspring o f Demeter (M eyer 105), ruling out the possibility o f Iacchos being her son. Graves (14.b) also suggests that Lethe may have been the mother o f D ionysos. In one final twist, Graves, after acknowledging the Sem ele-Zeus birth story, has D ionysos attacked and cut up by the Titans (as in the Persephone story) and a pomegranate tree sprouting from the drops o f his blood. He is reconstituted by Rhea, and then has Persephone taking the infant D ionysos to King Athamas and Ino to be raised (27.a). He pieces this story together from a series o f sources. 212 Tyre was a city along the coast o f ancient Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon).
206
There is a wine episode told by Pausanias that is difficult to fit chronologically into the story. Hephaestus, when he was born, was thrown down by Hera. In revenge, Hephaestus sent her a gift o f a golden chair with invisible fetters. He refused to listen to the advice o f any o f the Olympian gods other than Dionysos. Dionysos made him drunk and returned him to heaven (1.20.3). Apollodorus (III.5.1) goes on to say that after Dionysos had discovered the vine, he was driven mad by Hera. During this time he roamed through Egypt and Syria, finally arriving in Phrygia where he was purified by Rhea,214 and received the initiates robe. Graves has him also traveling to India before being purified. On his way, he was opposed by the King of Damascus, whom he flayed alive. He built a bridge across the Euphrates o f ivy and vine. A tiger sent by Zeus, helped him to cross the Tigris. He conquered India, founded cities, gave laws, and taught wine making. Apollodorus has
'y 1 c
him also constructing pillars.
Upon his return from India to Thebes he encountered
and defeated the Amazons, some o f whom found refuge at the Temple o f Artemis in Ephesus (27.c,d). Graves cites numerous sources in reconstructing this story. Continuing with the telling by Apollodorus, he then traveled to Thrace where he had an encounter with Lycourgos,216 ruler o f the Edonians.217 The Lycourgos story parallels the story o f The Bacchae. Lycourgos insulted and tried to expel Dionysos. He took the Bacchai (the gods followers) and a crowd o f Satyrs as prisoners. However, Dionysos freed the prisoners and drove Lycourgos mad. Lycourgos eventually killed his
213 Gantz notes that some writers view this deed as being responsible for D ion ysos full membership in the company o f gods (114). 214 In Thrace, the mountain goddess is Cybele who is som etim es equated with the Cretan goddess Rhea. 215 Translator Robin Hard suggests that these pillars mark the eastern limits o f the inhabited world and correspond to the pillars o f Heracles in the w est (223). 216 Lycourgos has various spellings, one o f which is Lycurgus. He is not to be confused, however, with the King o f Sparta by the same name. 217 The land o f the Edonians bordered Thrace.
207
own son, thinking he was pruning a vine branch. Eventually Lycourgos was put to death by the Edonians (pulled apart by horses) when Dionysos made their land barren and told them that killing the king was the only way to restore its fruitfulness.218 Homer (II. V I.140-170) mentions a story where Lycourgos chased Dionysos to Mt. Nysa, where the frightened god dove into the Ocean, and was rescued by Thetis.219 An angry Zeus then put out the eyes o f Lycourgos. Grimal reconciles the two stories by having the victory o f Lycourgos occur first, then Dionysos triumph occurring upon his later return (251). Grimal also summarizes an alternative story by Hyginus, in which Lycourgos drove Dionysos out o f his kingdom, then after drinking wine, tried to rape his own mother. Horrified, he tried to prevent future occurrences o f this behavior by uprooting the vines, but Dionysos made him mad and Lycourgos killed both his own wife and son (251). Diodorus reports two interesting parallel stories to the above conflict between Lycourgos and Dionysos. In the first, Lycourgos has a younger brother, Butes, who plotted against him. Discovering the plot, Lycourgos sent Butes and his accomplices into exile. In their travels they came upon and attempted to capture female devotees of Dionysos, near Drius in Thessaly. Most o f the women escaped, but a young woman named Coronis did not and was forced by Butes to lie with him. She called upon Dionysos to lend her his aid, which he did, striking Butes with madness. Butes threw himself into a well and met his death (V.50). In another story, Diodorus tells that Osiris, after his travels to India, visited Thrace and slew Lycourgos who opposed his
218 This is a riveting story. It is no stretch to see it as a myth that explains a human sacrifice ritual: the killing o f the king to restore or ensure the fertility o f the fields. 219 Thetis was a divinity o f the sea, had a good relationship with Hera, and was the mother o f A chilles (Grimal 436).
208
undertakings (1.19). This underscores the Dionysos-Osiris connection, which will be addressed later. Finally, Grimal offers one more version o f the Lycourgos story. He credits the story to Diodorus, but does not provide specific reference. Dionysos went from Asia to Europe with his army and had made a treaty with Lycourgos. However, Lycourgos reneged on the treaty and ordered his soldiers to kill Dionysos and the Bacchantes. Dionysos retreated, and the Bacchantes were attacked and killed. Dionysos successfully counter-attacked, routed the Thracian army, gouged out Lycourgos eyes, tortured him and crucified him (251). The next episode comes from Ovid (XI 1-150), who tells the story o f Orpheus, the great Apollonian musician.220 The story, as it relates to Bacchus, is that Orpheus was spotted by Thracian maenads (mad women who are followers o f Bacchus). His music would have saved him from harm, but the Bacchic clamoring and drumming o f the maenads drowned his sound out. The maenads caught him and in their frenzy tore him apart. His head and lyre found their way to a stream that carried them out to sea and eventually to the isle of Lesbos, igniting the artistic fires o f the islands poets. Bacchus avenged this affront by tuning the maenads into trees and then left for the other lands, ultimately turning up in Lydia (the travel directions reversed from Apollodorus). On his way, he took most o f his entourage, but lost his dear drunk satyr and mentor, Silenus.221 He (Silenus) had been captured by some country folk, crowned with country flowers and taken to their king, Midas. Midas was an initiate o f the mysteries and immediately
220 1 w ill cover Orpheus more com pletely in a later section. 221 Silenus was an old satyr who mentored D ionysos. His father is som etim es said to be Pan, som etim es Hermes. His mother w as a nymph. He was fat, ugly, usually drunk and rode an ass. However, he w as also considered to be very w ise, hence his mentoring role (Grimal 401).
209
