Συγκεραυνόω: Dithyrambic Language and Dionysiac Cult Author(s): Daniel Mendelsohn Reviewed work(s): Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Dec., 1991 - Jan., 1992), pp. 105-124 Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3297967 . Accessed: 01/08/2012 07:23 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The Classical Association of the Middle West and South is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Journal. http://www.jstor.org
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Συγκεραυνόω: Dithyrambic Language and Dionysiac CultAuthor(s): Daniel MendelsohnReviewed work(s):Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Dec., 1991 - Jan., 1992), pp. 105-124Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and SouthStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3297967 .Accessed: 01/08/2012 07:23
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
The Classical Association of the Middle West and South is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to The Classical Journal.
LYFKEPAYNOfl: DITHYRAMBIC LANGUAGE AND DIONYSIAC CULT*
Sir Arthur Pickard-Cambridge concludes his definitive survey of dithyramb with an exasperated characterization of the genre as "a puzzling and disappointing affair."' Most scholars would agree that his description is appropriate for what remains of the "two great periods" in the composition of "literary dithyramb,"2 which some believe was devoid of the "dionysische Stoffe" that had characterized the cult songs, and which by the fifth century had become the vehicle for florid displays of musical virtuosity.3 Scholarly aporia is, therefore, only
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Classical Associa- tion of the Atlantic States conference in Princeton, New Jersey in October, 1990. I am indebted to David Sider of CJ, as well as to Sarah Peirce, Andrew Ford, Jenny Clay, and Froma Zeitlin for their generous and helpful comments. Thanks are also due to W. Robert Connor, who provided inspiration at an early stage of my research.
Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy (2nd ed., Oxford 1962) 58. 2 I.e., the late sixth/ early fifth century (under the patronage of Peisistratos
and his sons; see Richard Seaford's brief discussion in "The 'Hyporchema' of Pratinas," Maia 29 [1977] 82-83) and the late fifth/early fourth century (at the great public festivals of the Athenian imperial democracy). For these dates see also Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (2nd ed., Oxford 1989) 79.
A degree of caution seems in order in positing a very strict a division between early, "cult" dithyramb and a later, purely "literary" genre. The most recent studies of the public performances of music and drama in fifth-century Athens suggest that attempts to separate the intricately intertwined threads of religious, civic, and artistic activity that contributed to these performances in their festival setting would be wrongheaded. Nevertheless, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that a gradual dilution of the purely religious element occurred between the early sixth and late fifth centuries, as the civic element became increasingly important to an ever more democratic Athens.
3 Alfred Winterstein, Der Ursprung der Tragbdie (Vienna 1925) 103. Despite the paucity of hard evidence, scholars both earlier and later than Winterstein have advanced persuasive arguments that Dionysiac cult must in some way have been central to early dithyramb. See A. Hauvette-Besnault, Archiloque: Sa vie et ses podsies (Paris 1905) 170, 182, as well as G. Privitera, "I1 ditirambo da
The Classical Journal 87 (1992) 105-24
106 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
more pronounced in discussions of dithyramb's earliest, "purely ritu- al" incarnation.4 Indeed, Sir Arthur warned that scholars attempting to reconstitute this cult dithyramb from what remains of later dithyramb are prone to "generalize far too boldly."5 Privitera put the problem most succinctly:
[D]el ditirambo letterario del VII secolo e piil facile dir che sia esistito, non che cosa sia stato. Ignota rimane la sua struttura, la tessitura metrica e musicale, la compagine dialettale, I'argomento, il rapporto in esso di musica e poesia.
However, despite the apparent futility of studying the earliest forms of the genre, recent research into Dionysiac cult and performance does permit speculation as to the nature and significance of dithyram- bic language. For example, in several important articles Richard Seaford
canto cultuale a spettacolo musicale," in Rito e poesia corale in Grecia, ed. Claude Calame (Bari 1977) 27.
For later dithyramb as a vehicle for musical virtuosity, see Privitera 27-37. Seaford is cautious about the presence of echt-Dionysiac cult elements in the
literary dithyrambs of Pindar and Bakkhylides, whom he calls "deviants from the dithyrambic tradition," although he does cite the former in his arguments. He goes on to note that "the fragments of Pindar's dithyrambs are not in fact without affinity with the language of later dithyramb" (note 2 above, 92; emphasis mine); but for evidence of a civic-festal context for Pindar's compo- sitions, see Richard Hamilton's recent comments on the frequency with which the word ZreeriZ appears in those works ("The Pindaric Dithryamb," HSCP 93
[1990] 218f.). Noting that only a few fragments survive of the two complete books of Pindar's dithyrambs inventoried by the Alexandrians, Privitera (33) is equally hesitant about how to classify the remaining fragments.
There is in fact a good deal of controversy as to whether the Bakkhylidean material is to be classified as dithyramb at all. See, e.g., Pickard-Cambridge (note 1 above) 25-31, and O. Vox, "Il ditirambo XVIII di Bacchilide: dialogo ed
enigma," Maia 34 (1982) 136f. Vox argues for the classification of Bakkhylides 14-19 as dithyramb. Seaford, however, "excludes" Bakkhylides on the grounds that there was "the possibility that the 'dithyrambs' of Bacchylides were
grouped together under the title dithyramboi for no better reason than that they embody a continuous narrative" (note 2 above, 92, following A. E. Harvey, "The Classification of Greek Lyric Poetry," CQ 5 [1955] 160). Also contra the dithyrambic label is Hamilton 213 note 15; cf. Ian C. Rutherford, "Paeans by Simonides," HSCP 93 (1990) 204.
has argued that it is possible to ascertain the "characteristic features" of dithyrambic language from its vestiges in later literature7 and, further, that these features can be traced back to their sources in Dionysiac cult. The "language of satyric drama and dithyramb (and, in vestigial form, tragedy)," he maintains, "originates in the ritual of Dionysiac initia- tion." Even earlier, some scholars had argued that the religious elements said to be at the heart of cult dithyramb were not completely abandoned when the genre became a literary rather than a religious one. Indeed, in the hyporkhema of Pratinas that Seaford studies, the object of the narrator's ire is "the spread into drama . . . of the dithyrambic style"-an infiltration that could have preserved cultic diction, as well as style, in later drama.11
The fragments of later dithyramb (after about 450 BCE) have certain features in common that help Seaford to argue for a "new theory about
7 "Pratinas" (note 2 above) 89; see also his "Dionysiac Drama and the Dionysiac Mysteries," CQ 31 (1981) 252-75, and "Immortality, Salvation, and the Elements," HSCP 90 (1986) 1-25. (But n. b. Hamilton's substantial objec- tions to Seaford's methods and evidence, note 3 above, 214-17.)
