Polyaenus, Stratagems 1.1
In order to gain admittance into the cities during his Indian expedition, Dionysos dressed his troops in white linen and deer skins, instead of gleaming armour. Their spears were adorned with ivy, and the points of the spears were hidden under a thyrsus. His orders were given by cymbals and drums, instead of trumpets; and intoxicating his enemies with wine, he engaged them in dancing and Bacchic orgies. Such were the stratagems which that general practised in his conquest of India, and the rest of Asia.

Here’s the link to tonight’s show:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/witchschool/2014/03/20/ptrn-presents-circle-talkwyrd-ways-live-pagan-music-project

Definitely not to be missed, especially if you’re a Hellenic polytheist.

So for those who are interested in participating in a weekly chat we need to settle on:

1) A day (I’m fine with anything but Wednesdays, since I’ve got Wyrd Ways every other week)

2) A time (my preference would be in the evenings, say from 8:00 to 10:00pm EST)

3) A method (Skype, chat program, conference call, etc.)

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:

Since there wasn’t an overwhelming response in favor of a particular day and most of the folks who contacted me privately said that they were flexible and would go along with whatever the group or I decided I’m going to go ahead and pick Thursday as the day when we meet. I tend to have a lot of ritual obligations on the weekend, plus it makes more sense to have the chat on the Day of the Heroes instead of the Day of the Satyrs and Nymphs, so we’ll try this out and if it doesn’t work we can always move it. Skype was also the favored means of chatting so we’ll give that a shot with the caveat that we’ll switch to a different chat client if we need to.

Mark your calendars – our first chat will be Thursday, March 28th from 8:00 to 10:00pm EST.

The point of these chats are to foster community within the thiasos of the Starry Bull through education and fellowship but anyone who’s interested in attending is welcome to do so.

The first hour will be devoted to a focused study of material and issues related to the Bacchic Orphic tradition, with the remainder of the time spent discussing stuff that’s come up in our religious practice, sharing personal concerns and freeform socializing. I would also like start a Book Club within the thiasos and so one week a month will be devoted to that. Each Monday I’ll post the week’s theme and some relevant discussion topics to consider in anticipation of the chat, as well as reminders the day of.

This first chat will be an informal meet and greet and we’ll settle on the book for April. Hope to see you there!

Alfred Watson Hands , Coins of Magna Graecia: The Coinage of the Greek Colonies of Southern Italy pages 12-14
The mystic emblems, the Krateros and Distaff, appeared on the very early didrachms of the second period 473 B.C. but they did not influence the common types until the period of Archytas, 380 to 345, when the symbol, the kantharos, appears in the hand of the dolphin rider, and the rider himself appears no longer always in the athletic form of the son of the sea-god, but with the plump figure of Iacchus, the son of the wine-god Dionysus, the hero of the mysteries. For some time after this however the trident was a more common symbol. In the period of the Molossian Alexander 334-330 B.C. however, the plump child form appears with a flower-like topknot on his head, and a distaff with spirally twisted wool. These figures may be compared with that on a celebrated krater represented in the Archaeologische Zeitung (1850, taf. XVI) described by Gerhard, p. 161 seqq. The figures of Iacchus mark the great influence of the Chthonic mysteries upon the older national cults of Poseidon and Apollo. These plump little figures may be compared with the terra-cotta votive figures found in tombs at Tarentum, some of which are crowned with Bacchic ivy-leaves. Conf. Hellen. Jour. 1886. What did the distaff signify to the mint masters who placed it as a symbol in the hands of the figure of the founder in 530 B.C. ? From the fact that we see the kantharos in the hand of the founder on some coins and on others the distaff, and on others the distaff in one hand and the kantharos in the other, we naturally ask whether the distaff can be looked upon as a symbol of Dionysiac or Chthonic rites, or whether it has any associations with the mysteries.

Empedokles of Akragas was a Sicilian holy man and wonder-worker who, combining elements of Orphism with indigenous Italian traditions, created a philosophy that anticipated atomic and evolutionary science. Like Herakles he underwent apotheosis when he immolated himself on Mount Aetna. (You can read a fuller account of his life in Diogenes Laertios’ Lives of the Philosophers.)

Being one of the elders of Bacchic Orphism it seemed appropriate to devise a system whereby he could be consulted on important matters. The following verses should be inscribed on cards or strips of paper. When his guidance is required shuffle the stichoi and then draw an appropriate number (one or three) to receive your answer about the matter.

Aristotle, Ethics 7.5
He has the power to speak but not to understand, as a drunken man repeating verses of Empedokles.

Shining Zeus.

Desirous of reaching its like.

Sinfully polluted his hands with blood.

The gentle flame has but a scanty portion of earth.

To the lowest depth of the vortex.

Hardly can these things be seen by the eyes or heard by the ears of men.

Water fits better into wine, but it will not mingle with oil.

For the wisdom of men grows according to what is before them.

Do not withhold thy confidence in any of thy other bodily parts.

They wander each alone by the breakers of life’s sea.

But now I shall retrace my steps over the paths I have traveled before.

Some of it still remained within.

A foolish saying which has been vainly dropped from the lips of many mortals.

It is learning that increaseth wisdom.

And do thou give ear, Pausanias, son of Anchitus the wise!

The spine was broken.

Having followed strife and forsworn himself, he must wander.

Eternal and sealed fast by broad oaths.

Each is convinced of that alone which he had chanced upon.

And Iris bringeth wind or mighty rain from the sea.

Copper mixed with tin.

Changing one toilsome path of life for another.

So sweet lays hold of sweet, and bitter rushes to bitter.

Do thou attend to the undeceitful ordering.

One vision is produced by both the eyes.

Solidified by the impact.

Different thoughts ever present themselves to their minds.

It is she that makes them have thoughts of love.

Whence could it come?

All reject him.

Ten thousand sorry matters blunt their careful thoughts.

The same is seen in hollow caves.

And these things never cease continually changing places.

There is an oracle of Necessity.

Wine is the water from the bark, putrefied in the wood.

Know that effluences flow from all things that have come into being.

To keep within thy dumb heart.

Earth increases its own mass, and Air swells the bulk of Air.

Movement and immobility.

And doomed to swift death.

Gave it to swift fire to harden it.

I wept and I wailed when I saw the unfamiliar land.

For it will always be.

Free from human woes, safe from destiny.

The bloom of scarlet dye mingles with the grey linen.

Rejoicing in his circular solitude.

An ancient ordinance of the gods.

But it is hard for men.

They are angered by the assault on their beliefs.

Soon will these things desert thee.

In the fulness of the time set for them by the mighty oath.

This is manifest in the mass of mortal limbs.

See ye not that ye are devouring one another in the thoughtlessness of your hearts?

Thou wilt contemplate these things with good intent and faultless care.

And the black color at the bottom of a river arises from the shadow.

The coming together of all things brings one generation into being and destroys it.

How, too, could it perish, since no place is empty of these things?

Birth and decay.

And many fires burn beneath the earth.

A life that is no life.

Let not the error prevail over thy mind.

Not all at once, but coming together at their will.

What is the way to gain?

As if it were any great matter that I should surpass mortal, perishable men.

And thou shalt learn all the drugs that are a defense against ills and old age.

