Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

672

Goat instead of Bull

infant god was exhibited at the Athenian Lenaia1. And I have
long since maintained that in the table, which on the same vases
is set before the dressed up post, we should recognise the prototype
of the dramatic stage2.

Beside the ritual directions of Mykonos and Athens we have a
rhetorical passage in which Clement of Alexandreia3 contrasts the
frenzy of Lenaean fiction with the calm of Christian truth :

' So Kithairon and Helikon and the mountains of the Odrysians and Thracians,
where men are initiated into error, have by reason of their mysteries been
divinised and hitched into hymns. For my part, fiction though they be, I can
ill brook all these disasters turned into tragedy ; but you have made the very
recital of your woes into plays, and you deem those that act them a delightful
sight. Nay, nay, let us take these dramas and Lenaean poets,—for the cup of
their folly is full,—let us wreath them of course with ivy4, while they babble
beyond measure in their Bacchic rite, and along with. their Satyrs, their mad
followers, and the whole chorus of demons to boot, let us relegate them to
a superannuated Helikon and Kithairon. But for ourselves, let us summon from
the heavens above Truth with luminous wisdom5 and the holy chorus of
prophets to come to the holy mountain of God.'

The scholiast, commenting on Clement's ' Lenaean poets,' lets fall
a brief but valuable hint:

'A rustic ode, sung over the wine-press, which ode itself included the rending
of Dionysos6.'

refer, not to the Lenaia at all, but to the secret rites of Anthesterion 12, when—as he
supposes—the BasUinna attended by her Gerairai was married to Dionysos, i.e. to a
dressed-up pillar in the old Dionysion ev M^vcus. But the arguments adduced in support
of his view by this learned and ingenious scholar strike me as being far from cogent. It
is, e.g., the merest assumption that the ritual marriage of the BasUinna took place on
Anthesterion 12 {infra p. 686). And to argue that the vases cannot represent the Lenaia,
because the Lenaia had no room for 'eine exklusive Frauenfeier,' is to forget that Le~naia
means ' the festival of the lenai' {supra p. 667 f.).
1 Supra p. 670, infra pp. 695, 699, 707.
• 2 Class. Rev. 1895 ix. 370 ft'., cp. id. 1907 xxi. 169^

3 Clem. Al. protr. 1. 2. 1 f. p. 3, 26 ff. Stahlin.

4 Cp. Corp. inscr. Att. iii. 1 no. 77, 21 (Athens, s. i A. D.), J. de Prott op. cit. p. 7 ff.
no. 3, 21, Michel Recueil iVInscr. gr. no. 692, 21 Tap.rjXi.Qi'os KirrdxreLs Aiovvaov di, on
which see Mommsen Feste d. Stadt Athen p.' 374 n. 7.

5 Clement is, I think, pointedly contrasting the Lenaean rite as described by the
scholiast on Aristophanes {supra p. 669) with Christian procedure. The former called
up Iakchos from below: the latter calls down Truth from above. The former relied for
its illumination on the torch of the daidoiichos: the latter has all the brilliance of celestial
wisdom. The former involved a revel-rout ranging an earthly mountain: the latter
witnesses inspired prophets pressing on towards Mt Zion.

6 Schol. Clem. Al. protr. p. 297, 4 ff. Stahlin \y]vat^ovTas' aypoiKLKiq uidr] eiri ru Xrjvu)
ddo/j.ei>7], 77 Kai clvtt] irepLeixev top Aiovvaov airapa-yfxbv. iravv de evcpvQs /cat %a/otros
efarXews to " klttw dvadrjaavres" redeLKep, bfxov p.ev to otl Aiop^acp rd Arjvaia dvaKetraL
evdet^dp-evos, bfxov be Kai los irapoiviq ravra Kai Trapoii>ovo~ii> avdpwwois Kai jiedvovcnv

<TVyK€Kp6T7)Tai.