Many scholars, of course, could and did refer rather broadly to certain characteristics of dithyrambic language and style. Hence, for example, Bowra was able to pass judgement on the "literary" dithyramb's "inflated" style in his essay "Arion and the Dolphin" (in On GreekMargins [Oxford 1970] 170f.) Allen and Sikes speak of "stereotyped" elements of dithyramb in their commentary on H. h. Dion. (London 1904) 231. These scholars take their cue as much from the opinions left by ancient literary critics as from those bits and pieces of the works themselves that have remained; cf., e.g., Plato Crat. 409c; Aristotle Poet. 1459a9 and Rhet. 1406bl-2; Demetrios Peri Hermeneias ?91; and schol. ad Philos.VA 1.17 St0Epai glwiM aov0'Tot; 6v6o'at
avevov•••V iv. Cf. also Horace
4.2.10 ff. seu per audaces nova dithyrambos / verba devolvit numerisque fertur / lege solutis. It is Seaford's arguments for a direct connection between the specific Dionysiac topoi in later Dionysiac poetry and drama and their earliest cultic context that make his approach an especially important one.
8 "Dionysiac Drama" (note 7 above) 254. Here Seaford is especially interested in the language of Euripides' Bakkhai. For other arguments that seek to confirm the cultic origins of Euripides' diction see also Karl Deichgraiber, "Die Kadmus-Teiresiasszene in Euripides Bakchen," Hermes 70 (1935) 323 ff., and A. J. Festugiere, "La signification religieuse de la Parodos des Bac- chantes," Eranos 54 (1956) 80 ff.
9 Privitera (note 6 above) 109. For this point see also August C. Mahr, The Origins of the Greek Tragic Form: A Study of the Early Theater in Attica (New York 1938) 25.
10 Athenaios 14.617b (= Pratinas fr. 3 Snell, in Trag. Gr. Frag. 1. 81-82). 11 Seaford (note 2 above) 83.
108 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
dithyrambic language," as it infiltrated later dramatic genres. He identifies three characteristics in particular: elaborately compounded epithets, great frequency and aggregation of epithets, and periphrasis "often of a riddling nature." 12 Seaford further notes that "it is clear from the remains of dithyrambic language as a whole that its characteristic features were associated with the traditional (Dionysiac) dithyrambic abandon: wine and musical instruments,"13and he argues persuasively that texts from the fifth century and later bear distinct traces of both diction and action associated with early Dionysiac cult. It is thus no surprise that the poetic contexts in which he has located dithyrambic language typically refer to Dionysiac themes-wine,14 music, riotous abandon. Borrowing some of Seaford's assumptions and methods, I hope to shed light on the very rare word ouycepauv6), which occurs only three times in the classical corpus,15 and which, I shall argue, is a survival from the vocabulary of early Dionysiac cult dithyramb.
All three texts offer indisputably Dionysiac contexts for this word; in the Arkhilokhos fragment, furthermore,
o•yicepauv60 is em-
bedded in a specifically dithyrambic setting. I want briefly to explore the
12 Seaford (note 2 above) 88. See his notes 57-61 here for full citations of
pertinent passages. 13 Seaford (note 2 above) 89. For other evidence that confirms the traditional association between Dionysos and dithyramb, see Pickard-Cam- bridge (note 1 above) 2 on Aiskhylos fr. 355 Radt (quoted by Plutarch, De Ei apud Delphos 389b), and on Pindar 01. 13.18.
14 The prominence given to wine and drunkenness in later dithyramb has been pointed out by many scholars, and supports the view that these were likely themes of earlier dithyrambic celebrations of Dionysos in a cultic context. There are various examples from later dithyramb (i.e., after 450 BCE) that refer prominently to wine: PMG 744 (Ion of Khios); 780 (Timotheos, on whose dithyramb
ege`i•,X '•k2i; see below); and 831 (Philoxenos), as well as
the parodic fragment of Antiphanes (12K: all cited in Seaford [note 2 above] 88-89). And while Seaford is surely correct to acknowledge that "most of these
fragments owe their preservation in Athenaeus to their concern with wine and music," fr. 155 of Epikharmos, from his Philoktetes, is a concise utterance
implying that the connection between wine and dithyramb was taken for
1103, a vexed passage whose manuscript reading of o•0vepawvoioat,
rather than Pierson's emendation
aovtptatvoO•Uact, the present discussion hopes to
confirm. These passages will be discussed below. The word appears only one other time in ancient Greek: Lxx 2 Ma. 1.16. In light of the present argument, it is noteworthy that here oiyKcpacv6wo describes death by stoning where dismemberment immediately follows.
YTFKEPAYNOX2 109
implications of this fragment, in order to expand the set of criteria for what constitutes a dithyrambic textual reminiscence. This in turn will
suggest that the other, fifth-century occurrences of oayKepauv6o are specifically dithyrambic, rather than generally "Dionysiac." Subsequent analysis will show in more detail how avuycpcauv6o is intricately connected with dithyramb as a literary form, as well as with both Dionysiac mythology and cult practices.
Few would dispute the fact that the Arkhilokhos fragment reso- nates with allusions both Dionysiac and dithyrambic. The poet here exalts the Dionysiac inebriation that inspires him to lead the dithyram- bic chorus:
); Atwov1,oot' &va-to; IcaXOv C6pPat gLe•o;
o{xa Mt,6paLPov Rtvont oyKepaV•e)oeg (pp v .
(77B = 120W)
These lines are cited with great frequency in studies of choral poetry and Dionysiac religion alike. As the oldest of these Dionysiac texts that we possess, the verses are considered authoritative in this respect, not least because they come closest chronologically to the actual period in which the earliest cult dithyramb flourished. Pickard-Cambridge assessed their importance for literary studies:
Its [dithyramb's] special connection with Dionysos through- out its history is sufficiently attested, and the importance of Archilochos lies in the fact that, whereas it might be possible ... to argue that later references to the connection of dithyramb with Dionysos were due to the well-known per- formances at the Dionysiac festivals at Athens ... no such suggestion can be made in regard to the words of Archilochos.16
The Arkhilokhos passage, with its prominent references to music and wine in the context of dithyrambic performance, would seem to confirm the validity of Seaford's criteria for dithyrambic themes as based on the later fragments.