Speaking in thy pride beyond that which is lawful and right.

Fast from wickedness!

But the hair of hedgehogs is sharp-pointed and bristles on their backs.

There is an opening for understanding.

He does not make clear any cause of necessity.

Clinging Love.

From what honor, from what a height of bliss have I fallen.

Wretched he who has a dim opinion of the gods in his heart.

But the law for all extends everywhere.

In the fashion of a man.

My words have been divided in thy heart.

Casting on the ground libations of brown honey.

And thee, much-wooed.

Aidoneus and Nestis whose tear-drops are a well-spring to mortals.

Yet each has a different prerogative and its own peculiar nature.

When thou so desirest, thou shalt bring back their blasts in turn.

Substance is but a name given to these things by men.

Pierced by the grievous pangs of all manner of sickness.

Come now, look at the things that bear witness.

Crowned with fillets and flowery garlands.

Work the works of peace.

Such are the strifes and groanings from which ye have been born!

What is right may well be said even twice.

Many are the woes that burst in on them and blunt the edge of their careful thoughts!

It divided up to be many instead of one.

Which is the broadest way of persuasion that leads into the heart of man?

They go after me in countless throngs.

There is no discord and no unseemly strife in him.

Severed by cruel Strife.

When the time comes round.

Perishable creatures that appear in countless numbers.

Thou shalt bring back from Hades the life of a dead man.

Honored among all as is meet.

And friendly feelings were kindled everywhere.

But why do I harp on these things?

For out of these have sprung all things that were and are and shall be.

Whence, then, could aught come to increase it?

Behold the rain, everywhere dark and cold.

Her did they propitiate with holy gifts.

When these things have been separated once more.

Thou shalt arrest the violence.

Know this for sure, for thou hast heard the tale from a goddess.

I follow the custom and call it so myself.

Utter a pure discourse concerning the blessed gods.

To the end.

Fools! For they have no far-reaching thoughts.

Stepping from summit to summit.

The contest of Love and Strife

The four roots of all things.

Yea, and the gods that live long lives and are exalted in honor.

For even as they were aforetime, so too shall they be.

In the fashion of the race of wild beasts.

At one time it grew to be one out of many.

Since for thee alone will I accomplish all this.

Lifebringing Hera.

The other grows up and is scattered as things become divided.

Of equal weight to each.

Behold the sun, everywhere.

This was held in the greatest abomination.

Not to travel one path only.

Sleep and waking.

Smell is perhaps our strongest sense and the one most keenly tied into memory. This afternoon I was shopping at the health food store when my partner handed me a canister of mulling spices to sniff. The citrus and cinnamon and other herbs instantly transported me back to my childhood when my mother would make cinnamon-scented ornaments for our Christmas tree, brew hot apple cider, and read to me from a scratch and sniff holiday book while I was nestled cozily in her lap. I hadn’t remembered any of that for probably ten years now – and yet all of those associations were stored away in my brain, waiting for that scent to unlock the floodgates of memory.

The perfume industry spends millions each year marketing new fragrances to make us more alluring to each other or to make us feel more confident and daring, because they understand that like other animals, scents trigger chemical reactions in the brain which we are neither consciously aware of nor capable of controlling. It should come as no surprise then that scent plays a large part in religion.

Historian Walter Burkert writes, “Nothing lends a more unique and unmistakable character to an occasion than a distinctive fragrance; fire speaks not only to eye, ear and physical sensation, but also to the sense of smell. The sacred is experienced as an atmosphere of fragrance.” (Greek Religion, pg. 62)

The use of special scents to enhance the setting of a religious observance goes back to the earliest period in Greek history when choice woods and leaves were used to light the sacred fires for the “fragrant altars of the gods,” as Homer puts it (Iliad 8.48). Patroklos scatters something in the fire as an offering to the gods (Iliad 9.220) and Apollo orders the Cretan sailors he has chosen to serve as his priests at Delphoi to “build an altar there where the sea’s surf breaks; upon it kindle a flame, offer white barley and pray while standing about it close by” (Homeric Hymn to Apollo 491). Sappho invokes Aphrodite to “come from Krete, down from heaven, come, for here your shrine in a charming grove of apple trees keeps its altars smoking with incense” (Fragment 2). Hesiod advocates, “Sacrifice to the deathless gods purely and cleanly, and burn rich meats also, and at other times propitiate them with libations and incense, both when you go to bed and when the holy light has come back, that they may be gracious to you in heart and spirit, and so you may buy another’s holding and not another yours.” (Works and Days 338)

The two most popular kinds of incense for the ancient Greeks were libanon (frankincense) and myrron (myrrh). These came to Greece from southern Arabia via Phoenician traders and retained their original Semitic names. Both were especially connected with the goddess Aphrodite. According to Apollodorus (3.14.4) and Ovid (Metamorphoses 10.519-559), Myrrha was originally a young woman who incurred the wrath of the goddess and was punished with an insatiable lust for her father. Aided by her nurse, Myrrha deceived her father into sleeping with her and when he discovered what she had tricked him into doing, he pursued her with his sword and would have killed her had the gods not heard the prayers of Myrrha and transformed her into the tree which bears her name. Her tears became the precious gum of the tree from which incense is made, and nine months later the myrrh tree split open and Adonis, who was to become the beloved of Aphrodite, was found within. Thus myrrh was burned in rites for the couple, as well as frankincense, the first attestation of which in Greek literature is to be found in the poem already quoted by Sappho.

While these two incenses were characteristic of the worship of Aphrodite, and may have come to the Greek mainland from her cult center in Cyprus, they soon passed into common usage in Greek cult everywhere. For as Burkert notes, “to strew a granule of frankincense in the flames is the most widespread, simplest, and also the cheapest act of offering.” (Greek Religion, pg. 62)

We also find frankincense being offered to Hermes, the Muses, and Apollo Musagetes in an inscription dating from 200 BCE at a school at Miletos (Syll 3 577) and the Greek Magical Papyri asserts that it is the proper incense for Helios (13.17-20).

The Orphic Hymns, which were composed probably in the early period of the Roman Empire and at Pergamon if the hypothesis of Otto Kern is correct, gives an extensive listing of deities for whom frankincense may be offered: Apollon, Ares, Artemis, Asklepios, Bakkhai, Dike, Eos, Hephaistos, Herakles, Hermes, Hygeia, Kouretes, Muses, Nike, Satyros, Silenos, Tethys, Themis and the Titans. In fact, the only deity that they specifically prohibit this incense for is Dionysos Khthonios.

Other incenses which the Orphic Hymns suggest are myrrh for Leto, Nereus and Poseidon, storax for Khthonic Hermes, Dionysos, Eleusinian Demeter, the Erinyes, the Graces, Kronos, Semele and Zeus, and aromatic herbs for Adonis, Athene, Eros, the Eumenides, the Fates, Hera, Hestia, the Horai, the Nereids, the Nymphs, Okeanos and Rheia.

In addition to frankincense for Helios, PGM 13.17-20 also proposes storax for Kronos “because it is heavy and fragrant; of Zeus, malabethron; of Ares, kostos, of Aphrodite, Indian nard; of Hermes, cassia, of Selene, myrrh. These are secret incenses.”

