To Dionysos Areios
A hymn to the god who steps victoriously across the threshold

Hail to thee oh strong-hearted son of Semele
and Zeus who bears the aegis,
oh tyrant of the flute and the drums
that sound like the thundering hooves of a herd of a hundred invisible bulls
charging through the still forest at night,
Dionysos who shrieks as the grapes are crushed
and creates parallel worlds out of his delirium
– they say that had he and the mighty slayer of lions, Alkides
who gained glory and frenzy through the scheming of cow-eyed Hera
from whose milk spring up immortal stars;
had they not arrived at the last instant
the ferocious, flesh-hungry giants would have toppled the gleaming mansions
from the summit of Mount Olympos and driven the glorious gods to earth,
shamed in their defeat.
But then the firmament of heaven shook!
And a sound like a titan makes when it lurches from its bed in Tartarous
gibbering incoherently of the frightening thing, child-shaped,
that stalks the shadowy corridors of its nightmares
– like that was the braying of the asses that bore the warrior sons of the god of the bright sky
to vanquish their father’s foes as the prophecy of Nyx had foretold,
the veiled goddess whispering her weird words in the gloomy cave beneath the tree
that supports the world, bride of the serpent given the robe as her wedding-gift.
And when those invincible and grotesque sons of Gaia got a glimpse of the heroic souls
hastening towards them and longing for valor, they trembled.
Oh, to see such high and doughty beings tremble!
There was Alkides swinging his club the size of an old oak tree uprooted with clumps of dirt still clinging on
and he was ablaze with the pure fire that consumed his flesh and transformed him into an immortal being,
a god instead of a man. But that laugh.
He laughed as only those who have felt the blood of their children on their hands can laugh.
What truly terrified the giants though was Dionysos.
His mascara was perfect.
He grinned like a fox.
The pine-cone tipped staff with streamers of ivy throbbed in his hand.
From the waist up he was white from the ashes of his ancestors.
And the pelt of the beast that covered his loins dripped redly.
He was stone silent and calm. Everything was expressed through his eyes.
They saw his true nature in them, what lives behind the mask.
And it unmade them. They dissolved into chaos and fled the battlefield of the gods
like pitiful children and women afraid of becoming spear-won brides.
Be glad that the war happened when it did.
He might have fought on the other side, aided the giants
deadly as a pack of wolves in pursuit of tasty prey
had it happened sooner, before he was dragged through the swamp by a couple of asses
and found a cure for madness in the bosom of his father’s mother,
city-crowned Rheia, flesh dark from the inundation of the fertile river,
she who knows the winding, way-weaving dances that loose the mind from the bonds
of remorse and rage and riotous rococo revolutions of a soul in purgative torment.
Rhythm is the key that opens you up
and lets it all pour out, the good and the bad that we keep stored up in our heads.
From her he learned the mysteries that redeem and liberate
– through her became a new man,
a man with a mission to share the joy and bliss she made him feel.
Imagine what might have happened to our world if the mad god hadn’t had a change of heart.
So I praise thee, O kind and gentle one who desires his devotees
to be always drunk and rapturously enjoying life, glorious lover of the goddess Peace,
crowned with the flowers of a wet and mild spring,
gathered by the moss-haired nymphs who smile approvingly at the clever jests of the satyrs
who gambol through the wooded coverts of Mount Nysa
– thee I honor O prince who roused
the granddaughter of the Sun when she was sunk deep into a depressed slumber,
roused her with kisses and visions of what she would become
at thy tenderly cruel hands.
Thee I honor, my great god Dionysos!

In case anyone’s interested in why I included the pomegranate among the symbols and attributes of Dionysos, consider this passage from the second book of Clement of Alexandria’s Exhortation to the Greeks:

If you wish to inspect the orgies of the Corybantes, then know that, having killed their third brother, they covered the head of the dead body with a purple cloth, crowned it, and carrying it on the point of a spear, buried it under the roots of Olympus. These mysteries are, in short, murders and funerals. And the priests of these rites, who are called kings of the sacred rites by those whose business it is to name them, give additional strangeness to the tragic occurrence, by forbidding parsley with the roots from being placed on the table, for they think that parsley grew from the Corybantic blood that flowed forth; just as the women, in celebrating the Thesmophoria, abstain from eating the seeds of the pomegranate which have fallen on the ground, from the idea that pomegranates sprang from the drops of the blood of Dionysos. Those Corybantes also they call Cabiric; and the ceremony itself they announce as the Cabiric mystery.

For those two identical fratricides, having abstracted the box in which the phallos of Bacchus was deposited, took it to Etruria–dealers in honourable wares truly. They lived there as exiles, employing themselves in communicating the precious teaching of their superstition, and presenting phallic symbols and the box for the Tyrrhenians to worship. And some will have it, not improbably, that for this reason Dionysos was called Attis, because he was mutilated. And what is surprising at the Tyrrhenians, who were barbarians, being thus initiated into these foul indignities, when among the Athenians, and in the whole of Greece–I blush to say it–the shameful legend about Demeter holds its ground?

Considering that Dionysos is the child of Persephone, that puts a kind of gruesome spin on Haides’ marriage proposal.

Over at Patheos Sunweaver posted a piece making light of Zeus.

In the comments FeistyKat remarked:

oh one other thing…Zeus was the youngest child…and yet he is the only one portrayed as gray haired in modern times. Many (if not all) ancient paintings portray his as dark haired. I think the gray hair is from associating him with the Christian concept of god. Just a personal opinion.

To which Sunweaver replied:

It’s more likely that the Greeks influenced the Romans who influenced the Christians. Pottery fragments are not a good indication of hair color, since you can only do so much with red and black. We fare no better with statues, since only a few have been analyzed to see what colors of paint were used. There are precious few mosaics, so there’s not really a way to know for certain how Zeus was viewed in the ancient world

Not quite.

We know that Zeus was envisioned with dark hair because we have literary sources on this:

Hesiod, Catalogues of Women Fragment 102
Elektra was subject to Zeus, the dark-clouded Son of Kronos.

Homer, Iliad 1.393 
You only among the immortals beat aside a shameful destruction from the dark-misted Kronides that time when all the other Olympians sought to bind him.

Homer, Iliad 1.510-530
So she spoke; but Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, spoke no word to her, but sat a long time in silence. Yet Thetis, even as she had clasped his knees, so held to him, clinging close, and questioned him again a second time … The son of Kronos spoke, and bowed his blue-black (kuaneos) brow in assent, and the ambrosial locks waved from the king’s immortal head; and he made great Olympos quake.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.18.6
In Athens Hadrian the Roman emperor dedicated the temple of Zeus Olympios and the statue which is worth seeing since it’s size exceeds all other statues save the colossi at Rhodes and Rome, and is made of ivory and gold with an artistic skill which is truly remarkable when the size is taken into account.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.40.4-6
When you have entered the precinct of Zeus in Megara called the Olympieion you see a noteworthy temple. The face of the image of Zeus is of ivory and gold, the other parts are of clay and gypsum.

Furthermore, Zeus had the epikleseis Skotitas (murky dark), Aithiops (shiningly black), Konios (dusty), Maimaktês (darkly storming) among others.

And here are a selection of vase paintings clearly indicating dark hair:

In each instance Zeus is portrayed with black or brown hair of a shade similar to that of Hera, Ganymede, Herakles, etc. none of whom are traditionally represented as white or grey haired.

It’s quite false to suggest that the vase painters were incapable of representing white or grey – note the clothing these figures wear and note even more carefully the following set of images:

If the ancients had wanted to portray Zeus in this manner they could have. But they didn’t. In fact there were even cults that venerated a youthful Zeus:

Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.24.4
There are at Aigion other images made of bronze, Zeus as a boy and Herakles as a beardless youth, the work of Ageladas of Argos. Priests are elected for them every year, and each of the two images remains at the house of the priest. In a more remote age there was chosen to be priest for Zeus from the boys he who won the prize for beauty. When his beard began to grow the honor for beauty passed to another boy. Such were the customs.

Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 19
In Crete there is said to be a sacred cave full of bees. In it, as storytellers say, Rhea gave birth to Zeus; it is a sacred place an no one is to go near it, whether god or mortal. At the appointed time each year a great blaze is seen to come out of the cave. Their story goes on to say that this happens whenever the blood from the birth of Zeus begins to boil up. The sacred bees that were the nurses of Zeus occupy this cave.

The Hymn from the Sanctuary of Dictaean Zeus (no. 16), in Palaikastro
Io! most mighty youth, I salute you, son of Kronos,

almighty splendour, who stands as leader of the company of gods!

Come to Dikta at this New Year’s Day and take delight in the music,

(I) which we weave for you with harps, adding the sound of oboes,

which we sing having taken our stand around your well-walled altar.

Io! most mighty youth etc.

(II) For here it was that with their shield[s - - -]

received you, immortal babe out of Rhea’s hands, and [- - -]

Io! most mighty youth etc.