recognized Silenus as an old friend. He returned Silenus to Bacchus, and was rewarded with the now legendary boon o f his own choosing, the Midas touch, which Bacchus undid when Midas understood the folly of his choice and confessed to Bacchus that the choice was sinful. This gets us to the opening o f The Bacchae on the acropolis o f Thebes, outside the palace o f Pentheus. Pentheus, though mortal, is a cousin o f Dionysos. Dionysos enters the stage wearing a panther skin hanging from one shoulder. A golden fillet binds his ringlets. In his hands he carries his sacred thyrsus.222 He is a god in mortal form. In his opening lines o f his prologue, Dionysos references his own birth: he is the son of immortal Zeus and mortal Semele, daughter o f Cadmus. He alludes to the trauma o f his birth without explicitly telling the full story. He praises Cadmus, who had created a temple honoring Semele, from which a wisp o f smoke still emanates. Dionysos then recounts his travels before arriving in Thebes, his first visit to Greece: he has been to Lydia, to Phrygia, Persia, Bactria, Media, Arabia Felix, and all o f Asia. In each he has established his sacraments and made his godhead manifest to man. This establishes a key theme o f the play. It seems that wherever Dionysos goes, his divinity is in doubt. He keenly experiences this in Thebes. The sisters o f Semele doubt his divinity because they doubt that Semele was a lover o f Zeus. In their view, Semele was the lover o f a mortal, and when her pregnancy was apparent, she tried to explain it away with an immaculate conception story. According to the sisters, Zeus was angered to be used as an alibi made Semele pay the ultimate price.
222 Roche describes a thyrsus as [. . .] a fennel stalk, with ivy inserted into or tied round the tip o f its hollow stem. A t a later date the ivy was som etim es twined round the stick which was mounted with a green pine cone. The place o f ivy in bacchic rites was perhaps older than the place o f vine. Ivy was rent and chewed. (78).
210
For doubting his mother and for doubting his divinity, Dionysos turned these women into maenads. The maenads are both mad and also have been enlisted into the army o f Dionysos. He further proclaims that King Pentheus, grandson o f Cadmus, is at war with the divinity within Dionysos and that he (Dionysos) will show him self to be a god to Pentheus and all o f Thebes. When Dionysos exits the stage, a dithyrambic hymn is spoken by the chorus.223 According to Roche: This particular hymn - in dogma, myth, and ritual - seems to be based on an actual cult hymn, ancient even to Euripides (81 f). It recounts his birth (twice bom by Semele and Zeus), his travels, his many names (Dionysos, Bacchus, Bromius). It notes some important images from his infancy: that he was perfect, was ox horned, and was swaddled in twisting serpents. His rituals are connected to those of Cybele and Rhea, fertility goddesses. Other important images are enumerated: branches o f oak and firs, skins o f goats, fennel, and satyrs. Dance, drums, tambourines, and flutes are given a prominent place in his rites. The rites to Dionysos are connected to the birth o f Zeus. The corybantes (male attendants o f Cybele) who protected baby Zeus from Cronos are described in terms very comparable to the worshippers o f Bacchus. He is placed in the mountains, where he hunts goats, killing them and eating their flesh raw.224 The ground in these mountains flows with milk, wine, and honey. The pines are as fragrant as Syrian frankincense. Thus, the chorus not only provides historical background, but it describes the image o f ecstatic revelry that is associated with the god.
223 Euripides used the chorus differently than his contemporaries. The Bacchae call into question the familiar role o f the chorus as a voice o f the community and a representative o f ethical and political norms. This is one o f the very few Greek plays in which the chorus does not represent such values. Instead o f being citizens or confidantes o f the ch ief protagonists, this chorus o f Asian bacchants has its proper place in the w ild, is hostile to Thebes and its king, and embodies the very antithesis o f everything for which the Greek polis stands (Segal 242). 224 Remember that D ionysos w as once a kid.
211
The next scene involves the blind seer, Tiresias,225 Cadmus, and his grandson, King Pentheus. Tiresias and Cadmus are both o f advanced age, but both are very alive and spry, and are wearing goatskins and ivy garlands. Cadmus supports him self with a thyrsus. Pentheus is very serious and dressed somewhat militaristic (Roche has him in jackboots, a short riding tunic and carrying a hunting crop). Tiresias and Cadmus have both clearly accepted the divinity o f Bacchus and are reveling in their newfound enthusiasm and energy. Pentheus enters and harangues Cadmus and Tiresias about Dionysos, explaining how he has rounded up and jailed his worshippers. There is an extended exchange between the three, which establishes more facts about Dionysos: Pentheus expresses outrage at the story o f Semele and any implication that Zeus actually fathered Dionysos, underscoring the controversy about his birth. Tiresias compares the blessings o f Dionysos to those o f Demeter, the wine of Dionysos matching the benefits o f the food o f Demeter. Not only is Dionysos credited with bringing wine to humankind, but wine is credited as being beneficial to humankind. There is again a connection between Dionysos and an earth goddess. Interestingly, Tiresias offers an interpretation o f the story o f Dionysos being sewed into the thigh o f Zeus: that the story was a play on words designed to fool Hera. This portion o f the play is a bit unclear, in that some o f the lines are
225 The story o f D ionysos has repeated strains o f sexual ambiguity. An example is Tiresias, who struck two snakes who were mating with a stick and was transformed from a man into a woman. Seven years later he saw the snakes again, and striking them again, reverted h im self back to a man (Ovid III 325-350). It is also a story o f prophecy. Indeed, O vids telling o f the story is from the point o f view o f Tiresias, who gained fame as a prophet and spokesman for the divinity o f Bacchus. Like Bacchus, Tiresias has been the object o f Junos (Heras) wrath, having been blinded by her.
212
missing and in that the play on words doesnt translate well into English. However, the upshot would seem to be that Tiresias did not seem to think Dionysos was literally twice born. Dionysos is credited by Tiresias with being a god o f prophecy and clairvoyance. Though not a martial god per se, he is credited with an ability to confuse and disperse regiments o f soldiers. Pentheus repeatedly accuses Bacchus o f being effeminate. In the second episode, there is a direct confrontation between Pentheus and Dionysos. A reluctant soldier has rounded up a Stranger (who is, in fact, Dionysos) and brought him to Pentheus. He also announces that the women previously arrested have all escaped. The fetters on their feet had fallen apart, and the bolts on the jail doors opened o f their own accord. As Pentheus interviews the Stranger, he again makes reference to his attractive, but effeminate appearance, and suggests that the Stranger might not be the best at wrestling.226 During the interview, the Stranger identifies his home as being Tmolus, the mountain of flowers, the same mountain where Zeus had wedded Semele. Pentheus probes Bacchus on the nature o f rituals o f possession. Bacchus notes that the rituals cannot be divulged to the incommunicate, though he does admit that they tend to occur at night. The two debate to a standstill. The Stranger even suggests that he is, in fact, Dionysos, but the suggestion is lost on Pentheus. In frustration, the king has Dionysos led away to prison, and Dionysos promises to exact revenge.