And Plutarch (On Isis and Osiris 383d-e) gives the following recipe for kyphi, the traditional Egyptian temple incense which was popular in Rome and the Greek east: “Kyphi is a compound composed of sixteen ingredients: honey, wine, raisins, cyperus, resin, myrrh, aspalathus, seselis, mastich, bitumen, rush, sorrel, and in addition to these both the junipers, of which they call one the larger and one the smaller, cardamum, and calamus. These are compounded, not at random, but while the sacred writings are being read to the perfumers as they mix the ingredients.”

This incense would be suitable for Dionysos and Demeter since he, like Herodotos, asserts that they are the same as the Osiris and Isis of the Egyptians.

Another scent which can be burned for Dionysos is pine, since the pine tree was sacred to him (Pausanias 2.27) as well as the myrtle (Scholium to Aristophanes’ Frogs 330) and any bark or leaf since, as Plutarch said, Dionysos was worshipped everywhere as the god of trees. (Symposium 5.3.1)

The leaves of the laurel, however, belong especially to Apollo for whom they were burnt in antiquity (Kallimakhos, Hymn to Apollo) in commemoration of his beloved Daphne who gave her name to the bay tree. (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.452-567)

Barley-groats, in addition to being tossed on the altar as an aparchei or first-fruits offering, can be burned in the fire, along with wheat and other grains, for Demeter since these were her gifts to mankind. (Homeric Hymn to Demeter II)

Flowers, especially the narcissus, the lotus, and roses can be burned or ground up into an incense for Aphrodite, since these were said to spring up under her feet where she walked. (Homeric Hymn V)

There is an extensive literature on incenses and perfumes which may be used in the worship of our gods, but I have refrained from citing these since I have tried to stick with primary sources throughout this article. However, they can be invaluable resources, especially if you accept the Qabbalistic correspondences upon which they are usually based. The best volume to consult for this is Aleister Crowley’s 777 which provides extensive listings of perfumes, herbs, plants, gems, colors, etc. for each of the gods. However, for the untrained student who is not familiar with the Qabbalah and the spheres of the Tree of Life, his tables can be difficult to wade through, so I would recommend the companion volumes The Witches’ God and The Witches’ Goddess by Janet and Stewart Farrar which have compiled that information in easily accessible encyclopedic entries under the names of the respective deities. Another volume, which has great information on how to make your own incenses and perfumes, as well as recipes for a number of the gods, is Scott Cunningham’s Complete Book of Incense, Oils & Brews. Whatever faults the above authors may have in regards to other matters, when it comes to making things smell pretty they sure know their stuff!

In my post on the Sortes Empedocleae I said:

Empedokles of Akragas was a Sicilian holy man and wonder-worker who, combining elements of Orphism with indigenous Italian traditions, created a philosophy that anticipated atomic and evolutionary science.

Although instances of this are to be found throughout much of the remaining fragments of his works, one of the most striking is this passage:

Many creatures arose with double faces and double breasts, offspring of oxen with human faces, and again there sprang up children of men with oxen’s heads; creatures, too, in which were mixed some parts from men and some of the nature of women, furnished with sterile members.

Among the cities of Magna Graecia (particularly those within the orbit of Lokroi Epizephyrii) an important hero was venerated, the Olympic athlete Euthymos who was either the son of Astykles or the river-god Kaikinos. While he presumably had a regular human body as a mortal (since he competed in boxing and the pankration) he took on quite a different form posthumously:

Many terracotta plaques featuring three female heads were found in the Grotta, sometimes with Pan and sometimes with Dionysiac symbols. This trio of heads is found in nymphaea, in Persephone shrines, and in tombs elsewhere in the Greek world, but in the Grotta Caruso an unusual combination occurs: sometimes the nymphs appear with a tauromorph, a bull with a human face and horns. The iconography of this figure is consistent with portraits of Acheloos or other river gods, and we have textual evidence that ties the Locrian one to a river. An inscription on one of the Grotta’s plaques names the bull-man as Euthymos, a curious Locrian hero. (Bonnie MacLachlan, Kore as Nymph, not Daughter: Persephone in a Locrian Cave)

Pausanias (Description of Greece 6.7-11) relates the aition for his cult:

Odysseus, so they say, in his wanderings after the capture of Troy was carried down by gales to various cities of Italy and Sicily, and among them he came with his ships to Temesa. Here one of his sailors got drunk and violated a maiden, for which offence he was stoned to death by the natives. Now Odysseus, it is said, cared nothing about his loss and sailed away. But the ghost of the stoned man never ceased killing without distinction the people of Temesa, attacking both old and young, until, when the inhabitants had resolved to flee from Italy for good, the Pythian priestess forbad them to leave Temesa, and ordered them to propitiate the Hero, setting him a sanctuary apart and building a temple, and to give him every year as wife the fairest maiden in Temesa.

So they performed the commands of the god and suffered no more terrors from the ghost. But Euthymos happened to come to Temesa just at the time when the ghost was being propitiated in the usual way; learning what was going on he had a strong desire to enter the temple, and not only to enter it but also to look at the maiden. When he saw her he first felt pity and afterwards love for her. The girl swore to marry him if he saved her, and so Euthymos with his armour on awaited the onslaught of the ghost.

He won the fight, and the Hero was driven out of the land and disappeared, sinking into the depth of the sea. Euthymos had a distinguished wedding, and the inhabitants were freed from the ghost for ever. I heard another story also about Euthymos, how that he reached extreme old age, and escaping again from death departed from among men in another way. Temesa is still inhabited, as I heard from a man who sailed there as a merchant.

This I heard, and I also saw by chance a picture dealing with the subject. It was a copy of an ancient picture. There were a stripling, Sybaris, a river, Calabrus, and a spring, Lyca. Besides, there were a hero-shrine and the city of Temesa, and in the midst was the ghost that Euthymos cast out. Horribly black in color, and exceedingly dreadful in all his appearance, he had a wolf’s skin thrown round him as a garment. The letters on the picture gave his name as Lycas.

Another example of the bull-wolf ritual combat theme I have previously delineated. Which means that while people usefully draw comparisons between Euthymos’ story and Herakles’ contest with Acheloos for the hand of Dionysos’ daughter Deïanira, as described in Sophokles’ Trachiniae:

I had a river as a suitor, Acheloos, who asked my father for my hand in three shapes, coming now as a bull plain to see, now as a slithering, coiling serpent, now bull-faced with a man’s body; and streams of fresh water poured from his shaggy beard. Anticipating such a suitor, I, wretch, prayed continually to die, before I ever drew near such a marriage bed. (9-17)

I think an even more useful comparison is with the story of Theseus and the Minotaur:

And by means of the ingenuity of Daidalos Pasiphae had intercourse with the bull and gave birth to the Minotaur, famed in the myth. This creature, they say, was of double form, the upper parts of the body as far as the shoulders being those of a bull and the remaining parts those of a man. As a place in which to keep this monstrous thing Daidalos, the story goes, built a labyrinth, the passage-ways of which were so winding that those unfamiliar with them had difficulty in making their way out; in this labyrinth the Minotaur was maintained and here it devoured the seven youths and seven maidens which were sent to it from Athens, in recompense for the murder of Minos’ son Androgeus. (Diodoros Sikeliotes, Library of History 4.77.1)

There is even a tradition where Euthymos disguised himself as the maiden who was to be deflowered by Lycas, much as transvestitism played a role in the Oschophoria celebrating Theseus’ triumphant return and that Ariadne never set foot on Attic soil.