(III) [- - -] of the fair Dawn.

Io! most mighty youth etc.

(IV) [- - -] plentiful each year, and Justice ruled over mortals;

[- - -] living beings [- - -] by Peace which goes with prosperity.

Io! most mighty youth etc.

(V) [Come on, Lord! leap up for our he]rds and leap up for our fleecy [sheep];

leap up also [for the harvest] of corn, and for [our houses that there be] offspring.

Io! most mighty youth etc.

(VI) [Leap up also] for our cities, leap up also for our seafaring ships;

leap up also for the y[oung ci]tizens, leap up also for famous themis.

Io! most mighty youth etc.

I am not aware of a comparable cult to Zeus Γέρος – though after looking at this image perhaps there should be cause he looks totally bad-ass:

Sam Webster, Jason Pitzl-Waters and friends have come out explicitly stating that there is no room for Dionysos in their Pantheon with the following poem:

Our way to the realization of a Pagan future
will not be through the Sword
we will foment no fruitless armed insurrection
Nor will it be through the Cup
no Dionysian revolution will overthrow our sick society
Nor even through the Wand
for the laws of this land are used against us
and we have little access to the halls of justice
But the Coin is for All

Yup. You read that right. All they care about is money; more to the point they feel money is the only thing that will bring about social change. Since Dionysos is the only deity specifically mentioned by name, it’s a clear rejection not only of him but of the values he’s associated with.

Heh.

Good luck with that.

Especially since piddly little Protestant churches in podunk towns do a better job of raising funds and getting support from their congregations than even the most successful national pagan orgs so if they’re hoping to buy political and social influence they’re going to be massively outgunned.

Perhaps in time they will come to learn the lesson of Midas, as told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses 11.85-145:

There Midas put Silenus carefully under the care of his loved foster-child, young Bacchus. He with great delight, because he had his foster-father once again, allowed the king to choose his own reward—a welcome offer, but it led to harm. And Midas made this ill-advised reply: “Cause whatsoever I shall touch to change at once to yellow gold.”

Bacchus agreed to his unfortunate request, with grief that Midas chose for harm and not for good. The Berecynthian hero, king of Phrygia, with joy at his misfortune went away, and instantly began to test the worth of Bacchus’ word by touching everything. Doubtful himself of his new power, he pulled a twig down from a holm-oak, growing on a low hung branch. The twig was turned to gold. He lifted up a dark stone from the ground and it turned pale with gold. He touched a clod and by his potent touch the clod became a mass of shining gold. He plucked some ripe, dry spears of grain, and all that wheat he touched was golden. Then he held an apple which he gathered from a tree, and you would think that the Hesperides had given it. If he but touched a lofty door, at once each door-post seemed to glisten. When he washed his hands in liquid streams, the lustrous drops upon his hands might have been those which once astonished Danae. He could not now conceive his large hopes in his grasping mind, as he imagined everything of gold. And, while he was rejoicing in great wealth, his servants set a table for his meal, with many dainties and with needful bread: but when he touched the gift of Ceres with his right hand, instantly the gift of Ceres stiffened to gold; or if he tried to bite with hungry teeth a tender bit of meat, the dainty, as his teeth but touched it, shone at once with yellow shreds and flakes of gold. And wine, another gift of Bacchus, when he mixed it in pure water, can be seen in his astonished mouth as liquid gold.

Confounded by his strange misfortune—rich and wretched—he was anxious to escape from his unhappy wealth. He hated all he had so lately longed for. Plenty could not lessen hunger and no remedy relieved his dry, parched throat. The hated gold tormented him no more than he deserved. Lifting his hands and shining arms to heaven, he moaned. “Oh pardon me, father Lenaeus! I have done wrong, but pity me, I pray, and save me from this curse that looked so fair.” How patient are the gods! Bacchus forthwith, because King Midas had confessed his fault, restored him and annulled the promise given, annulled the favor granted, and he said: “That you may not be always cased in gold, which you unhappily desired, depart to the stream that flows by that great town of Sardis and upward trace its waters, as they glide past Lydian heights, until you find their source. Then, where the spring leaps out from mountain rock, plunge head and body in the snowy foam. At once the flood will take away your curse.” King Midas did as he was told and plunged beneath the water at the river’s source. And the gold virtue granted by the god, as it departed from his body, tinged the stream with gold. And even to this hour adjoining fields, touched by this ancient vein of gold, are hardened where the river flows and colored with the gold that Midas left.

Hey folks, I’ve got one last Enorchean stone left so if anyone wants to claim it shoot me an e-mail. It’s $25 + $5 shipping. Once this one goes that’s it – I won’t be making any more of these, so you’d better act fast!

Something I’d like to elaborate on in relation to my post on why I don’t think it’s possible to revive the ancient mysteries is that a mystery isn’t just an intensely transformative spiritual experience – it’s a particular intensely transformative spiritual experience.

In some ways I think it’s comparable to baking bread. There’s a lot of different kinds of bread you can make depending on the ingredients you use and what you do with them but your end product has to possess certain characteristics or else you’ve made something other than bread.

What makes a mystery, as I understand it, is the performance of specific ritual actions, the involvement of a set of gods and spirits, a constellation of themes which provide a narrative structure for the progressive alteration of consciousness; all of which culminates in a transformed identity and a more intimate relationship with the aforementioned divinities.

Now as long as you have all of those elements I believe that you are warranted in describing your experiences as an initiation into a mystery. As I’ve mentioned before, I believe that a strong distinction should be drawn between initiation conferred by the gods or spirits and initiation transmitted through a lineaged tradition – though both are still, unquestionably, initiations. Likewise I believe that there is room for variation and innovation. Without doing things exactly as the ancients did (which we can’t) it is still possible for us today to tap into the same current of mysteries that they did, and sometimes, rarely, even the same mystery.

But all of those elements have to be present, and in the proper balance as well, for it to be a mystery. If there’s too much or too little of even one of them it goes off into a different category of religious experience altogether. Which isn’t a bad thing – hell, in my opinion no engagement with the gods and spirits is a bad thing!

If it helps think of mystery like a trope, such as the Girls Underground thread that Dver has teased out from mythology, fairy tales, folklore and pop culture. (An appropriate analogy since the Bacchic Orphics actually referred to Persephone as Kore Katachthonia “the Underground Girl“.) It’s bewildering at times to see all the different ways that this archetype has found expression – and yet there is a coherence to the stories they tell and it takes far more than a strong female protagonist to qualify.

I see the fragmentary sources that have come down to us as indicators of the mystery experience – if you pile them up you’ll get a sense of what the core principles and requirements are by seeing what overlaps and what’s extraneous. Then if your own personal experiences line up with that then I think it’s safe to say that you’ve gone through the mystery and if they don’t, well then I’d say you’ve gone through something else. Another mystery perhaps, or just a totally badass experience. In the end it’s not really my place to say since it’s from the gods and spirits that all mysteries flow.

Marcus Antonius pushed open the door to the Queen’s private chambers, sending the startled ladies in waiting and guards scurrying off. Even had he not been the Queen’s recent husband, they wouldn’t have opposed him: there was a dangerous, mad quality to his disheveled appearance, and Marcus well knew how to use the sword he carried always belted at his hip.

Marcus stumbled in, slammed the large, ornately wrought door closed, and then slumped against it, panting.

Kleopatra glanced up from her work – she was writing a philosophical treatise on the arts of persuasion and cosmetics – and took in his massive frame. Marcus’ hair was in disarray, his ivy-crown hanging in tatters from his dark head. His chiton – no longer a Roman toga – hung loose about his waist, completely exposing his battle-scarred torso. It was torn and stuffed inside his sword-belt to keep it from falling off of him entirely, and there were plenty of wine stains and muck from the streets covering the once pristine fabric. His chest heaved; he seemed scarcely able to catch his breath. Dark shadows made his face resemble a death’s mask. His normal sun-browned flesh seemed pale even in the shadows of her chamber. He frightened her.

Kleopatra rose and rushed to his side. He collapsed into her arms and with great difficulty she managed to walk him over to the bed they now shared as man and wife. He fell back and lay staring up at the ceiling. With a moment of annoyance Kleopatra noted that they would have to get new sheets, because there would be no way to get the filth and sweat out of them now. She lay down beside him, pressing her slender body against his massive frame, and tried not to inhale too deeply.

“Are you okay, my husband? It is late. Where have you been this evening?”

From the looks of him, partying with their friends and then brawls in Alexandria’s back alleys. At least he didn’t stink of whores. This time. Kleopatra stroked the dark curls out of his eyes: his expression was vacant, haunted. For a moment she worried that he had lost his speech. She sat up and prepared to call for the court physician. Then his gravelly voice boomed in his chest, sounding like a lion’s rattling roar.

“I was running with the Apis.”