The passage also suggests that ayicepa~v6o belongs to a special vocabulary of Dionysiac dithyramb. As a mere metaphor for the effects
16 Pickard-Cambridge (note 1 above) 1.
110 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
of wine, the word is rather forced; it connotes devastating natural violence rather than inebriate poetic exultation.17 LSJ tell us that the
rav- prefix conveys the "completion of an act, altogether, completely,"
and in this case the act, icepauv6o), is "to strike with thunderbolts."18 Pickard-Cambridge's translation of Arkhilokhos's
oiypopauv•ve00w as
"fused" is therefore too tame, and fails to do justice to a word that, thus compounded, must mean something more like "utterly blasted with lightning." The strangeness of the metaphor (cf. uncompounded icepa•u- voei';, almost never used figuratively19) is, possibly, a sign that its provenance is religious rather than purely poetic. Indeed, the Greeks had special religious reverence for those who had been struck by lightnin% o.656i y0xp (epavov800E; rtgo; ortv, 67tno ye icc 6;g
0a•6 Tt~tarat. And no figure from Greek religion better unites within
17 For the destructiveness of lightning, cf. Artemid. 2.9 T&h rnoXtoXeki
Xo•pca prlta cai ,pxata oCtEx ... EI Ka•c iEPcpv6; oZ8v aZtIv &X o i~ irp, 'itov
6 bq na7cav iXio v py Oeipetv. To Steven Lonsdale I am indebted for another, quite intriguing expla-
nation of the prefix. He points to Plato Laws 653d on the origins of festivity, in which Apollo, Dionysos, and the Muses are called ?vveopraoaxrd of mortals: later in the same passage (653e) the gods in general are referred to as
•vyXopEu- rai. Bearing this religious and festival context in mind, Lonsdale suggests that in the Arkhilokhos fragment the aov-prefix is used to indicate the poet's identification with the god. Thus in these verses he "sympathetically experi- ences the lightning blast that felled Semele and produced Dionysos, through a wine-induced frenzy that results in Arkhilokhos' own poetic creation." Lonsdale further indicates the use of the acv- prefix in Corybantic rites, as alluded to by Plato's use of oyxcopo3eavTtlv at Phaedr. 228b and
~u•tlaic gesi{ etv at 234d. Although these rites are not properly Dionysiac, for Plato there seems to be an overlap, e.g. at Laws 815c, where Corybantic rites are grouped with the proscribed Bacchic dances. Lonsdale's arguments will appear more fully in his forthcoming book, Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion. See below for further discussion of the possible connection of the cov-prefix to the initiatory rites of the Dionysiac mysteries.
19 LSJ report only one metaphorical occurrence of icepa-v6co, at Artemid. 2.9 (a passage to be discussed below): lci y,&p
Tot; KC•a tcXacOv-a
c C v tf
OV710Eia KeKepa•0vaai qptEv. This popular usage seems clearly to be derived from Zeus's use of the thunderbolt to punish wrongdoers; as such, the purely metaphorical force of KepauvvoOei would, I think, have been rather weak. It is not comparable to the vividly figurative uses of
a•yicepav6wo discussed herein. 20 Artemid. 2.9, a chapter on fire and lightning. I was of course encouraged
by Artemidoros's assertion in this passage that &OXrlt&; B ev86ZoS 6 'eCpauv- 6b iotel Ii a t&vaaq q;toX6yoS;. Places that were struck by lightning were also considered sacred: see Gregory Nagy's interesting discussion of the Isles of the
2YFKEPAYNOO 111
himself the elements of drunken inspiration and natural disaster than does Dionysos, whose special song was the dithyramb.
It seems the violent verb, with its connotations of sudden, god- touched death, would be at home in cult-dithyramb. For ancient descrip- tions of dithyramb-for example, the Pratinas passage noted above-suggest that comparable violent destructiveness was in fact another important element of early cult dithyramb that we should add to Seaford's criteria. This quality was reflected in dithyramb's style as well as in its themes. In the fourth century Aristotle cites dithyramb as an example of music set to the Phrygian mode, against which (along with the aulos that accompanied it) he warns as being unsuitable to education, since they are
6pytaaztuX & rai arlzt 6&.21 Pollux later iden-
tified the dance that typically accompanied dithyramb as the tyrbasia,22 which Pickard-Cambridge, among others, reasonably derives from
rvpf3Cw, connected to Ip "and other words which seem to imply confusion, riot, or revelry."' Pickard-Cambridge further argues that what Aristotle in the fourth century disapproved of as being "out of control" was in fact tame compared to the earliest cult-songs: "as the Bacchic rite... became part of the celebration of an orderly civic festival, the wildness of the music... abated."24 Moreover, dithyramb's musical unruliness was associated with real violence. In the Pratinas fragment, the speaker complains that dithyrambic performance leads to street brawls of young drunkards.25 It therefore seems likely that in its style,
Blessed /Elysium in The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore 1979) 190. Nagy derives 'Hhcatov from
&VV~$atoS, "made sacred by virtue of being struck by the
thunderbolt," and reports the remarkable tradition, noteworthy in the context of the present discussion, that Macdpov vi-o; was the name of the sacred precinct where Semele was struck dead by the thunderbolt of Zeus (Par- menides ap. Suda, and ap. Photius, s.v. MaKcpcov vi~io;; Tzetzes ad Lykophron 1194 1204).
uCilgat•iotot vev OcXot noapoivwv I/ eggevoat orpaoti•ldtla; [sc. the aulos that
accompanies the dithyramb]. It need not be the case that Pratinas is merely being crotchety here. In Aristotle's Constitution of Naxos (fr. 510 Rose, cited in Athenaios 8.348), a similar idcoo;S of tipsy youths (veaviaecot oyv ITtvE ... biont6vTz ; ?cJigaaav) led to civil war; Pratinas could well have known of the explosive political potential inherent in festal processions of drunken young men. In this context it is interesting to take note of W. Burkert's observation
112 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
subject matter, and even the circumstances of its performance, dithyra- mb was essentially associated with the unruly violence that lay at the heart of Dionysiac cult itself.26
avyKEpaov6mo) is appropriate to Dionysos for other reasons. In a discussion of Greek attitudes about lightning, Dodds points out that "in southern Europe the thunderstorm is beneficent as well as terrible-the lightning blasts, but the rain quickens the seed in the earth, so that Semele perishes and Dion. [sic] is born."27 Apart from its role in the Semele myth, to be discussed below, this lightning embodies the essentially ambiguous nature of Dionysos himself. In a Dionysiac setting, references to thunderstorms and lightning could recall the god who presides over liquid nourishment, fertility, and the ripening of the grape; yet lightning could, in the same moment, bring to mind the god's destructiveness, emblematized by the oreibasia and the sparagmos. It appears, then, that it is possible to expand Seaford's criteria for dithyram- bic language to include not only inebriation and music-making, but sudden and devastating violence-the dark side of drunken abandon.