Which is significant since in the Orphic gold lamellae found in Southern Italy the initiate is instructed to proclaim Ἀστέριος ὄνομα. This could just be a suggestive synchronicity except that the epilogue of the Minoan myth took place in Sicily:

Minos, the king of the Cretans, who was at that time the master of the seas, when he learned that Daedalus had fled to Sicily, decided to make a campaign against that island. After preparing a notable naval force he sailed forth from Crete and landed at a place in the territory of Acragas which was called after him Minoa. Here he disembarked his troops and sending messengers to King Cocalus he demanded Daedalus of him for punishment. But Cocalus invited Minos to a conference, and after promising to meet all his demands he brought him to his home as a guest. And when Minos was bathing Cocalus kept him too long in the hot water and thus slew him; the body he gave back to the Cretans, explaining his death on the ground that he had slipped in the bath and by falling into the hot water had met his end. Thereupon the comrades of Minos buried the body of the king with magnificent ceremonies, and constructing a tomb of two storeys, in the part of it which was hidden underground they placed the bones, and in that which lay open to gaze they made a shrine of Aphrodite. Here Minos received honours over many generations, the inhabitants of the region offering sacrifices there in the belief that the shrine was Aphrodite’s; but in more recent times, after the city of the Acragantini had been founded and it became known that the bones had been placed there, it came to pass that the tomb was dismantled and the bones were given back to the Cretans, this being done when Theron was lord over the people of Acragas. (Diodoros Sikeleiotes, Library of History 4.79.1-4)

And not just anywhere in Sicily – but specifically the home of Empedokles. So I think in the fragment I opened with Empedokles is drawing a comparison between the Locrian man-faced bull hero Euthymos and the more widely known bull-faced man Asterios the Minotaur, one with profound implications when you consider Euthymos’ role in the baptismal and eschatogamic mysteries at the Grotta Caruso. (Especially since it comes in a discussion about Aphrodite and Nestis, likely a local name for Persephone.)

All of which is a good example of the bricolage method that characterizes ancient Orphism:

I propose a re-examination of the ancient evidence that takes seriously the model, proposed by Burkert and others, of itinerant religious specialists competing for religious authority among a varying clientele. Rather than looking for a coherent set of sacred texts canonical to people who considered themselves Orphics, texts expressive of doctrines pertaining to sin, salvation, and afterlife, we should look for the products of bricolage, pieced together from widely available traditional material to meet the demand of clients looking for extra-ordinary solutions to their problems. If the texts and rituals are products of bricolage, however, and their creators bricoleurs competing for authority, we cannot expect to find either consistency of texts or doctrines, merely a loose family resemblance between composites of the same traditional elements. A redefinition of ancient Orphism requires a polythetic definition that accommodates the complexities of the ancient contexts rather than the sort of monothetic definition that identifies Orphism by its scriptures and doctrines. Nevertheless, the attempt to force the evidence into this preconceived modern construct has created unnecessary confusions in interpretation, as, e.g., the debate over the Orphic status of the author of the Derveni papyrus shows. (Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Redefining Ancient Orphism)

And though Empedokles never explicitly references Orpheus a lot of his cosmological speculation agrees with the various Orphic theogonies that have come down to us and he, himself, seems to have engaged in activities similar to the Orpheotelestai. Compare Plato’s account:

But the most astounding of all these arguments concerns what they have to say about the gods and virtue. They say that the gods, too, assign misfortune and a bad life to many good people, and the opposite fate to their opposites. Begging priests and prophets frequent the doors of the rich and persuade them that they possess a god-given power founded on sacrifices and incantations. If the rich person or any of his ancestors has committed an injustice, they can fix it with pleasant things and feasts. Moreover, if he wishes to injure some enemy, then, at little expense, he’ll be able to harm just and unjust alike, for by means of spells and enchantments they can persuade the gods to serve them. And they present a hubbub of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, offspring as they say of Selene and the Muses, according to which they arrange their rites, convincing not only individuals but also cities that liberation and purification from injustice is possible, both during life and after death, by means of sacrifices and enjoyable games to the deceased which free us from the evils of the beyond, whereas something horrible awaits those who have not celebrated sacrifices. (Republic 2.364a–365b)

With what Empedokles describes in the Katharmoi or Purifications:

And thou shalt learn all the drugs that are a defense against ills and old age; since for thee alone will I accomplish all this. Thou shalt arrest the violence of the weariless winds that arise to sweep the earth and waste the fields; and again, when thou so desirest, thou shalt bring back their blasts in return. Thou shalt cause for men a seasonable drought after the dark rains, and again thou shalt change the summer drought for streams that feed the trees as they pour down from the sky. Thou shalt bring back from Hades the life of a dead man … Friends, that inhabit the great town looking down on the yellow rock of Akragas, up by the citadel, busy in goodly works, harbors of honor for the stranger, men unskilled in meanness, all hail. I go about among you divine and no longer mortal, honored among all as is meet, crowned with fillets and flowery garlands. Straightway, whenever I enter with these in my train, both men and women, into the flourishing towns, is reverence done me they go after me in countless throngs, asking of me what is the way to gain; some desiring oracles, while some, who for many a weary day have been pierced by the grievous pangs of all manner of sickness, beg to hear from me the word of healing.

I call upon Melinoë, saffron-cloaked nymph of the earth,
To whom august Persephone gave birth by the mouth of the Kokytos,
Upon the sacred bed of Kronian Zeus.

He lied to Plouton and through treachery mated with Persephone,
Whose skin when she was pregnant he mangled in anger.

She drives mortals to madness with her airy phantoms,
As she appears in weird shapes and forms.

Now plain to the eye, now shadowy, now shining in the darkness,
And all this in hostile encounters in the gloom of night.

But, goddess and queen of those below, I beseech you,
To banish the soul’s frenzy to the ends of the earth,
and show a kindly and holy face to the initiates.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.10.6-8
The bronze horses and captive women dedicated by the Tarentines were made from spoils taken from the Messapians, a non-Greek people bordering on the territory of Tarentum, and are works of Ageladas the Argive. Tarentum is a colony of the Lacedaemonians, and its founder was Phalanthus, a Spartan. On setting out to found a colony Phalanthus received an oracle from Delphi, declaring that when he should feel rain under a cloudless sky (aethra), he would then win both a territory and a city.

At first he neither examined the oracle himself nor informed one of his interpreters, but came to Italy with his ships. But when, although he won victories over the barbarians, he succeeded neither in taking a city nor in making himself master of a territory, he called to mind the oracle, and thought that the god had foretold an impossibility. For never could rain fall from a clear and cloudless sky. When he was in despair, his wife, who had accompanied him from home, among other endearments placed her husband’s head between her knees and began to pick out the lice. And it chanced that the wife, such was her affection, wept as she saw her husband’s fortunes coming to nothing.