Kleopatra smiled. “No wonder you look exhausted – it is quite a journey from Memphis to Alexandria.”

Marcus’ lip curled up. “Do not mock me, woman.”

Kleopatra went cold at the lethal fury that shown in his eyes.

“I do not understand, my lord.” She whispered.

Marcus heaved a sigh. “Neither do I, my love. But it happened nonetheless.”

Kleopatra rested her hand on his chest comfortingly, felt its warmth rise and fall beneath her delicate fingers, and then whispered, “Go on. Tell me. I will not laugh.”

There was silence for a long while. Neither spoke. The only sound aside from their slow breathing was the guttering of the oil lamp’s flame on her writing desk. Then, finally, Marcus spoke, his voice hoarse from thirst.

“I stayed at the dinner-party after you left. The wine was too good, and the conversation even better. We were discussing Dionysos’ conquest of India, a topic that has been close to my heart, of course, ever since Ephesos.”

“You truly are the New Dionysos, my love.” Kleopatra’s hand slid down his chest, resting fondly on the swell between his legs. Normally this would have stopped all conversation and ended with them rolling together under the sheets. Instead he seemed not to notice.

“Like your father and Philopator before him.”

“Yes.” The mention of Auletes brought a sad smile to her lips. She had genuinely loved him, a rare enough occurrence among the Lagides.

“And before them Philadelphos and Soter too?”

“Yes. We are all descendents of Dionysos – his blood has flowed stronger with some than others, however.”

“Yes, and that is why you love me – isn’t it?”

“It is one of the reasons, yes.” Marcus Antonius was not as other men. His passions dwarfed theirs. His spirit loomed larger than other men’s, doing things they only dreamed of but lacked the courage to accomplish. Marcus felt things more strongly, was more sensual and decadent than anyone she had ever met – aside from herself. He was given to great kindness and generosity – to all he met, not just his friends – but when provoked to wrath, he was terrible, crueler than anyone had a right to be. If any single mortal exemplified the contradictory excesses of her people’s ancestral god – it was this man.

“My whole life has been lived under his shadow. Unconsciously I have acted out his myths through my campaigns, my feasting, my loving, my intense joy – and my volatile wrath. Tonight I finally understand why – and what the Ephesians meant when they gave me that title. I wonder if they even understood how right they were in bestowing that half-mocking epithet.”

“I do not understand. What happened?”

“He happened – that is what. I met the god tonight, in a way I never have before. During the conversation about the Indian conquest, something stirred within my soul, something dark and ancient. The god within me awoke. I sat there for awhile, drinking, but it was not I who tasted the wine. I watched the drunken revelers, but it was not I who stared out of my eyes: it was the god, and he was wearing my body like a mask. I would speak, but it was not my words that poured out. I was merely an actor, reciting the lines scripted by another mind. The evening passed. More wine was drunk. I could not stop myself: cup after cup was drained by me and I hardly seemed to notice it. The topic changed. They began discussing the charms of the various whores down by the Pharos, and Octavian’s intrigues at Rome. I grew bored with their idle chatter. I got up, without so much as a parting word, and fled out into the night, not even stopping to grab my cloak.

“I fled into the darkness, desperate to be alone. Old friends hailed me on the street, asking where I was going. I rushed past, ignoring them. I left the familiar royal quarters of the city, the temples and shops and wealthier districts. I had no idea where I was going: my body carried me along, through dark alleyways and deserted thoroughfares. This city is different at night: it changes as the pimps and thieves and sailors come out. I don’t know if they recognized who I was, or if they feared the crazed look in my eye, but none of them hassled me. They stepped out of my way, even when the streets were narrow; they crowded together and whispered as I passed, making warding gestures against the evil that had so clearly taken possession of my soul.

“And they were wise to do so, for I was an animal in human guise, a beast hungry for blood and the crunch of bone beneath my fangs. Had any tarried across my path too long, or tried to give me trouble, I would have been on them in an instant, a ravening beast glorying in the tearing of flesh, the warmth of their blood spraying against my skin, their pitiful shrieks filling the night air. But they knew themselves to be prey and so stayed far from me.

“Finally the dreadful spirit inside me had reached its destination, alone in the night, in an empty quarter of the city, far from the prying eyes of mortals.

“I bent over, trying to catch my breath. At some point I must have been running. I had no idea where I was. Finally I glanced up – and that’s when I saw him: the bull. He was huge, his thick black frame blotting out the light around me. He was darker than night, but his eyes glowed more brightly than the moon. His hooves were made of fire, and the earth scorched wherever they touched. Plumes of smoke rose from his nostrils. He was staring directly at me: challenging me. I should have been afraid. He could have easily gored me with his massive horns or trampled me under his mighty weight. I felt no fear: my heart thundered with reckless pride to be in the presence of so majestic a creature. I met his gaze unflinchingly and accepted his challenge.

“I stood up tall, stretching my body out to its fullest. He dwarfed me, and yet I was proud of my masculine frame. I showed my teeth, giving back my own challenge. He snorted once, the sound a rumble I could feel through the earth, accepting my challenge, and then he turned and began to run. I understood immediately: I was to chase him.

“Despite his size, the bull was fast, faster than he should have been. In moments he was almost out of my sight.

“Growling like a wild beast, I gave chase. I had no idea what I would do once I caught him. I was intoxicated with the frenzy of the hunt: it impelled me on, unthinking.

“As I ran, I felt the power of the god stir once more within me. I reveled in the unbridled strength that coursed through my body; the blood pumping through my veins; my muscles stretching as my lithe limbs carried me forward. I knew myself to be a man in that moment, a great man capable of great deeds. I felt alive, in a way that made everything before seem like a pitiful dream. I have had moments where I glimpsed something of what it is to be alive – in battle or while making love – but here it was in its fullness, not just a fleeting image. This all came to me afterwards: at the time there was no room for thought, even thoughts such as these. My mind completely shut down: I was a creature of pure instinct; relying on my body to find its own way through the narrow streets, leaping automatically over rubbish in my way, darting down an alley when the bull changed its course at the last moment. I had no doubts, no troubling questions about my place in the world: I knew exactly why I existed – to catch this bull!

“Everything else fell away, vanished into the darkness, until the world consisted of nothing more than the bull and myself. All I could see was the bull before me, shining brilliantly with life in the shadows. Never before had I seen anything as beautiful as him: not a fleet of ships, not the work of Pheidias, not even you, my beloved. His hulking frame transfixed my gaze. I marveled at how his tautly muscled legs found their way unerringly through the narrow streets with a dancer’s agility; those fearful horns which existed for the sole purpose of rending flesh; those glowing eyes in whose depths all the secrets of the world are kept. And I knew that this was no ordinary bull – this was Apis, the god; Apis who contains the abundant fertility of the Nile within him; Apis who makes the grass green, the fruit to swell on the branch, the ripe corn to spring forth that men might have food for their bellies; Apis who fills the women with lust; Apis in whose movement the motion of the cosmos is manifest; Apis, power in its most primal, procreative form. Apis is life itself – and without him, no man rules. Rulership, in fact, is nothing more than harnessing the power of this god and learning to direct it outwards into the world. Without thinking about this, I understood all of it – and I knew that I had to capture the Apis bull. I had to possess him, consume him, become him.

“And so, even though my limbs were growing tired from the chase, my heart beating dangerously in my chest, my breath beginning to come with more difficulty – I dug deep and found even further resources of power within myself to continue on. I blocked out the pain. I ignored my aching body. I channeled everything I had into the race – and my focus narrowed even further, thoughts of the race and of my desire to catch Apis falling away until he and I existed alone. Just us. The Apis and I. I and the Apis. As he ran, I ran. As he breathed, I breathed. As he snorted, I too snorted. No longer was there distance between us – we were one soul in two bodies, mirror images of each other.

“And then I understood: Dionysos was the Apis, and I was Dionysos. I was chasing myself, and this race between us was an ancient ceremony, as old as time, and it had been performed many times before, and it would be performed again many times after I had completed it. This is how the King is chosen, how he shows himself worthy to rule. He must race the bull and in the process become the bull himself. The race awakens the sleeping god within him, rouses the bull and all of its bountiful powers into life. Not all who start on the path, however, succeed. They must be able to shut off their minds, trust completely in their bodies, which is where the power of the god resides. If fear or indecision or their doubting mind takes hold, they will fall and be trampled beneath the hooves of the bull. They must permit themselves to exist in the perfect moment of the chase, all else closed off to them. Only then will they discover that they are in actual fact the bull themselves, and understand how to direct the power of the bull into the land to promote fertility and to bring peaceful harmony to the realm. I understood this as I ran without understanding it, and I did not let that knowledge distract me.