If violence was intrinsic to dithyramb as a genre, then the Kratinos passage offers what can be considered a specifically dithyrambic as well as Dionysiac setting for oavywKpcav6o. The play was the Pytine, concern- ing a conflict between the poet himself and his "wife," Comedy, who is jealous of his excessive attachment to Drunkenness. Here the Dionysiac elements of wine, Methe (Drunkenness personified), and comic perfor- mance itself provide a context for the kind of violent destructiveness about which Pratinas warned-in this case, the wanton smashing of drinking-vessels intended for bacchic merrymaking. The word used to describe this action is
ouy••pauv6o, as one of Kratinos's friends proposes
a remedy for the poet's drinking problem:
that the legendary introduction of dithyramb to Corinth by Arion was roughly contemporary with two violent political upheavals: the overthrow by Kypsel- os of the Corinthian Bakkhiadai, who claimed descent from Dionysos, and the politically motivated establishment of Dionysos' cult in Sikyon by Kleis- thenes. (Greek Religion [Cambridge, Mass. 1985] 290.) Privitera (note 3 above) 29 has suggested that the cult of Dionysos was popular with tyrants because it transcended ancient aristocratic snobberies.
26 Burkert (note 25 above) 292. 27 E. R. Dodds, Euripides Bacchae (2nd ed., Oxford 1960) 62-64 (on 6).
Artemidoros more than once cites lightning without an accompanying storm-
v &it, Toi Oitou ItcnalEte, toi iv I toI; ey(t8a. aovrptyo yap auztoi ro;g xouz, Kai ro;g Kaliloaog oty epaSuvw oa oiro&v, ait acia~ a Cav t' &yye•ot aE p6v t 66ov
KOX5)' 6Ow(pov oivIPOV i Tt KEKic1tyerat. (187K = 199K-A)
Another scene featuring wanton destruction in a Bacchic context occurs at the climax of the Bakkhai, the preeminent classical Dionysiac text:
The harrowing narration of Pentheus's sparagmos, with its hyperbolic paradigm of "Dionysiac abandon" in the maenads' god-inspired de- structiveness, establishes what can now be understood as yet another dithyrambic context for oayKcpavouo.29 Here again, the metaphor is powerful-but not inappropriate, given the play's pervasive Dionysiac ambience. Jeanne Roux, along with Dodds and many other recent critics, defends ouyKepauvoo^at at 1103; unlike many critics, she rightly looks to both the Arkhilokhos and Kratinos passages in defending her reading: "La metaphore, vigoureuse, n'est pas nouvelle pour peindre l'action d'une force irresistible et instantanee."3?
28 See schol. Ar. Eq.400, and Kock's gloss ad loc., "fulminis vi confringam et difundam."
In view of the play's Dionysiac milieu it is possible that the sudden flash of light associated with KcEpa-ov6; itself has significance with respect to the Dionysiac mysteries. See Seaford's discussion of the role of light in the initiation ceremonies, "Dionysiac Drama" (note 7 above) 256-58, and the discussion below.
30 Jeanne Roux, Euripides: Les Bacchantes (Paris 1970) 579. Dodds ad loc. (215) observes that "s. looks less like the chance product of a copyist's blunder than like an element of the special Dionysiac vocabulary on which Eur. draws repeatedly in this play," but, failing to see that the other occurrences of the word appear in Dionysiac contexts as well, he merely comments that in Arkhilokhos and Kratinos, oauyiFpavwW is used for "comic exaggeration." Lacroix finds
o•yiyepavMv6 unremarkable, and neglects to mention it at all in Les
114 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
All three classical instances of u)ylEpau)v6o occur in dithyrambic settings-textual domains belonging to the god Dionysos, who pre- sides over riotous destructiveness as well as over inebriate music- making.
If oa)y epa)v60) consistently occurs in three very different texts-- choral poetry, comedy, and tragedy-in what can be seen not merely as Dionysiac, but specifically as dithyrambic contexts, its presence in those contexts needs to be accounted for. How, in other words, is KEpa)v6O specifically associated with Dionysos and his cult? And why in turn would oaUyKEpa)v60 be particularly associated with the dithyram- bic performances honoring the god-in terms, that is, other than the rather general ones I have already suggested-thereby accounting for its subsequent recurrence in dithyrambic milieux? I would like to explore two avenues of inquiry. One leads to the myths that recount the birth of Dionysos; the other, necessarily more speculative path, to what little we know of the Dionysiac mysteries and their initiatory rites.
Semele first. The importance of lightning as an element of Diony- siac mythology is in fact well known, stemming from the story of the god's double birth. The Theban princess Semele insisted on seeing Zeus in his fiery Olympian form; that electrifying revelation resulted in the premature "first" birth of Dionysos. Semele played an especially important role in Dionysiac cult, and apparently enjoyed considerable popularity on her own. The myth of her electrocution was a popular one among tragic poets;31 one late fifth-century play by Spintharos, for example, was entitled
EiCgTl K~epwtvoU01gTI . Semele's name and/or role as mother of the god recur frequently in Dionysiac compositions,
Bacchantes d'Euripide (Paris 1976) 236. Commentators less recent than Dodds or Roux are more likely to prefer Pierson's conjecture ouvtptatvoiwoa•
here: so Beckwith ad loc. (Boston 1888); Dalmeyda, who cites cryiccpacuvoi^oat as "gubre intelligible" (Paris 1908,124); and the bemused Tyrell, who finds it "so very strange" (London 1892,132). Sandys, citing Arkhilokhos and Kratinos in his commentary (Cambridge 1892, 219), favors oa-ycEpavoi-at but reserves any comment.