As her tears fell in showers, and she wetted the head of Phalanthus, he realized the meaning of the oracle, for his wife’s name was Aethra. And so on that night he took from the barbarians Tarentum, the largest and most prosperous city on the coast. They say that Taras the hero was a son of Poseidon by a nymph of the country, and that after this hero were named both the city and the river. For the river, just like the city, is called Taras.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.10.8
As her tears fell in showers, and she wetted the head of Phalanthos, he realized the meaning of the oracle, for his wife’s name was Aethra. And so on that night he took from the barbarians Tarentum, the largest and most prosperous city on the coast. They say that Taras the hero was a son of Poseidon by a nymph of the country, and that after this hero were named both the city and the river. For the river, just like the city, is called Taras.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.13.10
The Tarentines sent yet another tithe to Delphi from spoils taken from the Peucetii, a non-Greek people. The offerings are the work of Onatas the Aeginetan, and Ageladas the Argive, and consist of statues of footmen and horsemen – Opis, king of the Iapygians, come to be an ally to the Peucetii. Opis is represented as killed in the fighting, and on his prostrate body stand the hero Taras and Phalanthos of Lacedaemon, near whom is a dolphin. For they say that before Phalanthos reached Italy, he suffered shipwreck in the Crisaean sea, and was brought ashore by a dolphin.

Herodotos, The Histories 1.24.1-8
They say that this Arion, who spent most of his time with Periander, wished to sail to Italy and Sicily, and that after he had made a lot of money there he wanted to come back to Corinth. Trusting none more than the Corinthians, he hired a Corinthian vessel to carry him from Tarentum. But when they were out at sea, the crew plotted to take Arion’s money and cast him overboard. Discovering this, he earnestly entreated them, asking for his life and offering them his money. But the crew would not listen to him, and told him either to kill himself and so receive burial on land or else to jump into the sea at once. Abandoned to this extremity, Arion asked that, since they had made up their minds, they would let him stand on the half-deck in all his regalia and sing; and he promised that after he had sung he would do himself in. The men, pleased at the thought of hearing the best singer in the world, drew away toward the waist of the vessel from the stern. Arion, putting on all his regalia and taking his lyre, stood up on the half-deck and sang the “Stirring Song,” and when the song was finished he threw himself into the sea, as he was with all his regalia. So the crew sailed away to Corinth; but a dolphin (so the story goes) took Arion on his back and bore him to Taenarus. Landing there, he went to Corinth in his regalia, and when he arrived, he related all that had happened. Periander, skeptical, kept him in confinement, letting him go nowhere, and waited for the sailors. When they arrived, they were summoned and asked what news they brought of Arion. While they were saying that he was safe in Italy and that they had left him flourishing at Tarentum, Arion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the ship; astonished, they could no longer deny what was proved against them. This is what the Corinthians and Lesbians say, and there is a little bronze memorial of Arion on Taenarus, the figure of a man riding upon a dolphin.

Homeric Hymn 7 To Dionysos
I will tell of Dionysos, the son of glorious Semele,
how he appeared on a jutting headland by the shore of the fruitless sea,
seeming like a stripling in the first flush of manhood:
his rich, dark hair was waving about him,
and on his strong shoulders he wore a purple robe.

Presently there came swiftly over the sparkling sea
Tyrsenian pirates on a well-decked ship —
a miserable doom led them on.
When they saw him they made signs to one another
and sprang out quickly, and seizing him straightway,
put him on board their ship exultingly;
for they thought him the son of heaven-nurtured kings.

They sought to bind him with rude bonds,
but the bonds would not hold him,
and the withes fell far away from his hands and feet:
and he sat with a smile in his dark eyes.
Then the helmsman understood all
and cried out at once to his fellows and said:

‘Madmen! What god is this whom you have taken and bind, strong that he is? Not even the well-built ship can carry him. Surely this is either Zeus or Apollo who has the silver bow, or Poseidon, for he looks not like mortal men but like the gods who dwell on Olympus. Come, then, let us set him free upon the dark shore at once: do not lay hands on him, lest he grow angry and stir up dangerous winds and heavy squalls.’

So said he: but the master chid him with taunting words:

‘Madman, mark the wind and help hoist sail on the ship: catch all the sheets. As for this fellow we men will see to him: I reckon he is bound for Egypt or for Cyprus or to the Hyperboreans or further still. But in the end he will speak out and tell us his friends and all his wealth and his brothers, now that providence has thrown him in our way.’

When he had said this, he had mast and sail hoisted on the ship,
and the wind filled the sail and the crew hauled taut the sheets on either side. But soon strange things were seen among them.

First of all sweet, fragrant wine ran streaming throughout all the black ship and a heavenly smell arose, so that all the seamen were seized with amazement when they saw it. And all at once a vine spread out both ways along the top of the sail with many clusters hanging down from it, and a dark ivy-plant twined about the mast, blossoming with flowers, and with rich berries growing on it; and all the thole-pins were covered with garlands. When the pirates saw all this, then at last they bade the helmsman to put the ship to land.

But the god changed into a dreadful lion there on the ship, in the bows, and roared loudly: amidships also he showed his wonders and created a shaggy bear which stood up ravening, while on the forepeak was the lion glaring fiercely with scowling brows.

And so the sailors fled into the stern and crowded bemused about the right-minded helmsman, until suddenly the lion sprang upon the master and seized him; and when the sailors saw it they leapt out overboard one and all into the bright sea, escaping from a miserable fate, and were changed into dolphins.

But on the helmsman Dionysos had mercy and held him back and made him altogether happy, saying to him, ‘Take courage, good… you have found favour with my heart. I am loud-crying Dionysos whom Kadmos’ daughter Semele bare of union with Zeus.’

Hail, child of fair-faced Semele! He who forgets you can in no wise order sweet song.

Strabo, Geography 6.2-3
Accordingly, the Partheniae went thither with Phalanthos, and they were welcomed by both the barbarians and the Cretans who had previously taken possession of the place. These latter, it is said, are the people who sailed with Minos to Sicily, and, after his death, which occurred at the home of Cocalus in Camici, set sail from Sicily; but on the voyage back they were driven out of their course to Taras, although later some of them went afoot around the Adrias as far as Macedonia and were called Bottiaeans. But all the people as far as Daunia, it is said, were called Iapyges, after Iapyx, who is said to have been the son of Daedalus by a Cretan woman and to have been the leader of the Cretans. The city of Taras, however, was named after some hero.