226 Euripides may be implying that the homophobic nature o f Pentheus militaristic persona creates an obstacle to his understanding and appreciation o f Dionysian divinity.
213
The second choral ode follows. The ode starts with an appeal to Dirce, a river nymph who had been transformed into a stream in Thebes as a reward for having given the infant Dionysos sanctuary (95 f). It then moves to a direct appeal to Dionysos to protect his votaries. The section ends with crack o f thunder and the quaking o f the earth near the tomb o f Semele. The soldiers scatter and the voice o f Dionysos rings from the heart o f the palace. Dionysos then has a dialogue with the chorus. In the midst o f thunder and quaking, Dionysos calls to the bacchanalians and demands that they bow down, which they do. In the meantime, the castle o f Pentheus shakes and begins to crumble. Pentheus then bursts out o f the palace. He demands to know how Dionysos escaped and further demands his soldiers to seal off the city. A herdsman arrives from Cithaero with news about intoxicated women who had been dancing at night in the uplands. He reports that there are three bands o f women, one band led by Autonoe, another by Ino, and a third by Agave, the mother of Pentheus. In the morning they had been seen by the herdsman sleeping on pine needles. The herdsman then described their awakening: First they let their hair fall down their shoulders, then fastened up the fawn skins that were loose, and girdled snakes with licking jaws around their dappled hides. Some fondled young gazelles or untamed wolf-cubs in their arms and fed them with their own white milk: those, that is, who were young mothers with babies left home and breast that burgeoned. Then they wreathed their heads with ivy, oak and bryony in flower. One of them took up her thyrsus, struck the rock and water gushed from it as fresh as dew. Another hit her rod o f fennel on the ground and the god for her burst forth a fount o f wine. Anyone who fancied liquid white to drink just scratched the soil with fingertips and had herself a jet o f milk; while from their ivy-crested rods sweet streams o f honey dropped. (695-710)
214
The herdsman then explained how he and his friends attempted to set an ambush for the women, but fled when the women attacked them. The herdsmen feared being ripped to pieces in the manner that they witnessed the women ripping young calves apart. The women then looted two villages (Hysiac and Erythrae) and snatched babies out of homes as they progressed. When the men of the village tried to fight back, their spears did no damage to the women, while the women were able to easily drive back the men with their thyrsi. The herdsman also noted that the woman carried fire on their heads without being burned, and that serpents licked the clotted gore from their faces. The leader o f the herdsmen was convinced that there was no greater god than Dionysos. Upon hearing this news, Pentheus is outraged and begins planning a military expedition to bring the revelry to an end. Dionysos, however, prevents this by offering Pentheus the opportunity to secretly watch the maenads in their frenzy. The catch, however, is that Pentheus will be able to do this only after dressing as a maenad himself. Pentheus reluctantly agrees; his primary concern being that he not be seen in a womans garb by his subjects. Dionysos, however, prophesizes that Pentheus will be wearing these clothes as he enters Hades. The third choral ode alludes to the divine plan falling into place. Rohde describes it as: [a passionate song o f hope. Heaven is not mocked. Happiness is thing o f the spirit, very different from greedy pride or mere success. To fin d the true daemon within you and to pay him homage is the real bliss]. (Rohde 106) In the fourth episode, the Stranger takes command. Pentheus is attired as a woman, acting effeminate, and has clearly given his power over to Dionysos. Dionysos appears to Pentheus as a horned bull. Pentheus, who previously wanted to sneak out o f
215
town in his garb, now asks to be led out in a very public manner. As he falls under the power o f Bacchus, he exhibits both voyeuristic and exhibitionistic behavior. In the fourth choral ode, the chorus recognizes the unfolding theme of vengeance. It is echoed in the refrain: Let Justice visible walk Let Justice sworded walk To strike through the throat and kill This godless, lawless ruthless man: This earth-sported scion Spawned from Echion. (991-97) The fifth episode brings the action to its climax. A messenger returns to the court to report what had happened on Mount Cithaeron. When the party nears to top o f the mountain, Pentheus complains that he can not clearly see the action. Dionysos, exhibiting superhuman strength, then bends over a pine tree, bringing its upper tip to the ground. He then places Pentheus on the tip and slowly lets the pine tree straighten up. From the top o f the pine, Pentheus can see the maenads. However, Dionysos then goes to the maenads and points out Pentheus sitting in the tree and announces him as one who mocked the god. The maenads, led by Agave (the mother o f Pentheus), then attack the tree, uprooting it and swarm over Pentheus. As a group they rip his flesh apart, tearing him to pieces.227 No sooner had he completed his story than a wild-eyed Agave appears in the scene, her clothes covered with blood, and the head o f her son mounted on her thyrsus.
227 In Idyll 26, The Bacchantes, Theocritus tells a somewhat different story. Ino, Autonoe, and A gave had led three groups o f women to the mountains to worship D ionysos and Semele, building nine altars for D ionysos and three for Sem ele. Pentheus w as watching behind a bush on a high rock. He w as spotted by Autonoe, who then dashed to the altars and scattered the sacred objects, for the profane (Pentheus) may not look at the sacred. The wom en, now mad with rage, attacked Pentheus and tore him apart. The telling by Theocritus has striking parallels with the story o f Actaeon and Artemis. Interestingly, Apollodorus reports that Autonoe w as the mother o f Actaeon, and also notes an alternative cause o f A ctaeons death: that Zeus was angry at him for attempting to court Sem ele (III.4.4).
216
Initially she does not recognize the head as being that o f her son, but rather thinks it to be the head o f a lion cub. She proudly displays it to the people o f the city. Soon Cadmus appears, still in his bacchanalian gear. It is only after confronting Cadmus and being calmed by his voice that Agave comprehends what she has done. She acknowledges that she too (like her son) had been a blasphemer o f the god and had been driven mad as punishment. She recognizes her victim as being her son. There is an effort to reconstruct the remaining pieces o f Pentheuss body.228 Agave is now a pathetic figure and is self-aware as polluted.229 The fifth choral ode is in praise o f Dionysos. In the last section, Dionysos delivers his judgment on Cadmus and his wife, Harmonia (daughter o f Ares): they will be transformed into snakes and will drive a chariot drawn by bullocks. They will lead a