In this context it is noteworthy that in the Dionysiac drama Bakkhai, lightning is mentioned with notable frequency-six occurrences apart from 1103 (6, 93, 244, 288, 594, 598)-versus four in the same playwright's Hiketidai (496, 640, 985, 1011, all describing the death of Kapaneus), three in Troiades (80, 92,1103), two each in Herakles Mainomenos (177, 862) and Phoinissai (183,1181), and one each in Alkestis (129), Andromakhe (1193) and Kyklops (320).
31 See Dodds xxviii-xxix for a catalogue of these works.
LYFKEPAYNO 115
often in conjunction with references to thunder and lightning.32 Refer- ences to Semele seem to have been prominent in Dionysiac cult hymn; the tomb of Dionysos at Thebes featured a noteworthy matronymic formula in the epitaph &vO68, KEitxt iaOtVV A6AVU1O K eK CEKtg,1. Of the Lenaia, a Dionysiac festival, Farnell notes that "the chief ritual-act [was when] the dadouchos, holding a lighted torch, proclaimed to the people Invoke the god' whereupon the whole congregation cried aloud 'Iacchos, son of Semele, the giver of wealth.",'3 The god is closely identified with his mother, who was herself
ouyEpcwvop0eioca. Lightning, then, has "something to do with Dionysos," via Semele.
What does all of this have to do with dithyramb? Ancient sources indicate that the story of Dionysos's birth was
particularly associated with dithyramb--that is, with both the word
8t06pac•p3og itself and the musical/literary form that bore the same
name. Plato, for example (Laws 700b), indicates the extent to which the word "dithyramb" was identified with this subject matter: iciA &'ko, AtovI?'ou yveaotm, olwat, 8t0&palpg3o0 Y7i,6gvog. Here Plato playfully alludes to what Pickard-Cambridge calls the "philologically impossi- ble" derivation of 5ti6pagp3og meaning "through two doors,"36 a refer- ence to the god's double birth. Euripides also knows of the false etymology, the absurd contrivances of which, I would argue, he lam-
32 Semele prominent in Dionysiac compositions: the fragmentary H. h. 1 to Dionysos (4, 21); the H. h. 7 to Dionysos (1, 56 ff.); cf. Pindar fr. 75 S-M (12, 19), on which Pickard-Cambridge (note 1 above) 21 remarks that "it is plain that ... Semele was one of its [dithyramb's] traditional themes." Fr. 70b S-M prominently features Dionysos's Theban genealogy, which of course is crucial to the Bakkhai; and 70b S-M 31 f. seems as though it too concerned Semele.
Thunder and lightning in these works: the H. h. Dion. 1.4 -uoaagEvrjv Ejtirlyv trexetv Atdi rEPntEpaIvcot: the appropriateness of this epithet in a passage describing Dionysos's birth is noted by F. Adami, De poetis scaenicis Graecis hymnorum sacrorum imitatoribus (Leipzig 1900, 243). Cf. also Pindar fr. 70b S-M 15 ff.,and Bakkhylides 17.55 f. &n'oipavo5 Oo&v niuptB' Otpaay &r pandv.
33Festugiere (note 8 above) 72 ff., esp. 75. Philokhoros fr. 7 Jacoby. Pausanias observed both a monument to and
a tomb of Semele at Thebes, the former supposedly on the site of her bedcham- ber (9.12.3 and 9.16.7). Dodds on Bakkhai 6 (63) notes that "Eur. clearly has some knowledge of the Theban cult and cult-places"; cf. the passages from Pindar cited above. Plutarch reports the legend that the tombs of both Euriides and Lykourgos were struck by lightning (Ly. 31).
The Cults of the Greek City-States, vol. 5 (Oxford 1909) 209; emphasis mine. Cf. schol. Ar. Ranae 482.
36 Pickard-Cambridge (note 1 above) 7.
116 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
poons in Teiresias's sophistic speech to Pentheus at Bakkhai 286-97 (where the pun--on 6 gnp6; / po/5g po;-is incorporated into the story of the double birth; cf. 523-27). The false etymology of
8t60pa•%io;, however irritating to future philologists, was evidently popular among ancient Greeks; 37as Seaford points out, these and all the other refer- ences connecting t0opagfpo; and the birth of Dionysos are important because "the... derivation could hardly have been popular unless the theme of Dionysos's birth was already characteristic of the early di- thyramb."38
Furthermore, vestiges of the motif of Dionysos's birth, which was so important for early cult-dithyramb, continued to surface in later dithyramb. The remains of Pindaric dithyramb, problematic though they be, do contain references to Semele and to the birth of Dionysos. The late fourth-century poet Timotheos seems to have been continuing a tradition when he entitled one of his "literary" dithyrambs leg~•kX; 'QSi;, "Semele's Labor" (PMG 792), in which "the cries of the goddess were realistically imitated, not without ludicrous results."40 Based on these and similar references, some scholars have asserted that virtually any composition treating Semele's labor was assumed by classical audiences to be a dithyramb.41
Dionysos' first birth, then, was precipitated by Semele's Kepauv6;- induced demise. oywicpcupv6o( would have been an especially appro- priate word to describe Semele's death at the moment of her union with Zeus-as-thunderbolt; indeed, the ouv- prefix (itself possibly a legacy of dithyramb's "characteristic" penchant for compounds) might suggest
performance clearly not to be missed. Semele's unconventional lying-in figures in the Orphic hymn to Semele (44.4 i~ 1eya ka;• ~sivaq •kaooaaao npqc6pcot cbyiit / &atpaoioto eitcoOUac Atb; poliota Kpovioto), where indeed the phrase -uppo6pwt caxyijt is precisely the kind of riddling periphrasis that Seaford asserts is typical of dithyrambic language (note 12 above). Cf. the
prologue of the Bakkhai (88 ff.). 4V"Die ,Wehen der Semele' ... waren als Inhalt von Dithyramben so
bekannt ... dass ein Ausdruck wie inuep caOxoivzr zIjv lleg•rxl j;0 iva ... ebenso verstindlich war, wie Platons Ausdruck Atov o o yv et;ct statt i t06paru-
0o;. . ., " W. H. Roscher, Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der griechischen und rd'mischen Mythologie, vol. 4 (Leipzig 1909-15) 670.
XYFKEPAYNOU 117
that Semele was "'blasted with" the birth of Dionysos.42 Her death was the necessary prelude to that birth, an event that seems to have been recounted almost exclusively in the narratives of cult dithyramb.