The origin of the Partheniae is this: the Lacedaemonians were at war with the Messenians because the latter had killed their king Teleclus when he went to Messene to offer sacrifice, and they swore that they would not return home again until they either destroyed Messene or were all killed; and when they set out on the expedition, they left behind the youngest and the oldest of the citizens to guard the city; but later on, in the tenth year of the war, the Lacedaemonian women met together and sent certain of their own number to make complaint to their husbands that they were carrying on the war with the Messenians on unequal terms, for the Messenians, staying in their own country, were begetting children, whereas they, having abandoned their wives to widowhood, were on an expedition in the country of the enemy, and they complained that the fatherland was in danger of being in want of men; and the Lacedaemonians, both keeping their oath and at the same time bearing in mind the argument of the women, sent the men who were most vigorous and at the same time youngest, for they knew that these had not taken part in the oaths, because they were still children when they went out to war along with the men who were of military age; and they ordered them to cohabit with the maidens, every man with every maiden, thinking that thus the maidens would bear many more children; and when this was done, the children were named Partheniae. But as for Messene, it was captured after a war of nineteen years, as Tyrtaeus says: “About it they fought for nineteen years, relentlessly, with heart ever steadfast, did the fathers of our fathers, spearmen they; and in the twentieth the people forsook their fertile farms and fled from the great mountains of Ithome.” Now the Lacedaemonians divided up Messenia among themselves, but when they came on back home they would not honor the Partheniae with civic rights like the rest, on the ground that they had been born out of wedlock; and the Partheniae, leaguing with the Helots, formed a plot against the Lacedaemonians and agreed to raise a Laconian cap in the market-place as a signal for the attack. But though some of the Helots had revealed the plot, the Lacedaemonians decided that it would be difficult to make a counter-attack against them, for the Helots were not only numerous but were all of one mind, regarding themselves as virtually brothers of one another, and merely charged those who were about to raise the signal to go away from the marketplace. So the plotters, on learning that the undertaking had been betrayed, held back, and the Lacedaemonians persuaded them, through the influence of their fathers, to go forth and found a colony, and if the place they took possession of sufficed them, to stay there, but if not, to come on back and divide among themselves the fifth part of Messenia. And they, thus sent forth, found the Achaeans at war with the barbarians, took part in their perils, and founded Taras.

Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus 3.4
A number of young men were sent back to Sparta with permission to form promiscuous connexions with all the women of the city, thinking that conception would be more speedy if each of the females made the experiment with several men. Those who sprung from these unions were called Partheniae,5 as a reflection on their mothers’ violated chastity; and, when they came to thirty years of age, being alarmed with the fear of want (for not one of them had a father to whose estate he could hope to succeed,) they chose a captain named Phalantus, the son of Aratus, by whose advice the Spartans had sent home the young men to propagate, that, as they had formerly had the father for the author of their birth, they might now have the son as the establisher of their hopes and fortunes. Without taking leave of their mothers, therefore, from whose adultery they thought that they derived dishonour, they set out to seek a place of settlement, and being tossed about a long time, and with various mischances, they at last arrived on the coast of Italy, where, after seizing the citadel of the Tarentines, and expelling the old inhabitants, they fixed their abode. But several years after, their leader Phalantus, being driven into exile by a popular tumult, went to Brundusium, whither the former inhabitants of Tarentum had retreated after they were expelled from their city. When he was at the point of death, he urged the exiles “to have his bones, and last relics, bruised to dust, and privately sprinkled in the forum of Tarentum; for that Apollo at Delphi had signified that by this means they might recover their city.” They, thinking that he had revealed the destiny of his countrymen to avenge himself, complied with his directions; but the intention of the oracle was exactly the reverse; for it promised the Spartans, upon the performance of what he had said, not the loss, but the perpetual possession of the city. Thus by the subtlety of their exiled captain, and the agency of their enemies, the possession of Tarentum was secured to the Partheniae for ever.

Arthur Evans, The horsemen of Tarentum 14-18
The Tarentines, as we know, in return for the patriotic fraud by which the dying Phalanthos had secured the perpetual duration of the city, decreed him divine honours. Judging, indeed, by analogy, we should be inclined to refer to this hero most of the figures of armed horsemen that appear on the present series. It is extremely probable that the interesting type already referred to of the horseman in peaked pileus and Doric chiton is to be regarded as an earlier representation of the leader of the Lacedaemonian colonists. The head-gear worn by the horseman strongly supports this attribution, since one of the principal incidents in the story of Phalanthos connects itself with the conical cap which he wore on his head, and the taking off of which was to be the signal for the rising of the Parthenian conspirators.

The twin figures that appear on some of the Tarentine coins must, of course, be identified with the Dioscuri; it is highly probable, as I hope to have occasion to point out, that the first appearance of this type contains a direct allusion to the alliance with the Spartan mother city, and is to be referred to the date of Akrotatos’ expedition. It is certain that in some of the single riders on the Tarentine didrachms we may also detect at times one or other of the Lacedaemonian twins.

The hippie deities of Tarentum are referred to on an inscription in which they are associated with those of the sea, as receiving the thank-offerings dedicated from the Roman spoils after the naval victory of Kroton in 210 B.C. The best illustration of these equestrian coin-types has, however, been supplied by the recent discovery of a vast deposit of votive terra-cotta figures on the site of a sanctuary of Chthonic divinities within the walls of the outer city of Tarentum. Many of these terra-cottas, as I have already pointed out elsewhere, supply the closest parallels to familiar types of Tarentine horsemen as they appear on the coins. In some cases we have identical figures of the Dioscuri, in others a naked warrior in a peaked-crested helmet is seen seated sideways on a galloping steed, holding in his left hand the large round shield which is so frequent a concomitant of the equestrian figures on the coins. In another instance a youthful figure, shield in hand, is seen standing in front of his stationary horse laying his right hand on its neck, a scheme which finds its counterpart in a coin of Period IV., where, however, the warrior stands behind his steed. A still more striking resemblance is to be found in another characteristic type of these votive terra-cottas, in which the rider is seen with his knee bent under him, as if in the act of vaulting from his horse, a design which reappears on a whole series of Tarentine coins.

These parallels occurring on a group of objects devoted to a Chthonic cult with which, together with the infernal deities, were associated the deified heroes of Tarentine religion, form a valuable commentary on the coin-types with which we are concerned, and afford additional grounds for supposing that the agonistic exercises performed by the horsemen before us connect themselves with a similar heroic cult. Several of the symbols that appear on some of the earliest of these equestrian types, such as the caduceus, or the bearded Herm, in front of the horse, the kantharos, or, somewhat later, the kylix, that is seen below, are best explained in this Chthonic connexion. The kylix especially, which on a coin of my Third Period appears beneath the type, already described, of the warrior vaulting off his horse in this case probably the heroized Phalanthos had at Tarentum a distinctly sepulchral association. From an epigram of the poet Leonidas it appears that it was an usual practice to place a kylix above a grave, originally: no doubt, with the idea of receiving libations for the departed. The kantharos, on the other hand, is even more intimately associated with the old heroic cult of Tarentum and its mother city. In the votive terra-cottas above referred to it is seen in the hands of the recumbent figure of Aidoneus or the Chthonic Dionysos, who symbolizes on these the heroized departed. Its appearance in the hands of the seated figure on some of the earliest types of the preceding didrachm series is also very suggestive.

Arthur Evans, The horsemen of Tarentum 89-92
The coins of this Molossian type are characterized by the appearance on the Tarentine dies of a peculiar and well-marked representation of Taras as a decidedly fleshy child, holding in the left hand a distaff wound round with wool. The rounded obese figure, as seen on the earliest coins of this class in some cases even verging on caricature fits on morphologically to the somewhat stumpy and heavy though maturer form of the Eponymic hero as he appears on some of the most characteristic types of the two preceding Periods.