“And as I chased the bull I felt the presence of others chasing the bull with me. Your father – and all of your ancestors going back to Ptolemy. And before him Alexander. And before him Theseus and Minos, and the Kings of Egypt, stretching back to the dawn of time. Each had performed this ceremony, some succeeding, others not. And I realized that in some sense, each of us was the same man, running this same race, in the same place, at the same time, and I could feel their thoughts in my head, and knew their experiences to be my own. How many times had I chased this bull, acting out this ancient ceremony? How many times would I do so again, in how many different forms? And then I came to realize that I was no longer chasing the bull through the streets of Alexandria – I was somewhere else, somewhere much older, much darker. I was chasing him through the labyrinth at Crete – and the bull was in reality the Minotaur. Apis was Dionysos and Dionysos was the Minotaur – and I was both the Minotaur and Theseus. And we never got out. We were still in the labyrinth, and always will be. The world is nothing more than the labyrinth and the bull chases himself around in it, dreaming sometimes that he is a monster, sometimes that he is a god, and sometimes that he is a man.

“He dreams himself many different lives, and he lives each one out fully as he dreams it. Some are joyful, some sorrowful, some full of unrivaled glory – others lived in total obscurity. But in every life there is the chasing of the bull, because he desires to know himself. It always comes back to that because all that exists is the labyrinth and the bull. Everything else is just a dream. Everything else except one other – the one who loves the bull, Ariadne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. She is there dreaming too. And when he is not busy chasing himself through the winding passageways, he seeks her out. And when he finds her, he gives her his crown, places it in the heavens for her, and they love each other, until they fall asleep and forget who they are. But when they awake, they always find each other again, because they are the only two people in existence. Sometimes he wakes first and finds her; sometimes it is she that rouses him from slumber. She was Isis when he was Osiris; he was Haides when she was Kore. As Alexander he found her both as Olympias and Hephaistion. They were brother and sister as Philadelphos and Arsinoe, but that did not stop them from loving each other – and why should it, since they were the only real ones, and all else but a dream? He put her star-crown up in the sky as Berenike’s lock. And he has been both Auletes and Caesar – and now me, dear. He has finally reawakened as me – and you are my beloved Ariadne. I would recognize you no matter how much your form has changed. I will love you forever. And when we die and our form changes shape once more – I will seek you out in the labyrinth, no matter what new flesh you wear.”

All the while Kleopatra had sat quietly listening to her husband share his mad story at a feverish pitch, the words pouring forth like wine from an upturned vessel. Mad it must be: how could this man be both her father and Caesar, since all three were contemporaries – let alone all the rest of it? She was uncertain what to say to that, but figured that she ought to say something, that her continued silence might set him off, and she feared the madness in his eyes. She was trying to find the right words, words that would seem comforting and supportive and not provoke him, when Marcus picked up the thread of his narrative once more, oblivious to her troubled expression.

“It was then that I noticed that the bull was no longer in front of me, leading the chase. He was nowhere to be seen in fact. I was running wild through the streets, alone as I must be alone in the labyrinth. I slowed down to a trot and then a leisurely stroll and finally came to a stop altogether. I found myself somehow in Rhakotis – what winding path or twist of fate had led me here I could not say. I made my way up to the great temple of Serapis there. The forecourt was abandoned, naturally enough since the hour was so late, but I stood outside and stared up at the massive edifice and the ancient statues that lined the path up to the temple doors, a mixture of Greek and Egyptian, as everything in this city is a hybrid of the two.

“I was out of breath, my body exhausted from the run, my clothing torn and falling off of my body from stumbles I do not remember taking. My mind was reeling from all the things I had learned. And yet, despite it all, I had never felt so alive, so full of wild energy, so unabashedly a man. The pulse of life echoed in my ears – not just my life, but all life. I could feel the priests inside the temple, some sleeping, others rousing themselves in preparation for their morning duties in the sanctuary. I felt the lives of all the people nearby, safe asleep in their beds, dreaming or stumbling home from a night of revelry. And I felt you, so far away here in the royal palaces – beautiful and shining more brightly than all the other lives.

“And I felt all these individual lives, thin streams, flowing together into a single great river, and I realized that the Nile is the earthly image of the spiritual river of life. And when the spiritual river wanes or grows sluggish, the earthly Nile recedes – but when the spiritual river is strong, the Nile overflows its banks, flooding the earth and filling it with bountiful life. And it is the duty of the King to make the river strong, through his person, through his power, through his ability to direct and control others. He must do things to promote life, to enhance the lives of his subjects, to make them whole, healthy, and vibrant – communing with the gods of life, the source of life, in order to add to the streams that flow into the great spiritual river, making it bountiful so that the earthly river, too, will become bountiful. This is the sole function of the King – he exists for no other purpose, and no other can perform this duty, for the King stands midway between gods and mortals. He is the bridge between the worlds, uniting the two lands within himself. The running of the Apis is how he proves himself – but it is also how he channels the energy of life, making it flow and move, making the two rivers that are one race along their course and flood the earth, infusing it with life and bringing forth its material bounty in the form of the fruit and grain and newborn animals. Wherever his feet set in the race, life springs up.

“And how is this possible? Why can the King do this – and no other? Because the King is dead. (As he races with the Apis, he is racing with death. The labyrinth is just a dream too: in reality, the bull-god-man is laying in the underworld, a corpse.) The dead, too, reside midway between gods and mortals. The King is a vessel for the dead, who dwell within him. Inside the King are all the thousands upon thousands of the dead – they direct his every thought and action. I understood this as I stood before the great Serapeion. I understood what Serapis is: he is the dead King, the King of all the dead. The spirits of every Apis bull, the spirits of all the Kings that have come before, they are united in Serapis, combined into a single living form, for Serapis is the tomb of the Apis, the living bull in death, the dead bull in life. And Serapis is the current King, whoever that is. (Which is why people’s accounts of Serapis are constantly changing – for he shifts depending on who embodies him.) And in that moment, I learned so much more about what it means to be King.

“The King is the door through which the dead can act in this world, of which they are no longer a part. He unites the world of mortals with the dead; the realm of the gods with the material plane. He is the pivot of the wheel, upon which all things depend. Through him the prayers of people pass upwards to the gods; through him the blessings of the gods descend to mortals. He must make the way clear – he himself must be pure and fit – because when things are blocked, there are famines and war and suffering and death. Everything in the world is a reflection of what is going on inside the King – and everything within the King reflects what is in the world.

“And that, my beloved, is all that I can say. There was more – oh, so much more! – but I am sure that I already sound a mad-man raving in his delusion. I am tired, my love. So tired.”

He collapsed at that, the manic spirit that kept him animated while he poured out his tale in one long, feverish burst vanishing on the wind. His eyes closed, and moments later his breathing deepened and sleep claimed Marcus.

Kleopatra sat beside him, unmoving. She did not wish to disturb her husband – was unsure what strange thing would be unleashed upon her if she did. She felt herself to be in shock, as if a great violent storm had just passed through, uprooting and destroying everything. She wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, how she was supposed to take the marvelous tale Marcus had just relayed to her. Was there something to it? Was he completely insane? Parts of it felt real to her – some of the things he said only a true King of Egypt might know – and a glimmer of hope stirred within her. Though her brother Ptolemy had been crowned Pharaoh, he had never been King. He was a foolish, power-mad boy, who did not understand what the office entailed. But now… she wondered. Did this strange Roman, this profligate adulterer, this violent brute whom she had seduced for power but come to love over time – did he finally understand? He seemed to. And how glorious that would be, for Egypt to have a true King once more. Together they would make the land strong again, drive out the Romans, re-conquer all the territories that her ancestors had claimed… and perhaps more. And yet… other parts of his story seemed utter foolishness to her, bizarre and jumbled ramblings, like one hears from the beggars on the street or the recluses who have spent too long in the Serapeion at Memphis.

War was brewing with Octavian. It was only a matter of time now – and she wondered how Marcus would stand up. He had proven himself on the field of battle numerous times before, in Spain, Italy, and the east. He had been Caesar’s right hand man and chosen successor before that conniving whelp of Atia had schemed his way into the succession. He was a strong, courageous man – but also a man with great weaknesses which crept up from time to time. And what she had seen tonight made her worry all the more. Was he falling apart? Had he lost his mind? How would he ever compete with Octavian, who for all his failings was a shrewd tactician and a deadly opponent to Egypt’s interests?

But what if his visions were real?

What if …?

Kleopatra worried, and morning light filled her chamber before sleep finally found her.

To help get in the mood for the Liberalia on Monday (which I have a feeling is going to be pretty intense for me this year) I consulted Ioannes Laurentios Lydos’ de Mensibus 51 which contained this interesting (though etymologically dubious) passage:

Liber, the name for Dionysos among the Romans, meaning “free” — that is, the Sun. Mysteries (mysteria), from the removal of impurity (mysos) as equivalent to holiness. Dionysos, “because of whom is the race-post” (di’ hon hê nyssa) — that is, the turning-post — and the cycles of time. Indeed, Terpander of Lesbos says that Nyssa nursed the Dionysos called “Sabazios” by some, who was born of Zeus and Persephone, and later torn to pieces by the Titans. And it is also told concerning him, according to Apollodoros, that he was born of Zeus and Earth, Earth being designated “Semele” because all things have it as their foundation (katathemeliousthai): by changing one letter, ‘s,’ the poets have called her “Semele.”