At this point I would like briefly to investigate another, highly speculative line of inquiry into the connections between KepaOv6; and Dionysos, one that concerns the Dionysiac mysteries and their own mythological infrastructure--a tradition quite different from the mate- rial discussed above. As Burkert has observed, "there is a rich variety of Bacchic mythology, but with regard to the mysteries one tale has commanded attention, perhaps too exclusively: the story of the Chtho- nian Dionysos born from Persephone and slaughtered by the Titans, the ancestors of man. This myth is explicitly connected with the mysteries by several authors."43 Now the mysteries of Dionysos have remained just that; to speculate about them is, like the god himself, both tantalizing and dangerous-the more so when our reconstruction of those mysteries is based, as it must be, on vague evidence from late sources.44 Yet some speculation seems justified, if only because the Dionysiac mysteries, in common with other mysteries, "aimed at a blessed state in the after- world,"45 and could have shared some common features with other cults, such as that of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis, about which we do know a bit more.46 Proceeding by analogy from the Eleusinian mysteries (a method that is tentative in nature, at best) and by reconsideration of the mythic narrative of Dionysiac initiation, I hope to suggest how, quite apart from any reference to Semele,
y•-yepawv6'o could have had
special significance for the mysteries of Dionysos and for dithyrambic celebration.
At Eleusis, the appearance of a sudden brilliant light appears to have been the culmination of the initiation rite. Plutarch provides a famous description of the experiences of the initiand:47
42 Cf. Anth. Gr. 3.1.1 6paOeioav [sc. p1,grTv]
&v 68tveot cpaov~Rt; 16.7.3
4Ej q t di;
6va icepa~vtov.
W. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass. 1987) 73. See his note 38 (155) for a list of these authors and further relevant references.
44 Burkert (note 25 above) 294: "Our knowledge of the [Dionysiac] rites, myths, and doctrines remains, of course, very fragmentary."
Ibid. 293. 46On the common themes and features of mystery cults, see ibid. 276-78. 47Fr. 178; but see Mylonas' objections to drawing too many conclusions
from this passage, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton 1961) 264 ff. Seaford, "Dionysiac Drama" (note 7 above) 255, note 37, cites passages in Plato
stv I 1"o1tcot 1nope1at X i cjE0z1qEoot, Eta 'p•pb 00oM t Xo01 aUToI) 88tva &W cvrat(PK al (p1ic no" tfaiNf f8po
% i pqa i d0fg4og;
& S t ronto0 (pr& at Oaiminotov a'rnr1vt1loyev cat irot KcaOapo't Kci htetRoveg e&ctavTo, (pO)VK Icati opeict cit oeKy6at VT7X
daKo)o?dYtR O)v tep)ov Kai cpaagotWv ay ti(ov ) ovTE
At first there is wandering and roaming about that wears one out, gloomy paths that cause anxiety and lead nowhere; then, just before the Consummation itself, all manner of terrible things: shuddering and trembling and sweating and astonishment. But thereafter a wondrous light meets one; open country and meadows receive one, and in them are voices and dances and the august majesty of sacred music and of holy visions.
Seaford argues convincingly that "this contrast between sudden light and the preceding darkness is an emphasized feature of mystic initia- tion""48-a literal enlightenment for the initiand--and it is tempting to imagine that a comparable flash of light was central to the mysteries of Dionysos. For, although we cannot know how the abrupt appearance of this (pa; 0t Oacg6otov was stage-managed during the Eleusinian ceremony, the natural referent for such a phenomenon would certainly have been a bolt of lightning as it suddenly illuminates a landscape.
Seaford offers further details of the Eleusinian flash of light:
Now this mystic light seems, at least at Eleusis, to have been identified with the deity... with the divine child whose birth was announced by the hierophant bin6 noi316nt p{. One identification of this child was as Ploutos, whom Pindar,
that seem to mirror the language of mystic initiation: Phaedo 69c, Symp. 210e (the "Ascent" passage), and Phdr. 247a-254c. The diction of the latter (esp. 250b-c) bears the most striking resemblances to Plutarch.
48 "Dionysiac Drama" (note 7 above) 256; cf. Burkert's comment that "there is a dynamic paradox of death and life in all the mysteries associated with the opposites of night and day [and] darkness and light ... ." (note 43 above, 101). Seaford cites Dio Chrys. 12.33, where of particular interest is the phrase orc'6oo Kai clt (porob
va•ll aoi'riot (sc. the initiand) <patvohvowv. See
Seaford 256 note 45 for additional references to relevant secondary material.
EYFKEPAYNOO 119
speaking of the mystic doctrine of life after death, calls
If, as at Eleusis, this mystic light was "an emphasized feature" of Dionysiac initiation, and if this rite also referred to the birth of a child
nR6 no r•X t n iupi, a divine child with whom that ritual xr p would have been identified-then that child could only have been Dionysos, whose birth was signalled by a fiery bolt of lightning.5 For iKpauv6g is crucial to both of the principal mythic narratives associated with that event: that of Semele keraunoumene, and that of the Titans blasted by Zeus's thunderbolt for their crime against the infant god.
It is to the latter of the two myths that I would now like to turn. Typical of the "tales of suffering gods" that gave the initiation rituals their narrative structure,51 the tale of the chthonic Dionysos was central to the Dionysiac mysteries, as well as to the Orphic system of belief that owed so much to Dionysiac cult.52 It provided an account of how
49 Ibid. 256 with note 46. It is worth noting that at Eleusis the child was sometimes identified with "Iakchos-Dionysos, son of Persephone" (see Burk- ert, note 25 above, 288).
5 For the identification of lightning with fire, cf. Artemid. 2.96 ic Epauvb6 o86vv oazv ~Xo ij ntip. Most of his chapter about fire-6 nepi pnp6 X6yo' - is in fact about
icepapv6;, and the two terms are used interchangeably through-
out his discussion. 51 Burkert (note 25 above) 277. 52 For Dionysiac myth as central to Orphic belief, see Burkert (note 25
above) 297. It was the Titans' murder of Dionysos that was especially impor- tant for Orphism, as Jeanmaire's comment indicates: "l y a apparence que le mythe de la 'passion' et du d6membrement de Dionysos occupe une place centrale et eminente dans la r6velation qu'apportaient les &crits orphiques" (Dionysos: Historie du culte de Bacchus [Paris 1951] 404). W. K. C. Guthrie describes this myth as "what must have been to the worshipper the central point of Orphic story" (Orpheus and Greek Religion [2nd ed., London 1952]107); cf. M. Detienne, Dionysos mis A mort (Paris 1977) 165, 197, and Erwin Rohde, Psyche (8th ed., New York 1925) 341.