The motive for the intrusion of this somewhat ungainly type into the Tarentine series was, perhaps, supplied by a certain aspect of local religious cult, on which a new light has been recently thrown by the discovery of large deposits of votive terra- cotta figures, in tombs and upon the site of temples formerly contained within the walls of Tarentum. In the tombs have been found a class of abnormally fat childish figures, some of which, as, for instance, a winged genius crowned with ivy-leaves and berries, have a distinct Bacchic connexion. And the curious phase in Tarentine art-fashion attested by these figures seems, in fact, to have been associated with a deeply-rooted Tarentine cult of the Chthonic Dionysos, his consort Persephone-Kora, and their mystic progeny, the infant Iacchos, the plastic representations of whom have been found by the thousand on the site of a local sanctuary.

The kantharos of Dionysos is of frequent occurrence, and it is found, though at a slightly later date, in the hand of the strange infantile type of Taras with which we are dealing, in which case it singularly recalls the mystic cup stretched forth by the infant Iacchos on the votive Tarentine terra-cottas. A still more
unfailing accompaniment, however, of this impersonation of Taras is the distaff wound round with wool, which, again, suggests an interesting comparison with a figure of the infant Dionysos of the Mysteries as it occurs on an Apulian krater. On this vase, which, if not actually of Tarentine work, at least belongs to the Tarentine school of ceramic art, the mystic offspring of Kora is seen depicted as a plump child, and holding in his right hand what is described as a thyrsos, but which, with its spirally-twisted top, is hardly to be distinguished from the distaff on the coins. He is represented in a squatting attitude, half-raising himself on one knee, and with the other drawn up under him, while he props himself up on his left arm. Above him is inscribed the name Dionysos, and to the left appears the head of Persephone-Kora, accompanied by the first four letters of her mystic Samothracian name Axiokersa. Both the figure on the vase and Taras in his peculiar infantile impersonation have their hair bound up into a kind of top-knot above the forehead a feature seemingly confined to this distaff-holding type. In the case of a small Tarentine gold coin, the parallel to the figure on the vase is even closer. There the infant Taras is represented in an almost identical attitude, half raising himself on one knee and with the other bent under him, and holding the distaff in his right hand. The head on the obverse of this small gold type is probably that of Persephone.

These comparisons lead us to the conclusion that the plump infantile representation of Taras which at this time makes its first appearance in the Tarentine dies, is to be regarded as approximating to that of the mystic child Iacchos, and marks the influence of a prevalent Chthonic cult on that of the Eponymic founder.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.196
The use of the spindle in the manufacture of woolen was invented by Closter son of Arachne, linen and nets by Arachne.

Domenico Sangenito to Antonio Bulifon, Lettere memorabilia istorche, politiche ed erudite 141ff
The tarantati want ribbons, chains, precious garments, and when they are brought they receive them with inexplicable joy, and with great reverence they thank the person who brought them. All of the aforementioned items are placed in an orderly fashion along the pen where the dancers make use of one or another item from time to time, according to the impulses the attack gives them. [...] In the castle of Motta di Montecorvino I had the occasion to see five tarantati dance at the same time and inside of the same stockade: they were four ploughmen and a beautiful country lass. Each had taken an alias, from among the names of ancient kings, no less. They treated each other in such a way that reciprocal affection was observed, and compliments were reiterated to the great admiration of the spectators. They happily performed the usual course of the dance over three days; the last evening, before taking leave, they politely asked for a squadron of men at arms, ready to fire a salvo and that was brought for them. [...] Afterwards they took a deep bow and said: we will see each other next year and then they collapsed. When they came to they were greatly fatigued and the wretches did not remember a single thing. Finding themselves in the midst of such a multitude of people they only begged to be taken home.

Ludovico Valletta, De Phalangio Apulo 92
The families of the tarantati hire the musicians, to whom many gifts are given and a great deal of drink is offered in addition to the daily compensation agreed upon, so that they may take some refreshment and thus play the musical instruments with greater vigor. It follows that a man of modest conditions, who laboriously earns a living with the diligent fatigue of his arms, in order to be cured of this illness, is often forced to pawn or sell objects of fundamental necessity, even if his household furnishings are shabby, in order to pay the aforementioned payment. It must be considered that no one would want to expose himself to this misfortune if he could combat the poison in another way, or if he did not feel compelled to dance from the bottom of his heart. I will spare the details of the many other aids and expedients the poison victims use to raise and cheer their melancholy spirits during the dance, items also needed for one reason or another. For instance there are artificial springs of limpid water constructed in such a way that the water is gathered and always returns to flow anew; these springs are covered and surrounded by green fronds, flowers and trees. Further, lasses dressed in sumptuous wedding gowns have the task of dancing with the tarantati, festively singing and playing the same melody with them during the dance; then there are the weapons and the multicolored drapery hung on the walls. All of these, and many others, cannot be procured without payment.

One of the reasons that I made this series of posts on the heroes of Tarentum is because I plan to make a pilgrimage there this summer in observance of La Festa di San Pietro e Paolo, a festival of Tarantism that has been incorporated into the religious calendar of the thiasos of the Starry Bull as the Arachneia.

I’m curious to see how well these citizens of Pennsylvania have maintained their Lakedaimonian institutions.

According to the official website of the borough of Tarentum:

Tarentum was founded by Judge Henry Mari Brackenridge in 1829 when the Pennsylvania Canal was completed between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The canal gave birth to many towns along the route. The site at the mouth of Bull Creek was first inhabited by Shawnee Indians who established a village here in 1729. In 1734, a Frenchman, Peter Chartier, maintained a trading post here until the Shawnee moved down river in 1745. Old maps show the early site of Tarentum as “Chartier’s Old Town”. Brackeridge, who owned land between Tarentum and Natrona, surveyed an area between Ross and Lock Streets and called the town “Tarentum” after an ancient Greek city-state in Italy. Thirteen years later, with a population of 300, the citizens petitioned the courts to incorporate as a borough which became effective March 7, 1842. One hundred years after it’s incorporation, Tarentum reached a population of over 9000 and was a leading mercantile center in the Valley. The town looks to an uncertain future, but with the anticipation that greater things are yet to be.

I’m looking forward to visiting the Byzantine Catholic Church of Ss. Peter & Paul. Particularly since they have this cool antique icon screen which contains an image of St. Stephen, the first Christian to get stoned.