According to the poets, there have been five Dionysi: First, the son of Zeus and Lysithea; second, the son of Nilos, who ruled over Libya and Ethiopia and Arabia; third, the child of Cabirus, who ruled over Asia, from whom come the Cabirian initiation; fourth, the child of Zeus and Semele, for whom the mysteries of Orpheus were performed, and by whom wine was mingled; fifth, the son of Nisos and Thyone, who introduced the “Triennial Festival.” So far, the Greek account. But the Romans call Dionysos the “Bacchanal of Cithaeron” — meaning, one who is in a Bacchic frenzy and runs up to the heavens, which they named citharon on the basis of the harmony of the seven “stars,” and hence Hermes mystically gives the cithara to Apollo, as the Logos grants the attunement of the universe to the Sun. And the mysteries in honor of Dionysos were conducted in secret, because of the fact that the sun’s shared association with the nature of the universe is hidden from everyone. And in his sacred rites they would carry along phalli, as being the generative organs, and a mirror, as representing the translucent/radiant heavens, and a ball, as representing the earth. For Plato says in his Timaios, “to earth, the spherical form.” For this reason also Pythagoras says that souls have been scattered in the ten spheres in this way, and in the earth. And in the sacred rites, they would call him Pyrigenês (“fire-born”) and Pankratês (“all-powerful”), because on the one hand the sun is of a fiery nature, and on the other, it governs and rules over all. And they say that the panther receives its name from him, as representing the “all-animal” (pan-thêr-os) earth which receives from him its life-giving and joy-bringing sustenance. And they depict his Bacchantes and Nymphs as representing the waters that obey him, and by the movement of the sun the nature of the waters is given life; and they give them cymbals and thyrsi to represent the sound of the waters. And they depict the Maenads being driven off by Satyrs, as representing the production of thunder and noise when the waters are thrust away by the winds. And they describe Dionysos as the “mind of Zeus,” as representing the soul of the cosmos; for we find everywhere that the entire cosmos is named “Zeus,” on account of its eternal life and endlessness. They describe him as the son of Semele, as being hidden under earth and coming forth by virtue of Hermes, that is, the Logos; and being fostered in the thigh of Zeus, as lying hidden in the secret places of the cosmos; and they call him Dithyrambos (“of the double door”) and Dimêtôr (“having two mothers”), the one who has two paths of procession, the one, from the East toward the South, in winter, and the other, from the North toward the West, in summer. So much regarding Dionysos.

And on the day of the Bacchanalia, Demokritos says that Pisces sets, and Varro teaches that there will be a “fight of the winds.”

All this, antiquity has handed down about the Dionysia.

A lot stands out for me in this passage (once you get past the lens of solar monotheism and syncreticraziness) particularly the bit about the Winds, which is a theme that keeps coming up for me as I immerse myself in the history and mythology of Magna Graecia. I may have to put together a post on that at a later date. But I’ve got liba and phalloi to get ready!

So, Starry Bull thiasitai and others, what do you plan to do for Liberalia?

Cicero, De Oratore 2.61.251-52
What can be so ridiculous as a sannio? We laugh at his grimaces, his mimicry of other people’s characters, his voice, in short, his whole person. I call him witty, not, however, in the way I should wish an orator to be witty, but only the mime. That is why this method, which makes people laugh, does not belong to us. I mean the peevishness, superstitiousness, suspiciousness, boastfulness, foolishness. Such characters are in themselves ridiculous: we jeer at their roles on the stage, we do not act them.

The first time I encountered Thyiadism was in Jane Ellen Harrison’s Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion:

Maenad is only one, though perhaps the most common, of the many names applied to these worshipping women. In Macedonia Plutarch tells us they were called Mimallones and Klodones, in Greece, Bacchae, Bassarides, Thyiades, Potniades and the like.

Some of the titles crystallized into something like proper names, others remained consciously adjectival. At bottom they all express the same idea, women possessed by the spirit of Dionysos. Plutarch in his charming discourse on Superstition tells how when the dithyrambic poet Timotheos was chanting a hymn to Artemis he addressed the daughter of Zeus thus:

‘Maenad, Thyiad, Phoibad, Lyssad.’

The titles may be Englished as Mad One, Rushing One, Inspired One, Raging One. Cinesias the lyric poet, whose own songs were doubtless couched in language less orgiastic, got up and said: ‘I wish you may have such a daughter of your own.’

While my Thracian Adversary was showing me around his shrine room earlier tonight these fascinating women came up in conversation.

And fascinating they are, too – Thyiadism is a type of religious ecstasy characterized by a strong erotic current and frenzied dancing, much like tarantism. The name is derived from the Greek θύω “to burn” and related to θυσία “to place the gods’ portion in the flames.” Overwhelmed by intense longing and erotic heat for Dionysos, these women were driven out of their minds and out of their homes where they danced with torches on the mountain to arouse chthonic Dionysos during winter. (You can see why Cinesias was so peeved that Timotheos called Artemis a Thyiad!)

For a sense of what their worship was like, here is a selection of sources on them:

Why Homer speaks of the beautiful dancing-floors of Panopeus I could not understand until I was taught by the women whom the Athenians call Thyiades. The Thyiades are Attic women, who with the Delphian women go to Parnassos and celebrate orgies in honor of Dionysos. It is the custom for these Thyiades to hold dances at places, including Panopeus, along the road from Athens. The epithet Homer applies to Panopeus is thought to refer to the dance of the Thyiades. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.4.3)

Surrounded by the light of torches, he stands high on the twin summits of Parnassos, while the Corycian nymphs dance around as Bacchantes, and the waters of Castalia sound from the depths below. Up there in the snow and winter darkness Dionysos rules in the long night, while troops of maenads swarm around him, himself the choir leader for the dance of the stars and quick of hearing for every sound in the waster of the night. (Sophokles, Choral ode from Antigone)

Opposite the grove is a sanctuary of Dionysos Lampter. In his honor they celebrate a festival called the Feast of Torches, when they bring by night firebrands into the sanctuary and set up bowls of wine throughout the whole city. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.27.3)

When the despots in Phocis had seized Delphi, and the Thebans were waging war against them in what has been called the Sacred War, the women devotees of Dionysos, to whom they give the name Thyiades, in Bacchic frenzy wandering at night unwittingly arrived at Amphissa. As they were tired out, and sober reason had not yet returned to them, they flung themselves down in the market-place, and were lying asleep, some here, some there. The wives of the men of Amphissa, fearing, because their city had become allied with the Phocians, and numerous soldiers of the despots were present there, that the Thyiades might be treated with indignity, all ran out into the market-place, and, taking their stand round about in silence, did not go up to them while they were sleeping, but when they arose from their slumber, one devoted herself to one of the strangers and another to another, bestowing attentions on them and offering them food. Finally, the women of Amphissa, after winning the consent of their husbands, accompanied the strangers, who were safely escorted as far as the frontier. (Plutarch, On the Bravery of Women 13)

That Osiris is identical with Dionysos who could more fittingly know than yourself, Klea? For you lead the Thyiadic dances at Delphi and have been consecrated by your father and mother in the holy rites of Osiris. If, however, for the benefit of others it is needful to adduce proofs of this identity, let us leave undisturbed what may not be told, but the public ceremonies which the priests perform in the burial of the Apis, when they convey his body on an improvised bier, do not in any way come short of a Bacchic procession; for they fasten skins of fawns about themselves, and carry Bacchic wands and indulge in shoutings and movements exactly as do those who are under the spell of the Dionysiac ecstasies. (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 35)

The association with heat and fire is really brought home in this anecdote related by Plutarch in his treatise De primo frigido (On the Principle of Cold) 18:

Cold, moreover, is perceptibly one of the hardest of things and it makes things hard and unyielding. At Delphi you yourself heard, in the case of those who climbed Parnassos to rescue the Thyiades when they were trapped by a fierce gale and snowstorm, that their capes were frozen so stiff and wooden that when they were opened out, they broke and split apart.

Though it destroyed the clothing of their rescuers, the Thyiades were immune to the extreme cold because of the state of heat they were in – they’d just gotten a little lost, as women are prone to do.

And Dionysos is a very hot god indeed:

They say that in Crastonia near the country of the Bisaltae hares which are caught have two livers, and that there is a place there about an acre in extent, into which if any animal enters it dies. There is also there a fine large temple of Dionysos, in which when a sacrifice and feast takes place, should the god intend to give a good season, it is said that a huge flame of fire appears and that all who go to the sacred enclosure see this, but when the season is going to be very bad, this light does not appear, but darkness covers the place, just as on other nights. ([Aristotle], de Mirabilibus Auscultationibus 122)

What’s ironic about this is that Thyiadism’s eponym is associated in a number of ways with water.