Orphic borrowings from the Dionysiac mysteries would account for many shared motifs, as discussed by both Burkert (note 25 above) 293-301 and M. L. West, The Orphic Poems (Oxford 1983) 15 ff. Jeanmaire 400 noted that Orphism grew up in milieux that had proved hospitable to Dionysiac cult, which fact would further account for an attraction between the two. The argument for Dionysiac genealogy of much Orphic material stands to gain from Rohde's proposition that Orphism began as a kind of "reform" aimed at restoring what Jeanmaire, in his summary of Rohde's account, refers to as "le charactere primitif" of early Dionysiac cult (395); cf. Rohde 335-36.
120 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
Dionysos (here the son of Zeus and Persephone) was killed, dismem- bered, and then eaten by the Titans. For this the Titans were punished. Struck by Zeus's lightning bolt, they were hurled to Tartaros but eventually resurrected as the present race of men, who sprang from the Titans' ashes; the god himself was also restored. This myth of Dionysos and the Titans suggests further reasons for believing that there was an association between the celebration of the mysteries, o~lyepauv6o0, and dithryramb.
One important series of texts seems to recapitulate this Dionysiac tradition, and might shed further light on it. The South Italian gold funerary leaves, in which punishment by lightning is prominently featured, have been variously referred to as "Orphic" or "Bacchic"; given the centrality to Orphism of Dionysiac myth and tradition, that confusion is hardly surprising." (Indeed, the ancient tradition that Orpheus founded the Dionysiac mysteries suggests that what we find in "Orphic" texts has close affinities to earlier Dionysiac cult.54) For the
53 The essential discussion of the funerary gold leaves is to be found in Giinther Zuntz, Persephone (Oxford 1971) 277-393. Zuntz derided the "general acceptance of this [Orphic] designation, with its vast and vague implications" (278); instead, he champions the theory that "those buried with these particular tablets had been killed by lightning," and thus were given special burial (as witness Artemidoros 2.9 o6l& y&p oi Kepauv •ohrCevq t; gTriOevrat, &6a ' itou av
agrees that the leaves refer to real people who died in this way; elsewhere he seems persuaded that the Hipponion lamella (ca. 400 BCE), with its reference to bakchoi and mystai, positively identifies all of these texts as Dionysiac, related to the mysteries (note 25 above, 294; note 43 above, 34. On the Hipponion leaf, see G. Pugliese Carratelli, PP 29 [1974] 108-26; M. L. West, ZPE 18 [1975] 229- 36; and G. Zuntz, WS 10 [1976] 129-51.) Seaford, "Immortality" (note 7 above) 9 calls the Orphic label "questionable," and generally finds a Dionysiac interpretation unattractive (4-5; cf. below, note 57), although he himself uses the Hipponion leaf to demolish Zuntz's claims that the leaves are Orphic ( 9, note 34). Jeanmaire, Dionysos (note 52 above) 396 allows that the leaves allude to Dionysiac cult, but is reluctant positively to identify the leaves as
Orphic. 54 Orpheus as founder of Dionysiac mysteries: Anth. Pal. 7.9.5 (Damage-
[Dionysum] love et Luna [natum], cui sacra Orphica putantur confici. Citing a Macedonian epitaph, Diogenes Laertius (1.5) reports a tradition that Orpheus was slain by a thunderbolt: Opif'Ka XptaoX?prljv r-8' 'Opcpza Moact gOcayav / ev ?dAvev iWtCp8kOV Ze;
•;io,6ev0t I ket.
LYFKEPAYNOX 121
purposes of the present discussion, it will be assumed that the leaves do refer to Dionysiac material--either because they are themselves "Bac- chic," or because, as Orphic documents, they naturally contain refer- ences to the Dionysiac mythology.
Seaford's reading of the leaves stresses the crucial role played by the Titans. Although he argues against a Dionysiac context for the texts' references to icEpauv6;, some of the points he makes about the Titans can in fact be assimilated to a Dionysiac interpretation. Seaford asserts that in the South Italian funerary texts, the deceased was strongly identified with the Titans, thought to be the ancestors of the present race of men.55 The initiate/sup iant-"almost certainly the dead person arrived in the underworld" ---claims in these texts to be of the race of the gods, to have been struck by lightning, and subsequently to have paid the penalty for his unjust actions. With reference to icpaupv6, the three leaves from the A series have nearly identical formulae describing the subjects' punishment by lightning: cf. &aoepophk?Xia ipauv6ot (A.1.4) and &ovrponijt Kepp)vCo(v) (A.2.5); the text of A.3 is garbled but seems to me to give the latter phrase as well; icpawvo, at any rate, is clear (verso vv. 2-3).
Unlike Seaford, most scholars believe that the crime to which these texts refer was in fact the eating of the infant Dionysos57-the central myth of the Dionysiac mysteries, as I have noted. Yet the preeminence
Because of its presumed debt to much earlier Dionysiac material, Or- phism would have been a natural vehicle for the transmission of elements from the Dionysiac mysteries. This hypothesis is obviously crucial to the present discussion, since I am arguing that the material under consideration is the residue of a Dionysiac tradition with which Arkhilokhos would have been familiar--a delicate suggestion, as I am aware.
55Seaford, "Immortality" (note 7 above) 5-6. The Titans are forerunners of man as far back as the H. h. Apoll. 336; cf. Plato Laws 701c.