barbarian tribe that will sack many cities but will receive short shrift when they loot Apollos shrine. They will be, however, protected by Ares and will have everlasting lives in the lands o f the blessed ones. In the envoi, Agave and Cadmus bid each other farewell. At this juncture, the telling by Euripides ends. The next adventure o f Dionysos is recorded in the Homeric Hymns.231 Dionysos, as a young man dressed in purple robes, was spotted by Tyrrhenian pirates, who had just crossed the wine-dark sea. They mistook him for a young king and attempted to seize him, presumably to hold for ransom. Their willow ropes, however, fell off him. The helmsman of the ship immediately
228 A t this point there is a gap in the text o f at least three lines, but the trajectory o f the preceding lines seem s to be som e effort to put Pentheus back together if for no reason other than to make him decent for burial. 229 Again, there is a gap in the text. According to Roche the main thrust o f the m issing lines can be reconstructed from external sources. The upshot is that A gave begs for and is granted permission to lay out the body for burial. D ionysos then appeared above the castle and addresses those present. He predicts the future o f the survivors. Cadmus and his daughters w ill ultimately be expelled from the city. 230 It is not obvious w hy Cadmus is being punished for he did honor Dionysos and Sem ele. It may be that Cadmus and Thebes overdid things, and tried to profit from the rites. 231 The Hymn to D ionysos (1)
217
recognized that they had seized a god, and warned his comrades to leave him be. The helmsman, however, was quickly overruled by the captain and the pirates attempted to go
* to sea with Dionysos on board. 232
Their error became quickly apparent. The sea turned to wine, grape vines sprang up on each side o f the ship to the top o f the sail, and a vine of ivy coiled around the mast. The oar locks became garlands. Dionysos became a lion and seized the captain. The crew jumped ship and became dolphins. made him rich. Apollodorus then tells the important story o f Dionysos and Ariadne: an episode from the Cretan mythology o f the labyrinth. Without retelling the entire labyrinth story, the upshot is that the great hero, Theseus, had come to Crete ostensibly to be sacrificed to the Minotaur in the labyrinth, but in fact, was there to kill the Minotaur and bring to an end the periodic sacrifice o f Greek youths to this monster. In this endeavor, he was assisted by King M inos daughter, Ariadne. [ . . . ] she gave Theseus a thread as he entered. He attached it to the door and played it out as he went in; and discovering the Minotaur in the innermost part o f the Labyrinth, he killed it with blows from his fists, and then made his way out 9 T4 again by pulling back on the thread. On the journey back, he arrived at Naxos by night with Ariadne and the children.235 There Dionysos fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off; and taking her to Lemnos, he had intercourse with her, fathering Thoas, Staphylos, Oinopion, and Peparethos. (Epitome. 1.9)
232 Apollodorus presents a variation on this. D ionysos books passage on a ship going from Icarios to N axos, and was seized w hile on board. In his story, the helmsman is not saved. Further, he seem s to place this episode in time as occurring after the events in Thebes (III.5.3). Ovid, on the other hand, has the Theban story told by A coetes (or D ionysos disguised as A coetes), who is presumed to be the helmsman from the ship. This would obviously place the story earlier in time than the trip to Thebes. A lso, O vids story refers to N axos as being the hom e o f D ionysos (Ovid III 510-700). A coetes may have been a literary invention on the part o f Ovid giving him a means to w eave the pirate story into the Pentheus story. 233 Apollodorus again has a variation on this: the mast and oars were turned into snakes, the craft filled with ivy, and the pirates, driven to madness, jumped into the sea, where they turned into dolphins. (103) 2j4 It is the place, N axos, that allow s this story to be placed immediately after the pirate story, assuming, o f course, that after the pirate episode D ionysos proceeded to N axos as he had planned, and assuming that he didnt travel to N axos multiple times. 235 The children are the other sacrificial victims who had accompanied Theseus from Greece to Crete.
9TT
The helmsman, however, was spared, and Dionysos
218
In his grief for his loss, Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship as he returned home, which would have signaled his father that he had been successful. When his father saw black sails, he threw him self to his death (Epitome 1.10). Ovids telling is similar, but he emphasizes that Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus, but then found comfort in the arms o f Bacchus (VIII. 170-180). Hesiods Theogony reports that Zeus made Ariadne ageless and immortal for Dionysos (945-50). However, the oldest source, Homer, alludes to a different version. In The Odyssey , he tells us that when Theseus tried to spirit Ariadne away from Crete to Athens, she was killed by Artemis at the request of Dionysos (XI, 360-70).236 Kerenyi, using Hyginius as his source, supplements this with a different version of the Cretan bull story. In this one, Ariadne is already married to Dionysos, who had given her a golden bejeweled wreath that he had received from Aphrodite. In this story, the labyrinth was a spiral, not a maze, and Ariadne assisted Theseus by giving him the lighted crown, not a thread.237 Ovid records the next episode, involving the daughters o f Minyas. The preamble to the story dates it as being after Bacchus had visited India, sent both Lycourgos and Pentheus to their doom and had dispatched the Tuscan sailors.238 The priests had declared
236 In Homers story, Odysseus is reporting that he saw Ariadne in Hades. This places the Minotaur story before the Trojan War, which is surely accurate, since the glory o f Minoan culture predates that war. Since she w as seen in Hades shortly after the war, her ascension to heaven must post date the Trojan War, but be before the eighth century in which Hesiod wrote. 237 Gantz, citing scholia to The O dyssey , suggests another possibility: that Artemis killed her for not remaining chaste (115-16). N ilsson writes that Ariadne is a pre-Greek, Minoan vegetation goddess and that her cult came into competition with the cult o f D ionysos. The Ariadne/Dionysos stories are m ythological reconciliations o f the groups: one reconciliation being a marriage, the other being the vanquishing o f Ariadne (172). 238 Presumably, these are the Tyrrhenian pirates o f the H om eric Hymns, in that the Tyrrhenian Sea is near Tuscany. If so, that would place this story som etim e after the pirate story. Graves, however, citing Plutarch, has this story chronologically before the pirate story (27.a).
219