Aischylos in his Elegies, for instance, calls Tyrrhenia a land of many drugs: ‘The Tyrrhene race, that people of drug-makers.’ (Theophrastos History of Plants)

I doubt the church will be as cool as the one in Galatina described by Ernesto De Martino:

…the musical exorcism seen a few days earlier at the home of Maria of Nardò was fresh in our minds: an exorcism so orderly and systematic, so clearly articulated in its consistent choreutic cycles, so regulated by the rhythm of the tambourine and the melody of the violin, so dramatically engaged in the evocation and release of obscure psychic urges through music, dance and color. But now, before our eyes, there was only an intertwining of individual, horizonless crises, disorder and chaos. The chapel lacked the music, the colored ribbons, the engrossed atmosphere of the home and the wide range of symbolism put into motion by the on-going musical exorcism: in the absence of this traditional apparatus of evocation and release, the tarantati foundered. From time to time they seemed to sketch a dance step, clapping the rhythm with their hands or even their barefoot soles, or they briefly attempted to break into songs which were sometimes gay and at the other times melancholy, rhythms of tarantellas and funeral dirges. But it was if they were clinging for a few moments to the debris of a shipwreck surfacing on the waves of a tempestuous ocean, and then they lost their grip, quickly sunk again by the imminent crisis. The scenes which we saw from above in our gallery ad audiendum Sacrum gave us the impression of colored chips of a shattered Kaleidoscope, one that was no longer capable of composing geometric designs as before: states of abandon on the floor, uncontrolled psychomotor agitation, attitude of anxious depression, bursts of aggressive frenzy along with hysterical arches, slow crawling in a prone position, sketches of dance steps, attempts at prayer, song and retching. Everything which we had already been able to see during the home exorcism was repeated, but with no dynamic bond or teleological framework, as with a demolished building where one finds the exact same things which furnished the rooms when the building was still standing…

And if you wonder how Tarantism fits in with Bacchic Orphism, consider the following:

The spider symbolizes a traumatic event in the biography of the victim (specifically frustrated eros), and it is the memory of that traumatic effect which causes the affliction of Tarantism with its attendent symptoms. This memory is cast out by music, color and dance – the Tarantella. For De Martino, the symbol of the Taranta is a “mythical-ritual horizon of evocation, release and resolution of unresolved psychic conflicts (…). As a cultural model, the symbol offers a mythical-ritual order for settling these conflicts and reintegrating individuals into the group. The symbol of the taranta lends a figure to the formless, rhythm and melody to menacing silence, and color to the colorless in an assiduous quest of articulated and distinct passions, where a horizonless excitation alternates with a depression that isolates and closes off.” Gilbert Rouget, whose 1985 ethnography “Music and Trance. A theory of the relations between music and possession” was highly critical of De Martino’s interpretation of Tarantism. Rouget writes that De Martino’s analysis makes one lose sight of the most obvious aspect of Tarantism: the identification of the afflicted with the spider. Rouget: “One of the dance figures of the tarantulees – the best known – consists, as we know, in imitating the spider’s movements: back to the ground, body arched to a great or lesser degree, the tarantulee moves about like a spider on all fours. One can see this very clearly in D. Carpitella’s film, and the sight is striking.” (Rouget is mistakingly referring to La Taranta as Carpitella’s film: Carpitella merely recorded the music). Rouget reproaches De Martino for making himself an heir to a Christian tradition which abjects possession and possessing divinities and thereby misinterpreting Tarantism. Rouget: “Despite appearances, the divinity responsible for the possession is not the one that is excorcised. On the contrary, it is the divinity concerned who, by allowing the possessing person to identify with him or her, provides the means of ecxorcising the illness – real or imagined – from which the person is suffering.”

So I’m very much looking forward to visiting Tarentum.

I’ve probably read this passage a couple hundred times over the last two decades and more and yet I just tonight noticed where Arnobius claims this verse came from.

Arnobius of Sicca, Adversus Nationes 5.21.4-6
When Jupiter Verveceus saw Proserpina was strong, plump, and blooming, forgetting what evils and what wickedness, and how great recklessness, he had a little before fallen into, he returns to his former practices; and because it seemed too wicked that a father openly be joined as in marriage with his daughter, he passes into the terrible form of a dragon: he winds his huge coils round the terrified maiden, and under a fierce appearance sports and caresses her in softest embraces. She, too, is in consequence filled with the seed of the most powerful Jupiter, but not as her mother was, for she bore a daughter like herself; but from the maiden was born something like a bull, to testify to her seduction by Jupiter. If any one asks who narrates this, then we shall quote the well-known senarian verse of a Tarentine poet which antiquity sings, saying: “The bull begot a dragon, and the dragon a bull.” Lastly, the sacred rites themselves, and the ceremony of initiation even, named Sebadia, might attest the truth; for in them a golden snake is let down into the bosom of the initiated, and taken away again from the lower parts.

So why don’t you do something nice for Charon now?

Ever notice the whorls of your thumb? The reason you never escape the labyrinth is because you are the labyrinth.

Euripides, Rhesos 962-73
The black earth will not take my son. I will ask the virgin Persephone, daughter of Demeter, giver of fruit, to let my son’s soul remain here on earth. She is obliged to show me that she truly honours all the friends of Orpheus. Of course, to me he will be just like any other man who has died and cannot see the light of day. He will never see me. He will never set eyes upon his mother and he will never approach her. He will be a man-god. He will live hidden in the caves of the silver-rich land, able to see sun light and acting as the prophet of Bacchus who has come to live among the crags of Pangaeon and be revered as a god by those who have the knowledge.

Aristides Quintilianus, De musica 25
Our discussion makes it clear that the first and most natural source of melody is divine possession. When the soul has sunk down towards this world through its abandonment of wisdom, falling into mere ignorance and forgetfulness through the torpor of the body, and becoming filled with confusion and excitement, it becomes temporarily delirious and subject to what amounts to a lunatic frenzy. Those who are insane may be soothed with melody: either the patients must themselves appease the irrational element through imitations of their own (this course is appropriate for those whose characters are savage and bestial), or they must avert the dreadful affliction through the use of their eyes and ears (if they are educated and their nature more orderly.) Hence, they say, there is a degree of reason behind Bacchic rites and similar initiations: they serve to cleanse away, with their songs and dances and games, the frenetic excitedness to which foolish folk have become subject by their way of life, or merely by chance.

Damascius, Commentary on the Phaedo 1.9
The titanic mode of life is the irrational mode, by which rational life is torn asunder: It is better to acknowledge its existence everywhere, since in any case at its source there are gods, the Titans; then also on the plane of rational life, this apparent self-determination, which seems to aim at belonging to itself alone and neither to the superior nor to the inferior, is wrought in us by the Titans; through it we tear asunder the Dionysos in ourselves, breaking up the natural continuity of our being and our partnership, so to speak, with the superior and inferior. While in this condition, we are Titans; but when we recover that lost unity, we become Dionysoi and we attain what can truly be called completeness.

Plato, Phaedrus 244de
Next, madness can provide relief from the greatest plagues of trouble that beset certain families because of their guilt for ancient crimes: it turns up among those who need a way out; it gives prophecies and takes refuge in prayers to the gods and in worship, discovering mystic rites and purifications that bring the man it touches through to safety for this and all time to come. So it is that the right sort of madness finds relief from present hardships for a man it has possessed.

Gorgias, Encomium of Helen
Fearful shuddering and tearful pity and sorrowful longing come upon those who hear it, and the soul experiences a peculiar feeling, on account of the words, at the good and bad fortunes of other people’s affairs and bodies. But come, let me proceed from one section to another. By means of words, inspired incantations serve as bringers-on of pleasure and takers-off of pain. For the incantation’s power, communicating with the soul’s opinion, enchants and persuades and changes it, by trickery. Two distinct methods of trickery and magic are to be found: errors of soul, and deceptions of opinion.

Plato, Ion 533e-534b
For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed. And as the Corybantic revellers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysos but not when they are in their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they themselves say; for they tell us that they bring songs from honeyed fountains, culling them out of the gardens and dells of the Muses; they, like the bees, winging their way from flower to flower. And this is true. For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.