5Ibid. 4. 57 Seaford argues that, in these texts, the crime for which the Titans were
punished was their rebellion against Zeus, and not the devouring of Dionysos. He cites Pindar Pyth. 4.291 ff. Xace S•k ZeDS acpotvo; Ttr&va;, Ev se Xp6v0t /
nah•ato t^iv0eo; /• •etat, suggesting that in the funerary leaves, as in the latter passage, Persephone has assumed charge of the Titans' punishment for that crime: leaves A.2 and A.3 similarly mention the poinai. Burkert (note 25 above) 298, representing the majority opinion of scholars, argues that Persephone's particular interest in this case is due to her personal grievance against the Titans for eating her chthonic child Dionysos. Seaford's own reason for dismissing these grounds for the Titan's punishment as weak-"Dionysos was after all quickly restored to life" ("Immortality," 8 note 26)-itself seems
122 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
of the Titans' role here, which Seaford argues is not of Dionysiac provenance, could be a survival from those mysteries. For it is possible to imagine a Dionysiac initiatory rite that gave pride of place (amid that strange flashing light?) not only to the birth of the god, but also to the crime of the Titans, brought low by Zeus's
K•patv6; but ultimately
restored, just as Dionysos himself was rehabilitated. The restoration of both the god himself and the Titans would naturally have been central to the mysteries, analogous to the rebirth to which the initiand, the mortal descendant of the Titans, himself aspired. The restoration of the Titans figures prominently in the South Italian leaves, where the initiate, like the Titans, claims "that he has flown off the circle of heavy grief and misery.",58 That claim, in fact, is consonant with a detail of the Dionysiac initiation provided by Demosthenes: the initiands' ritual pronouncement that they have "escaped from evil and found the better":
V * T V 59
C(pl)yov Kcaov, eqpov algetvov. If the Titans' crime and punishment were so featured as part of the
Dionysiac initiation rite, the initiand's identification with divine beings who were struck by lightning has compelling ramifications for the present discussion. For the cult hymn that was associated with the mystic initiation60 would likely have celebrated the initiand as "light- ning-blasted" like the Titans, and a la Semele. In that hymn, the initiand would have been assimilated to-literally
aov-Kepauveo(q--those mythic figures. The cultic tradition of the chthonic Dionysos thus indicates how
ouyKiepauv6om could have been appropriate to the worship of that god, apart from any role played by Semele. Yet the brief Orphic Hymn to Semele (admittedly of late date) indicates that a formal cult hymn could in fact have conflated the discrete traditions derived from the myths of
a bit weak: Greek gods were rarely given to forgive and forget, even if no harm had been done.
58 Seaford, "Immortality" (note 7 above) 4 note 11: "Not every claim appears on every leaf, but the leaves are clearly based on the same overall conception." For the Orphic doctrine of the "Circle of Necessity"' and the "Wheel of Birth," see Rohde (note 52 above) 342.
59 De Corona 18.259; see also Burkert (note 43 above) 96-97. 60 In his treatise De Musica, the third-century CE musicologist Aristides
Quintilianus comments on the role of the initiatory melodies and dances in the
Dionysiac mysteries, asserting that their purpose was to clear away the
depressive anxiety of less educated people (3.25). Plutarch's description of "voices and dances" in the passage cited above suggests that at Eleusis choral music and dance accompanied the initiatory rite as well.
EYFKEPAYNCO 123
Semele and of the Titans.61 The Hymn assumes continuity among motifs derived from both narratives: it ties together Semele's labor (3- 5), Persephone as stewardess of awards and punishments in the under- world (6), and the Mysteries themselves (9, 11). And the invocation of Semele, Persephone's protegee, at the end of the Orphic hymn-vbv ao, OEd, Xitotat, Koipri Ka8ugi';, &vaoa, /npTffvoov aieov aide et ti Otat
rn6pXetv--closely echoes that to Persephone herself in the Thurian gold leaves: 6j S ie np6pp0yv niryWlt 8paoq Eg eqayco0v
(A.2.7, A.3.7). At least late in the classical tradition, all of the divergent strands of Dionysiac myth were comfortably assimilated in a formal cult-hymnic context.
What we infer from the Eleusinian mysteries, then, suggests first that an important moment in initiatory ritual was the abrupt appear- ance of a brilliant light, which the sacred narrative explained. In the case of the Dionysiac mysteries, based on the myth of the chthonic Dionysos, the narrative referent for a flash of light would have been the lightning bolt that punished the Titans for eating the newborn deity. Evidence from various sources suggests that it could have been with the Titans, as well as with Dionysos himself, that the initiand was identified-that is to say, aov-K•pau)vo({oc.
Since ancient sources indicate that the climax of the initiation was accompanied by the performance of an actual cult hymn,62 it is not unreasonable to posit that, in the case of the Dionysiac mysteries, the hymn describing the birth of the god and the Titan's fiery punishment was a dithyramb. This, then, could have been another Dionysiac cult context in which
oauyi•pquv6o and dithyrambic perfor-
mance were quite naturally associated.63
61 See West 162 f. on Hyg. Fab.167, "designed to reconcile the story that Dionysos was the son of Persephone, killed by the Titans, with the story (ignored in the Orphic theogonies, so far as we can see) that he was the son of Semele, born amid lightning." But the Hymn to Semele does account for the Semele story in the context of the more usual Orphic tradition of the chthonic Dionvsos.
Plutarch's reference to "holy visions" at this moment in the rite is more difficult to assess; but perhaps not, if the Dionysiac rite involved a good deal of wine-drinking.
Pavlos Sfyroeras of Princeton University has offered an appealing reievaluation of the passages with which this paper began, in light of the foregoing discussion of the Dionysiac mysteries and cult. He points out that Arkhilokhos expresses his knowledge of how to <'x6pXat Mt06pagoilov in terms of the "visual" verb ol8a, a possible reference to the initiatory "illumination" that seems to be integral to the mysteries; A. "knows" because he has witnessed the Bacchic rite. With respect to the Bakkhai passage, Sfyroeras suggests first that Ica0foeo may allude to a cultic thronosis comparable to that
124 DANIEL MENDELSOHN
Both the Semele myth and the mythic narrative of the Dionysiac mysteries help to explain why aoyicepaov6o has survived in the context of Dionysiac dithyramb. For even if the religious potency of dithyramb became diluted by the end of the fifth century and afterwards, later evocations of the Dionysiac abandon characteristic of the genre were bound to assimilate its diction as well as its style, with all of their mythical and ritual associations. o(iyKcpaov6(o seems to have been trans- mitted into later literature from cult dithyramb, the genre in which the birth of the god Dionysos (and, perhaps, his mysteries as well) were most appropriately celebrated.
DANIEL MENDELSOHN Princeton University
of the Eleusinian cult (for which see W. Burkert, Homo Necans [Berkeley and Los Angeles 1983] 266-68); and secondly, that Pentheus is
ao•cupacvoOei0 in
an initiatory context, but that here the lightning destroys rather than illumi- nates-an abortive initiation consistent with Pentheus' failure to understand