Pausanias gives her father as Kastalios, god of the Castalian spring:

Others maintain that Kastalios, an aboriginal, had a daughter Thyia, who was the first to be priestess of Dionysos and celebrate orgies in honor of the god. It is said that later on men called after her Thyiades all women who rave in honor of Dionysos. At any rate they hold that Delphos was a son of Apollon and Thyia. Others say that his mother was Melaina, daughter of Kephisos. (Description of Greece 10.6.4)

While Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, citing Hesiod, claims that Deukalion sired her:

The district Makedonia took its name from Makedon the son of Zeus and Thyia, Deukalion’s daughter, as Hesiod says: ‘And she conceived and bare to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt two sons, Magnes and Makedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympos.’ (De Thematibus. 2. 48B)

While Herodotos credits the river-god Kephisos:

So with all speed the Greeks went their several ways to meet the enemy. In the meantime, the Delphians, who were afraid for themselves and for Hellas, consulted the god. They were advised to pray to the Anemoi (Winds), for these would be potent allies for Hellas. When they had received the oracle, the Delphians first sent word of it to those Greeks who desired to be free; because of their dread of the barbarian, they were forever grateful. Subsequently they erected an altar to the Winds at Thyia, the present location of the precinct of Thyia the daughter of Kephisos and they offered sacrifices to them. (Histories 7.178.1)

All of these have interesting Dionysian implications. Kastalios because of Delphi and Parnassos; Kephisos because of the prominence of the Anemoi in Orphic tradition (which I’ll be writing on later) and Deukalion because he’s honored during the Anthesteria and also because of Thyia’s children Magnes and Makednos.

Makedonia was one of the early centers of Dionysian worship, where it was enthusiastically taken up by the Argead royal house. Indeed Euripides wrote his masterpiece The Bakchai while staying as an exile at the court of King Archelaos. The rites he describes are far more in line with the type of Dionysian worship he observed there than anything Euripides’ contemporary Athenians would have been familiar with, which is part of why the play was so popular. (Indeed it’s his most famous play and yet it was only after his death that it was first staged by his son.) Although the whole Argead dynasty were devoted Dionysians – and some, like the Ptolemies, extremely so – few rivaled Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great:

As for the lineage of Alexander, on his father’s side he was a descendant of Heracles through Caranus, and on his mother’s side a descendant of Aeacus through Neoptolemus; this is accepted without any question. And we are told that Philip, after being initiated into the mysteries of Samothrace at the same time with Olympias, he himself being still a youth and she an orphan child, fell in love with her and betrothed himself to her at once with the consent of her brother, Arymbas. Well, then, the night before that on which the marriage was consummated, the bride dreamed that there was a peal of thunder and that a thunder-bolt fell upon her womb, and that thereby much fire was kindled, which broke into flames that travelled all about, and then was extinguished. At a later time, too, after the marriage, Philip dreamed that he was putting a seal upon his wife’s womb; and the device of the seal, as he thought, was the figure of a lion. The other seers, now, were led by the vision to suspect that Philip needed to put a closer watch upon his marriage relations; but Aristander of Telmessus said that the woman was pregnant, since no seal was put upon what was empty, and pregnant of a son whose nature would be bold and lion-like. Moreover, a serpent was once seen lying stretched out by the side of Olympias as she slept, and we are told that this, more than anything else, dulled the ardour of Philip’s attentions to his wife, so that he no longer came often to sleep by her side, either because he feared that some spells and enchantments might be practised upon him by her, or because he shrank from her embraces in the conviction that she was the partner of a superior being. But concerning these matters there is another story to this effect: all the women of these parts were addicted to the Orphic rites and the orgies of Dionysos from very ancient times (being called Klodones and Mimallones), and imitated in many ways the practices of the Edonian women and the Thracian women about Mount Haemus, from whom, as it would seem, the word threskeuein came to be applied to the celebration of extravagant and superstitious ceremonies. Now Olympias, who affected these divine possessions more zealously than other women, and carried out these divine inspirations in wilder fashion, used to provide the revelling companies with great tame serpents, which would often lift their heads from out the ivy and the mystic winnowing baskets, or coil themselves about the wands and garlands of the women, thus terrifying the men. (Plutarch, Life of Alexander 2.1.6)

According to the Makedonian historian Marsyas of Pella, his country was originally Thracian territory:

Makedon son of Zeus and Thyia, conquered the land then belonging to Thrace and he called it Macedonia after his name. He married a local woman and got two sons, Pierus and Amathus; two cities, Pieria and Amathia in Macedonia were founded or named after them. (quoted by the scholiast on Iliad 15.226)

Diodoros Sikeliotes recounts an interesting tradition concerning Makednos:

Now Osiris was accompanied on his campaign, as the Egyptian account goes, by his two sons Anubis and Makedon, who were distinguished for their valour. Both of them carried the most notable accoutrements of war, taken from certain animals whose character was not unlike the boldness of the men, Anubis wearing a dog’s skin and Makedon the fore-parts of a wolf; and it is for this reason that these animals are held in honour among the Egyptians … Makedon his son, moreover, he left as king of Makedonia, which was named after him. (Bibliotheka historika 1.18ff)

This is interesting for a number of reasons, including the fact that Apollodoros (Bibliotheka 3.96) gives Lykaon (“Wolf-man”) as the father of Makednos as well as this passage from Pausanias connecting Parnassos and Deukalion with wolves and wind:

They say that the oldest city was founded here on Mount Parnassos by Parnassos, a son of Kleodora, a nymph. Like the other heroes, as they are called, he had two fathers; one they say was the god Poseidon, the human father being Kleopompos … Now this city, so the story goes on, was flooded by the rains that fell in the time of Deukalion. Such of the inhabitants as were able to escape the storm were led by the howls of wolves to safety on the top of Parnassos, being led on their way by these beasts, and on this account they called the city that they founded Lykoreia (Mountainwolf-city). (Description of Greece 10. 6.1-2)

Furthermore, Makednos’ son Pierus was the eponym for the region of Pieria which according to Palaiphatos (Peri Apiston 33) saw an outbreak of violent madness among its women that was cured by Orpheus using Bacchic rites:

Also false is the myth about Orpheus – that four-footed animals, snakes, birds and trees followed him as he played his lyre. Here is what I think happened: in Pieria frenzied female worshipers of Dionysos were tearing apart the bodies of sheep and goats and performing many other violent acts; they turned to the mountains to spend their days there. When they failed to return to their homes, the townspeople, fearing for the safety of their wives and daughters, summoned Orpheus and asked him to devise a plan to get the women down from the mountain. Orpheus performed appropriate sacrificial rites to the god Dionysos and then by playing his lyre led the frenzied Bacchants down from the mountain. But as the women descended they held in their hands various kinds of trees. To the men who watched on that occasion the pieces of wood seemed wondrous. So they said, ‘By playing his lyre Orpheus is bringing the very forest down from the mountain.’ And from this the myth was created.

These rites Orpheus had received from his father Oiagros who had received them from his father Charops who had been entrusted with them for the assistance he gave Dionysos in his war with Lykourgos:

Now when he had led the first of the Bacchantes over into a friendly land, as he thought, Lykourgos issued orders to his soldiers to fall upon them by night and to slay both Dionysos and all the Maenads, and Dionysos, learning of the plot from a man of the country who was called Charops, was struck with dismay, because his army was on the other side of the Hellespont and only a mere handful of his friends had crossed over with him. Consequently he sailed across secretly to his army, and then Lykourgos, they say, falling upon the Maenads in the city known as Nysion, slew them all, but Dionysos, bringing his forces over, conquered the Thracians in a battle, and taking Lykourgos alive put out his eyes and inflicted upon him every kind of outrage, and then crucified him.

Thereupon, out of gratitude to Charops for the aid the man had rendered him, Dionysos made over to him the kingdom of the Thracians and instructed him in the secret rites connected with the initiations; and Oiagros, the son of Charops, then took over both the kingdom and the initiatory rites which were handed down in the mysteries, the rites which afterwards Orpheus, the son of Oiagros, who was the superior of all men in natural gifts and education, learned from his father; Orpheus also made many changes in the practices and for that reason the rites which had been established by Dionysos were also called ‘Orphic.’ (Diodoros Sikeliotes, Library of History 3.65.4-6)

And Lykourgos, of course, means “wolf-worker” or “he who keeps the wolves away.”