a feast day for Bacchus to be honored by all. The daughters o f Minyas scoffed at the god and continued to work at their weaving. As a literary device, Ovid has the girls telling a long tale as they continued their work, ignoring the god. Suddenly, they heard the crashing o f drums and the air was sweet with scents o f myrrh and saffron. Their weaving turned green, their hanging cloth grew leaves o f ivy and became part o f a vine. Leaves unfurled and branches o f grapes appeared. Beasts o f prey appeared and the girls cowered down. Thin wings appeared on their arms, made from parchment rather than feathers (IV. 1-418). The theme o f the gods divinity being denied continues with an Argive story involving the three daughters of Proitos. According to Apollodorus, Hesiod said that the daughters were driven mad because they refused to accept the rites o f Dionysos. Apollodorus also notes an alternative version told by Acousilaos in which they were driven mad by Hera for disparaging a wooden image o f the goddess. Proitos took them to the seer Melampous, who said he would cure them in return for one third o f Proitos kingdom. Proitos refused and the madness got worse, and spread to other women.239 Proitos went back to Melampous who now demanded that his brother, Bias, also get a share o f one third, raising the total fee to two thirds o f the kingdom. Proitos agreed to these new terms and proceeded to dance ecstatically and drive the women through the mountains. One died, but the other two were purified and cured. Proitos then gave his remaining two daughters in marriage to Melampous and Bias (II.2.2 and 1.9.12).240
239 In another passage, Apollodorus says the women feasted on the flesh o f their own unweaned children (III.5-2). 240 Graves, without citing a source, has Perseus leading the Argives. He at first resisted D ionysos, but after the women are made mad, he appeased the god by building a tem ple (27.j). Perseus is usually thought o f as having replaced Protios as ruler and having won back the other two thirds o f the kingdom (73.q), so this conflict between Perseus and D ionysos might be a separate event, rather than an alternative telling o f the
220
Ovid (XIII. 650-85) tells the story o f the daughters o f Anius to whom Bacchus gave the Midas-like gift o f touch, but in this case their touch could produce wine, corn or oil. The daughters were stolen by Agamemnon who used their powers to supply his fleet and hoped to use it to supply his army while in Troy. The daughters escaped but were recaptured. When they asked for help from Bacchus, he aided them in their ultimate escape by turning them into white doves. This story is somewhat difficult to chronologically place with the other stories, but it obviously takes place at the time o f the Trojan War. Apollodorus reports that Dionysos visited Hades, brought his mother, Semele, up from the underworld, renamed her Thyone, and with her ascended to heaven (III.5.3). Kerenyi (Gods o f the Greeks) offers details. To succeed on his trip he needed a guide and pathfinder. His pathfinder was called Prosymnos or Polyhymnos (the much sung-of), whose price was the female surrender o f Dionysos to the guide. Dionysos fulfilled this promise with a fig-wood phallus. Semele was renamed Thyone (ecstatically raging), and the two of them ascended to heaven (259). Hesiods Theogony confirms that Semele is now a god (945-50). Pausanias suggests a myth in Corinth to the effect that the place where Semele ascended to from hell to heaven was a temple to Artemis at Troezen (II.31.1-2). Kerenyi (Gods o f the Greeks 271) surmises that Ariadne and Semele are one and the same. If so, then their joint ascension to heaven would be at the same time: after the Trojan War, but before Hesiod.
same event. Grimal also cites no source, noting that Perseus successfully resisted the god and killed both Dionysos and Ariadne (343).
221
Aristophanes presents a very different Dionysos in The Frogs. Unlike the The Bacchae, the plot o f The Frogs is not in direct relation to what we know o f the myths o f Dionysos. It is a parody o f his descent into the underworld to save his mother. In this story, he descends into the underworld to save mother Athens. Dionysos is presented as a paunchy, middle-aged man. He starts the play dressed in Heracles disguise and is traveling with his slave Xanthias. The two are on their way to Hades, and have stopped on the outskirts o f Athens to visit Heracles to get directions. Much o f the banter between the three o f them is vaudevillian in nature, ripe with puns and cheap laughs. After talking to Heracles, they encounter a corpse on its way to Hades and have a similar conversation. Finally, they encounter Charon, who provides Dionysos with passage across the lake to Hades aboard his small boat, though the slave Xanthias is required by his lowly status to walk around the lake. A mocking chorus is provided by a group o f frogs. Once reunited on the other side, the two encounter a series o f monsters (mostly in the form o f noises). Dionysos responds by being clever and cowardly, and repeatedly maneuvers poor Xanthias into the position o f having to confront the danger. At several junctures, Dionysos turns to appeal to the audience: dissolving the boundary between the stage and the audience. The pair encounters a group o f initiates, both men and women, with whom they dance and sing. Again, they turn to the audience and jest and jeer at selected members. Finally, the initiates give Dionysos and Xanthias directions to their ultimate destination: the palace o f Pluto.
222
Upon reaching the palace, the two are led in by a maid. Again, there is banter between Dionysos and Xanthias, and again Dionysos shows him self to be cowardly, and ultimately not so clever as he puts him self in the position o f switching identities with Xanthias and is offered up by Xanthias as a slave to be tortured. Dionysos plan then becomes clear, and it is nobler than he had thus far led anyone to believe he was capable. Athens, at the time o f the play, was losing its war with Sparta and its government was in disarray. Dionysos was on a mission to go to Hades and bring back a poet to save the city. He interviews two o f the great old poets: the conservative Aeschylus, and the more modem Euripides. He hosts a debate between the two, and ultimately chooses Aeschylus (and his traditional values) as the right poet at that time to save the city. Because we know the dates o f the war between Athens and Sparta (as well as the date o f the play), we know that this story is said to take place in the late fifth century BCE.
Other Gods That ends my retelling o f the Dionysos myth per se. There are, however, several other gods who are so closely identified with Dionysos that a telling o f his story is incomplete without a telling o f their story. I address several o f these below, but do not attempt to tell their stories as completely as the story o f Dionysos. Orpheus. According to Apollodorus and Ovid,241 Orpheus was the son o f Calliope (one o f the muses) and Oiagros, though it was often said that Apollo was his true father rather than Oiagros. He was a legendary singer and musician (lyre), and was considered
241 Apollodorus tells a som ewhat matter-of-fact story in 1.3.2, with the Argonaut episodes in 1.9.16, and 1.9.25. O vids considerably more romantic telling is at the beginning o f his Book X and the beginning o f Book XL
223