Remember how I mentioned tarantism earlier? There’s wolf stuff all up in tarantism. So much so that I wonder if it’s not related to the Italian werewolf traditions as described by Estella Canziani in Through the Apennines and the Lands of the Abruzzi: Landscape and Peasant Life Described and Drawn (pages 12-14):

The driver told us that certain people are bound by their evil star to become lupi minari (lupomanaro, werewolf) and he said that they know this, and before their destined hours of transformation they take precautions not to injure their own cattle, by carefully shutting the stable door with the watch-dog inside, and putting the key in a safe place. The unfortunate werewolf then spills some water in the dust on the ground and rolls himself in it, and becomes a lupo minaro, howling so furiously that he even makes his own cattle’s hair stand on end. This brings all the neighboring wolves out in search of prey. Finally he retires to the threshold of his stable, and again rolls in the dust and resumes his human form. [...] Our driver added that once a certain person offended another and struck him. The following night a pack of werewolves killed about two hundred of his sheep without the sheep dog barking or the shepherd hearing anything of it. The sheep were only bled to death, because the wolves preferred to suck the warm blood. This could be done because the dogs and the shepherds were ligati (bound, i.e. paralysed) by the lupi minari, their senses being made dormant (stunned), and their eyelids weighted with sleep. Similarly the owners of olive trees may be ligati by thieves who know the proper ligazioni (incantations.) We could imagine the feelings of the lonely shepherd climbing into the almond tree on a bright moonlit night, when every shadow would take a queer form and even the mica in the rocks would catch the moonlight and glitter like fierce wolves’ eyes watching their prey. This idea was still more creepy when we learnt that on Christmas Eve the lupo minaro (male) and lupa mannora (female) are said to wander around ululando (howling), disturbing the Christmas peace, and that, to prevent this, at the crossing of the ways (cape croce) small white crosses from the procession on Ascension Day are fixed. The lupo minaro may be detected by his having hair and nails like a wolf, and at night he howls like a wolf. If he meets anyone he eats him up, but if the one he meets has the courage to prick him and make his blood spurt out, the lupo minaro recovers from his disorder and resumes his human shape.

The Abruzzo – which is home to the Apennine wolf – was originally settled by the Samnites, particularly in the region of Samnium (which in modern Italian is called Sannio), famed for its wines, gladiators and Atellan farces. (Hence why Sannio was the name for the stock fool character that evolved into Arlecchino.)

The Samnites are said to have been an Illyrian tribe (as in the people that Olympias came from) who wandered into Italy at an early period, dividing into multiple populations.

The Samnites were famed warriors:

As part of both religious and military duties, Samnite soldiers were required to swear a secret oath to follow their commander’s every order and to fight to the death. Legend tells that small groups of new, unarmed soldiers would be sent to the temple where they were asked to take the oath. Usually, some in the first group would refuse. These would be instantly slain by armed soldiers hiding within the temple, and their bloodied bodies left for the next group to see. There would be little resistance from the groups that followed.

And equally famed for the rite of ver sacrum or the holy spring:

One year, the Sabellines reneged on their vow to sacrifice their children. Other than sacrificing some animals, they did not send off any children born in the spring of their vow to the god Jupiter. As a result, Jupiter sent a series of devastating storms and plagues. To end the destruction and appease the god, they sent off not one-tenth, but all the children who had been born in the year of the vow. The children were to follow an ox to a “foreign” land. The ox did not stop until it reached the base of the Matese Mountains, where it finally rested. The exiles took this as a sign to begin their settlement. They named the place for the ox–Bovenium, modern Bojano. This, then, became the center of the Pentri Samnites.

The historical accuracy of this has been questioned, however:

It’s doubtful they actually ritually killed their children. Instead, they abandoned “without guilt” or sent the children away from the tribe once they reached military age. Legend tells that an animal sacred to the tribe would lead these exiles to a new homeland. For example, the Piceni followed a woodpecker (picus); the Irpini, a wolf; and the Samnites, an ox. The myth of animal “guides” was widespread throughout prehistoric Italy, and some scholars link ver sacrum to pastoral life and transhumance (the seasonal transfer of herds).

Regarding the Hirpini, Manuela Simeoni writes:

they had the wolf as sacred animal and their name comes from the Samnite word for wolf, hirpus. They were an Oscan-speaking population, settled in southern Sannio, where Romans founded the colony of Beneventum. They, or their priests, were also called Hirpi Sorani (wolves of mount Soratte, from the place where this cult was celebrated); the historiographer Servius said that Hirpini practised the cult to Dis Pater, a Latin deity of underworld, with whom the original deity must have been identified, so some scholars believe that the adjective “Sorani” may come from Suri, an Etruscan underworld god. Hirpini also practised fire-walking, walking on coals with bare feet.

Among the deities honored by the Samnites were the hero Sabus, Kerres (a chthonic goddess of fertility and death), Diuvei Verehasiui (a god of wolves and flogging thought to be associated with the Lupercalia), Mefitis (goddess of sulphurous waters) and Euklui Paterei who was a cross between Mercury and Dis Pater (Hesychius s.v. Eukolos) whose name shows up on the Bacchic Orphic gold lamellae found in the area as Eukles:

A: I come from the pure, o Pure Queen of the earthly ones, Eukles, Eubouleus, and You other Immortal Gods! I too claim to be of your blessed race, but Fate and other Immortal Gods conquered me, the star-smiting thunder. And I flew out from the hard and deeply-grievous circle, and stepped onto the crown with my swift feet, and slipped into the bosom of the Mistress (Kore), the Queen of the Underworld. And I stepped out from the crown with my swift feet.
B: Happy and blessed one! You shall be a god instead of a mortal.
A: I have fallen as a kid into milk.

In another gold lamellae from the area the initiate is advised:

You will find a spring on the left of the halls of Hades, and beside it a white cypress growing. Do not even go near this spring. And you will find another, from the Lake of Memory, flowing forth with cold water. In front of it are guards. You must say, ‘I am the child of Ge and starry Ouranos; this you yourselves also know. I am dry with thirst and am perishing. Come, give me at once cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.’ And they themselves will give you to drink from the divine spring, and then thereafter you will reign with the other heroes.

Notice two things about these texts? The stepping out of the wearying κύκλος (reminiscent of the round dances performed by the Thyiades at Panopeus) and the white cypress.

Thuja, which is derived from Θυία, is a genus of coniferous trees in the Cupressaceae or cypress family.

Lastly, the Thyia was a festival of Dionysos celebrated at Elis where a miracle annually occurred:

Between the market-place and the Menios in the city of Elis is an old theater and a shrine of Dionysos. The image is the work of Praxiteles. Of the gods the Eleans worship Dionysos with the greatest reverence, and they assert that the god attends their festival, the Thyia. The place where they hold the festival they name the Thyia is about eight stades from the city. Three pots are brought into the building by the priests and set down empty in the presence of the citizens and of any strangers who may chance to be in the country. The doors of the building are sealed by the priests themselves and by any others who may be so inclined. On the morrow they are allowed to examine the seals, and on going into the building they find the pots filled with wine. I did not myself arrive at the time of the festival, but the most respected Elean citizens, and with them strangers also, swore that what I have said is the truth. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.26.1-2)

These are the Terms of Engagement.

Fear.

Tune in at 10:00pm EST on Wednesday, March 19th when our guests on Wyrd Ways Radio will be Monte and Gypsy Plaisance who are the senior instructors and Hierophant and Hierophantissa of Thessaly Temenos, a Hellenic Religious center and  Academy that includes networking, publishing, education, spiritual  counseling and ritual therapy.

For more than twenty  years, Monte and Gypsy have served as elders, clergy, religious freedom activists, and public media spokespersons for the Hellenic  religion and related forms of contemporary Paganism and alternative  religions nationwide.  They have appeared on both local and  international news channels as well as numerous magazines and  newspapers across the country.  They have both received awards from  the American Civil Liberties Union for their labors in civil rights activism.

In addition to their  work as Hellenic clergy and instructors, Monte holds a B.A. in Psychology and is in his second year of college for Environmental  Science.  Gypsy is a certified medic and holds other degrees in the medical field.

Together their  professional life includes being owners and operators of Lucky 13 Curio, an occult and mystical shop, guest speakers at book stores,  festivals, and other venues, as well as being published authors. Their written accomplishments include the books Reclaim the Power  of the Witch, Scrolls of Manetho, Oracle of Olympus, A Treasury of Hellenic Prayers, and A New Traveler on an  Ancient Path.  In addition, their writings have been published in a variety of books and periodicals as well as on the internet.