to be Apollos musician. He was also one o f the Argonauts, and when the Argonauts passed the Sirens, Orpheus sang a song to counter their effect, keeping the men on the ship. He was also the inventor o f the Dionysian mysteries. When his wife, Eurydice, died from a snake bite, Orpheus used his charms to descend into Hades and to persuade Pluto (Hades) and Persephone to allow him to bring her back up. He did so by making a musical appeal directly to the two gods: an appeal that invoked the power o f love. His song was a success, and Eurydice was allowed to follow him out. However, he was not to turn and look back at Eurydice until they were in daylight. Just as they approached daylight, Orpheus turned too soon and in front o f his eyes, Eurydice receded back to Hades, thus having the distinction of a double-death. Orpheus begged in vain to cross the Styx again, but the ferryman repulsed him, and he withdrew. For three years he held him self aloof from the love o f women (though many tried) and, according to Ovid, taught the folk o f Thrace the love for tender boys (X. 75-90). His death came at the hands o f wild Thracian women, Maenads. They spotted him while he was singing. Angry over his refusal to love a woman again, they tore him apart. In Hades he was reunited with his wife, Eurydice. Dionysos, angry at what the Maenads had done, turned them into trees.242 Because o f parallels in their stories, Orpheus has sometimes been considered to be another name for Dionysos. More typically, however, he is viewed as a shaman or priest who invokes Dionysos. Farnell states that: The death o f Orpheus, then, may be regarded as an example o f that form o f ritual that Dr. Frazier made familiar to us, the killing o f the
242 Graves (28.d) suggests that D ionysos actually set the maenads upon Orpheus for having neglected his rites.
224
priest, who temporarily incarnates the god (106). Again, we have Dionysos connected (through Orpheus) to the ancient horror o f human sacrifice. Farnell further regarded Orpheus as standing [. . . ] for the principle o f asceticism in the barbaric religion, a principle which might encourage the formation o f mystic brotherhoods (104). This again parallels Harrison, with Dionysos as a fertility god morphing into Dionysos as a mystery god, and Orpheus serving as the vehicle for the transformation. Sabazius. Though he doesnt appear in the mythology o f Dionysos, he is sometimes said to be an early Dionysos. According to Graves, Sabazius is sometimes called Bromius (27.9). Thus, when Dionysos is called Bromius, he is taking on Sabazius-like characteristics. Grimals Dictionary tells us that Sabazius was responsible for the idea o f domesticating oxen and yoking them to the plow. Like Zagreus, he is a son o f Zeus who, in the form o f a snake impregnated Persephone. Instead o f coming from Crete (as did Zagreus), Sabazius is Phyrigian. He is sometimes pictured with horns, and the snake was his most sacred animal. J. E. Harrison associates Sabazius with barley and the brewing o f beer. She also associates him with Dionysos, thus giving Dionysos a foot in the brewing o f beer as well as the making o f wine. The result o f beer intoxication, however, is usually portrayed as sleep rather than ecstasy. Graves connects Sabazius to the annual cutting o f barley and the possibility o f annual boy sacrifices (7.1) Dodds suggests that Sabazius was an oriental counterpart o f Dionysos - an unhellenized Dionysos whose cult retained the primitive appeal and much o f the primitive ritual which the Attic Dionysos had long since lost (xxiii). His arrival in
225
Athens made the story o f The Bacchae especially relevant for Athenians, and he contributed to the evolving conception o f the nature o f Dionysos. In fact, in The Bacchae, Dionysos is occasionally referred to as Bromius (e.g., line 84). Priapus. Grimal says that Priapus was an ithyphallic fertility god from the Asiatic town o f Lampsacus. His mother is always identified as being Aphrodite. His father is variously identified as Dionysos, Zeus, or Adonis. If his father is Dionysos, it is not clear where, chronologically, his birth fits into the story. When he was about to be born, Hera touched the womb o f Aphrodite to ensure that the child was born deformed. His deformity was enormous gentiles. He was included in the retinue of Dionysos and is a protector o f vineyards, gardens, and orchards, with an ability to ward off the evil eye. He also notes that Diodorus considered Priapus to be the deification by Isis o f Osiris virility (373-74). Osiris. Like stories o f Sabazius and Zagreus, the story o f Osiris is not directly part o f the story of Dionysos. However, it does parallel Dionysian myth, is from the same part of the world, but developed at an historically earlier time. Thus, it is generally believed to have influenced Dionysian myth. Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus (among others) all state flatly that Osiris and Dionysos are the same god. The consort and sister o f Osiris, Isis, is generally believed to parallel Demeter. A full telling of his story is well beyond the scope o f this study, but a brief overview is worthwhile. The following is a summary o f paragraphs 13-18 o f Plutarchs treatise: On Isis and Osiris, which appears in Marvin Meyers The Ancient Mysteries. Osiris was the brother and husband o f Isis. He became the pharaoh, and one o f his first acts was to deliver the Egyptians from poverty by showing them the fruits o f cultivation,
226
by giving them laws and by teaching them to honor the gods. Osiris was murdered by his brother and rival, Set (a.k.a. Typhon). Set did so by imprisoning Osiris in a coffin/chest that he then launched it into the sea. The chest eventually washed up on shore near the land o f Byblos, where it became imbedded in a tree, which was used by the local king as a pillar to support his house. After a long period o f grieving and searching (paralleling the Demeter/Persephone story), Isis found and recovered the chest. However, Set happened upon it, dismembered Osiris and scattered the pieces. One piece, the penis, was lost forever in the Nile, but the others were found and reconstituted by Isis. Set was defeated by Horus, the son o f Osiris and Isis (Meyer 162-65). The Osiris story contains the m otif o f death and rebirth, as well as the theme o f dismemberment, which are also contained in the stories o f Dionysos and Zagreus.
Works Cited
Apollodorus. The Library o f Greek Mythology. Trans. Robin Hard. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. Aristophanes. The Wasps; The Poet and the Women; The Frogs. Trans. David Barrett. London: Penguin Books, 1964. Bachofen, J. J. Myth, Religion and Mother Right. Trans. Ralph Mannheim. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1967. Bennet, E. A. What Jung Really Said. New York: Schocken Books, 1983. Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots o f Classical Civilization. Volume I: The Fabrication o f Ancient Greece. Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1987.
227
Bettelheim, Bruno. Freud and M a n s Soul. New York: Vintage Books, 1982. Bieber, Margarete. TheHistory o f the Greek and Roman Theater. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971. Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Trans. John Raffan. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1985. Cook, A. B. Zeus: God o f the Dark Sky (Thunder and Lightning). Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge UP 1925. Corbett, Lionel. The Religious Function o f the Psyche. London: Routledge, 1999. Corey, Gerald. Theory and Practice o f Group Counseling, 3rd Ed. Pacific Grove, California: Brooks/Cole, 1990. Comford, F. M. The Origin o f Attic Comedy, Reprint Edition. Ann Arbor: U o f Michigan P, 1993. Danielou, Alain. Gods o f Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions o f Shiva and Dionysus. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1992. Deutsch, Helene. A Psychoanalytic Study o f the Myth o f Dionysus and Apollo: Two Variants o f the Son-Mother Relationship. New York: International UP, 1969. Diodorus Siculus. The Library o f History. Trans. Oldfather, C. H. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1933. Downing, Christine. Gods in Our Midst: Mythological Images o f the Masculine: A W omans View. New York: Crossroad, 1993. Driver, Tom F. Liberating Rites: Understanding the Transformative Power o f Ritual. Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1998. Edinger, Edward F. The Creation o f Consciousness: J u n g s Myth fo r Modern Man. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1984. Eliade, Mircea. Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969. Else, Gerald F. The Origin and Early Form o f Greek Tragedy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1965. Euripides. The Bacchae. Commentary by E. R. Dodds. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1960.
228
. The Bacchae and Other Plays. Trans. Phillip Vellacott. London: Penguin Books, 1973. . Three Plays o f Euripides: Alcestis, Medea, The Bacchae. Trans. Paul Roche. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1974. Farnell, Lewis Richard. The Cults o f the Greek States, Vol. V. Oxford: Clarendon, 1909. Fierz-David, Linda. W omens Dionysian Initiation: The Villa o f Mysteries in Pompeii. Trans. Harding, M. Esther. Dallas: Spring, 1988. Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. New York: Collier Books, 1950. Freke, Timothy, and Gandy, Peter. The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus A Pagan God? New York: Three Rivers, 1999. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton, 1961. . Totem and Taboo. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton, 1950. Gantz, Timothy. Early Greek Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993. Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. London: Penguin Books, 1955. Grimal, Pierre. Dictionary o f Classical Mythology. Trans. A. R. Maxwell-Hyslop. London: Penguin Books, 1986. Guthrie, W. K. C. Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study o f the Orphic Movement-. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993. Haigh, A. E. Attic Theatre: A Description o f the State and Theatre o f the Athenians, and the Dramatic Performances at Athens. Revisions by A. W. Pickard-Cambridge. Oxford: Clarendon, 1907. Hall, Nor. Those Women. Dallas: Spring, 1988. Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales o f Gods and Heroes. New York: New American Library, 1940. . The Greek Way. New York: W. W. Norton and Co, 1930. Hamilton, Richard. Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian Iconography and Ritual. Ann Arbor: U o f Michigan P, 1992.
229
Harrison, Jane Ellen. Prolegomena to the Study o f Greek Religion. 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1922. . Themis: A Study in the Social Origins o f Greek Religion. London: Merlin Press, 1963. Herodotus. The Histories. Trans. Aubrey De Selincourt. New York: Penguin, 2003. Hesiod. Theogony; Works and Days. Trans. M. L. West. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988. Hillman, James. Pan and the Nightmare. Woodstock, Connecticut: Spring, 2000. Homer. The Homeric Hymns. Trans. Charles Boer. Woodstock, Connecticut: Spring: 1970. . The Iliad. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Doubleday, 1974. . The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin, 1996. Johnson, Robert A. Ecstasy: Understanding the Psychology o f Joy. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989. Jung, Carl Gustav. The Collected Works o f C. G. Jung Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Trans. H. G. Baynes; Revisions by R. F. C. Hull. Vol. 6. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971. . The Collected Works o f C. G. Jung Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Vol. 9.1. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971. . The Collected Works o f C. G. Jung Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Vol. 9.2. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969. Kerenyi, Carl. Dionysos: Archetypal Image o f Indestructible Life. Trans. Ralph Mannheim. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1976. . Gods o f the Greeks. London: Thames and Hudson, 1951. McEvilley, Thomas. The Shape o f Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. New York: All worth, 2002. Meyer, Marvin W., Ed. The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook o f Sacred Texts. Philadelphia: U o f Pennsylvania P, 1987. Muktananda. Nothing Exists that is not Siva: Commentaries on the Siva Sutra, Vijnanabhairava, Gurugita, and Other Sacred Texts. South Fallsberg, New York: SYDA Foundation, 1997. Murray, Gilbert. Five Stages o f Greek Religion. Mineola, New York: Dover, 2002.
230
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth o f Tragedy and The Genealogy o f Morals. Trans. Golffing, Francis. New York: Anchor Books, 1956. Nilsson, Martin P. The Mycenean Origin o f Greek Mythology. New York: W. W. Norton, 1963. Nonnos. Dionysiaca. Trans. W. H. D. Rouse. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1940. Odier, Daniel. Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening. Trans. Clare Marie Frock. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 2001. Otto, Walter F. Dionysus: Myth and Cult. Trans. Robert B. Palmer. Dallas: Spring, 1981. Ovid. The Metamorphoses. Trans. A. D. Melville. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. Paris, Ginette. Pagan Grace: Dionysos, Hermes and Goddess Memory in Daily Life. Woodstock, Connecticut: Spring, 1990. Pausanias. Description o f Greece. Trans. W. H. S. Jones. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1918. Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy. Oxford: Clarendon, 1927. . The Dramatic Festivals o f Athens. 2nd Ed. Revisions by John Gould and D. M. Lewis. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988. Reckford, Kenneth J. Aristophanes Old-and-New Comedy: Volume One, Six Essays in Perspective. Chapel Hill : U o f North Carolina P, 1987. Ridgeway, William. Origin o f Tragedy: With Special Reference to the Greek Tragedians. Kila, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2003. Rohde, Erwin. Psyche: The Cult o f Souls and B elief in Immortality among the Greeks. Trans. W. B. Hillis. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Segal, Charles. Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides Bacchae. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1982. Simon, Erika. The Ancient Theater. Trans. C. E. Vafopoulou-Richardson. London: Methuen, 1985. . The Festivals o f Attica: A n Archaeological Commentary. Madison: U o f Wisconsin P, 1983.
231
Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. Taylor-Perry, Rosemarie. The God Who Comes: Dionysian Mysteries Revisited. New York: Algora, 2003. Theocritus. The Idylls. Trans. Anthony Verity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Tolle, Eckhart. The Power o f Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Novato, California: New World Library, 1999. Winnicott, Donald W. Playing and Reality. London: Routledge, 2005. Woodfin, Rupert and Groves, Judy. Introducing Aristotle. Cambridge, U. K.: Icon Books, 2001. Zafiropulo, Jean. M ead and Wine: A History o f the Bronze Age in Greece. Trans. Peter Green. New York: Schocken Books, 1966.