More  information about Monte and Jamie Plaisance and their work at Thessaly Temenos can be found online at: https://www.facebook.com/Lucky13Curio

Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.19.6-20.1
When Troy was captured, and the Greeks divided the spoils, Eurypylos the son of Euaimon got a chest. In it was an image of Dionysos, the work, so they say, of Hephaistos, and given as a gift by Zeus to Dardanos. But there are two other accounts of it. One is that this chest was left by Aeneas when he fled; the other that it was thrown away by Kassandra to be a curse to the Greek who found it. Be this as it may, Eurypylos opened the chest, saw the image of Dionysos, and forthwith on seeing it went mad. He continued to be insane for the greater part of the time, with rare lucid intervals. Being in this condition he did not proceed on his voyage to Thessalia, but made for the town and gulf of Kirrha. Going up to Delphoi he inquired of the oracle about his illness. They say that the oracle given him was to the effect that where he should come across a people offering a strange sacrifice, there he was to set down the chest and make his home. Now the ships of Eurypylos were carried down by the wind to the sea off Aroe. On landing he came across a youth and a maiden who had been brought to the altar of Artemis Triklaria. So Eurypylos found it easy to understand about the sacrifice, while the people of the place remembered their oracle seeing a king whom they had never seen before, they also suspected that the chest had some god inside it. And so the malady of Eurypylos and the sacrifice of these people came to an end, and the river was given its present name Meilichos (Soothing). Certain writers have said that the events I have related happened not to the Thessalian Eurypylos, but to Eurypylos the son of Dexamenos who was king in Olenos, holding that this man joined Herakles in his campaign against Troy and received the chest from Herakles. The rest of their story is the same as mine. But I cannot bring myself to believe that Herakles did not know the facts about the chest, if they were as described, nor, if he were aware of them, do I think that he would ever have given it to an ally as a gift. Further, the people of Patrai have no tradition of a Eurypylos save the son of Euaimon, and to him every year they sacrifice as to a hero, when they celebrate the festival in honor of Dionysos. The surname of the god inside the chest is Aisymnetes (Dictator), and his chief attendants are nine men, elected by the people from all the citizens for their reputation, and women equal in number to the men. On one night of the festival the priest carries the chest outside. Now this is a privilege that this night has received, and there go down to the river Meilichos a certain number of the native children, wearing on their heads garlands of corn-ears. It was in this way that they used to array of old those whom they led to be sacrificed to Artemis.

I hope everyone is having joyous ithyphallic celebrations on this glorious day!

For me it’s been more subdued and introspective and I’ve largely been focused on the process of unfolding.

One of the things that really stood out for me in the readings for this festival was Dionysos’ power over seeds and growth. What seeds in myself do I want to plant and cultivate today? Who is the person I want to grow into?

This was in many ways a hard, cold winter for me. I haven’t gotten out doors much between the extreme weather and a long bout of illness and I’ve been acutely conscious of the ramifications of that over the last couple days. So one of the things I’ve been doing is teasing out all of the areas where I’m bound up, blocked off and stagnant in my material and spiritual life so that I can get things flowing properly once more.

So, even though I wasn’t feeling well I forced myself to get up and go for a long walk down by the river and through the woods, eventually ending up in the next town over. There was too much traffic (and no sidewalks) so for a large chunk of the walk I wasn’t able to do any altered state stuff since I had to maintain an above average awareness of my surroundings (this place really isn’t friendly towards pedestrians.) While this was disappointing on certain levels since I had really been hoping to connect with the spirits of the land and commune with my own crew of gods and spirits, it also felt good to just get out there in nature and move around in my body once more. Such activity is essential for the health and mental well-being of a Dionysian and so I vowed to do much more of that in the future.

I’ll also be going to the gym later tonight, something I’m going to start doing twice a week in addition to my prowls, since one thing that immersing myself in Orphism has really highlighted is the intersection of the physical and spiritual. I think the illness I’ve been experiencing is very much tied into that and it’s not something that’s going to just get better on its own. I think I’ve got some magical and energy work to do in that regard as well but being more conscious of what I eat and exercising are a good first step in that direction.

Which is why I’ve also decided to make permanent my abstention from Diet Coke. This was something I gave up for Lent as a way of strengthening my will and I haven’t missed it plus I’ve noticed some minor health improvements as a result. I’ll also feel better ethically since I won’t be contributing to the island of plastic in the ocean anymore, something that’s long weighed heavily upon my heart.

I also want to do more to grow the seed of the thiasos of the Starry Bull so I’m going to set aside a night for weekly communal chats. I’m not sure what the best method of executing that would be – Skype, conference calls, AIM or Google chat, etc. so I’m interested in hearing suggestions.

Another idea I had on my walk was for the thiasos to come up with some group prayers. In addition to prayers by individual authors I’d like to do a series similar to the hymn of the kōmastaí for each of the gods and spirits of our pantheon, where people can contribute a quatrain and once it’s stitched together we’ll have a collaboratively created liturgy that we can all use in our daily devotions. We’ll begin working on this later in the week.

I’ve got a bunch of other ideas simmering but that’s enough for now. I’ll leave you with this thought:

What seeds would you like to sow in your life today?

We saw 300: Rise of an Empire over the weekend.

My thalassocracy sure rose!

Like Galina says in her review and account of the real Artemesia of Hallikarnassos:

As with Gods, this is why you don’t get your historical information from comic books.

Portrait of Sannion as an oracular severed head by Galina Krasskova Liberalia 2014

Plato, Theages 129d
Sokrates: And moreover, in regard to the Sicilian business, many will tell you what I said about the destruction of the army. As to bygones, you may hear from those who know: but there is an opportunity now of testing the worth of what the daimonion says. For as the handsome Sannion was setting out on campaign with Thrasyllos on an expedition bound for Ephesos and Ionia, I received a sign. I accordingly expect him to be either killed or brought very near it, and I have great fears for our force as a whole.

So I saw this comment in a discussion about Zeus:

Then again those stories were written when men was in largely in power and men of power thought they can do what the gods can do. Which involved a lot of cheating.

So much wrong with this.

First off, as long as women are statistically making $0.75 on the dollar for the same work as a man we’re still living in a male dominated society.

Secondly, and more importantly, the point of Greek myth is don’t do as the gods do. That’s kind of the whole idea behind the Delphic maxim γνῶθι σεαυτόν “know thyself” – as in “know thy place.” Because when you don’t, very bad things happen.

Apollodoros, Bibliotheca 1.9.7
Salmoneus at first dwelt in Thessaly, but afterwards he came to Elis and there founded a city. And being arrogant and wishful to put himself on an equality with Zeus, he was punished for his impiety; for he said that he was himself Zeus, and he took away the sacrifices of the god and ordered them to be offered to himself; and by dragging dried hides, with bronze kettles, at his chariot, he said that he thundered, and by flinging lighted torches at the sky he said that he lightened. But Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt, and wiped out the city he had founded with all its inhabitants.

Apollodoros, Bibliotheca 1.3.3
Clio fell in love with Pierus, son of Magnes, in consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, whom she had twitted with her love of Adonis; and having met him she bore him a son Hyacinth, for whom Thamyris, the son of Philammon and a nymph Argiope, conceived a passion, he being the first to become enamored of males. But afterwards Apollo loved Hyacinth and killed him involuntarily by the cast of a quoit. And Thamyris, who excelled in beauty and in minstrelsy, engaged in a musical contest with the Muses, the agreement being that, if he won, he should enjoy them all, but that if he should be vanquished they could take from him whatever they wanted. So the Muses got the better of him and bereft him both of his eyes and of his minstrelsy.

Plutarch, Life of Demetrios 12.1-4
But there are things hotter even than fire, as Aristophanes puts it. For some one else, outdoing Stratokles in servility, proposed that whenever Demetrios visited the city he should be received with the hospitable honours paid to Demeter and Dionysos, and that to the citizen who surpassed all others in the splendour and costliness of his reception, a sum of money should be granted from the public treasury for a dedicatory offering. And finally, they changed the name of the month Mounychion to Demetrion, and that of the last day of a month, the “Old and New,” to Demetrias, and to the festival called Dionysia they gave the name of Demetria. Most of these innovations were marked with the divine displeasure. The sacred robe, for instance, in which they had decreed that the figures of Demetrios and Antigonos should be woven along with those of Zeus and Athena, as it was being carried in procession through the midst of the Kerameikos, was rent by a hurricane which smote it; again, all round the altars of those Saviour-gods the soil teemed with hemlock, a plant which did not grow in many other parts of the country at all; and on the day for the celebration of the Dionysia, the sacred procession had to be omitted on account of severe cold weather that came out of season. And a heavy frost followed, which not only blasted all the vines and fig-trees with its cold, but also destroyed most of the grain in the blade. Therefore Philippides, who was an enemy of Stratokles, assailed him in a comedy with these verses:—

Through him it was that hoar-frost blasted all the vines, Through his impiety the robe was rent in twain, Because he gave the gods’ own honours unto men. Such work undoes a people, not its comedy.

And thirdly, the reason that Zeus fucks around is because he’s a cosmic progenitor – it’s kind of his job to chase tail in order to populate the world with gods, spirits, heroes and kings. Polytheism is a beautiful thing.

To those who would like to learn more about this subject I direct you to the following:

* I value my god’s cock
* Theology of the cock
* My god likes cock

Then we’ll have Gypsy and Monte on to chat about Hellenic community building and other interesting topics! Tune in at 10:00pm EST or call 347-308-8222 to ask questions!