A Study in Dionysian Ecstatic Rites

Încărcat de

Informații document

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

A Study in Dionysian Ecstatic Rites

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

GIVE ME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION: A STUDY IN DIONYSIAN ECSTATIC RITES A dissertation submitted by MICHAEL K.

Ginette Paris, PhD Chair

Patrick M ahaffay,J> hD PhD Advisor

Rudy oauer, PhD External Reader

UMI Number: 3264676

Copyright 2006 by Stamper, Michael K.

All rights reserved.

JUNE 15, 2006

Copyright by MICHAEL K. STAMPER 2006

iii v 1 49 61 108 138 175 195 227

17 This impression is that o f individual men making a gesture o f receiving an epiphany.

Kerenyi traced the origins o f Dionysos by following

32 Downing suggests zoe to be synonym ous with libido (73).

drive for life to manifest itself physically.

He is the image o f creativity and creation. His

Moreover, the connection to Osiris (and Herodotuss endorsement of it)

Dionysos {Festivals o f Attica 89).

Table 1 Festival Summary Chart

Escape from Minotaur

1st Fruit Offering

Cutting back vines

1st Fruit Offering

Dec-Jan Rural Dionysia

Anticipation of birthday of Dionysos Birthday of Dionysos & death at Delphi

Lenian Mask on Disp. Theater

First drinking of wine

Orestes in Athens Marriage of Dionysos & Ariadne

Sacred Marriage Theater Pollution/Purification Placation of Spirits Purification

Dionysos/Semele Persephone/Hades Herakles' purification State/Military Myth

Cadets panoplied Theater Initiation into Mysteries

Phallic Procession Theater Purification/Initiation Sacred Marriage Rebirth

Demeter's search for Persephone

* Festival includes the literal presence of Dionysos

This theory is a continuation of Aristotles line o f thinking

169 This begins at line 910.

Chapter 6 Conclusion and Interpretation

However, it does have a figure who is a psychopomp, mediating

into an unconscious state.

Full consciousness is when we simultaneously experience

him also constructing pillars.

Upon his return from India to Thebes he encountered

The helmsman, however, was spared, and Dionysos

S-ar putea să vă placă și