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

688

Goat instead of Bull

an obsolete custom revived by the orator Lykourgos (c. 396—
323 B.C.), who passed a law to the effect that comedians should
compete in the theatre on the day of the Chytroi and that the
successful competitor should enter for the more important contest
of the City Dionysia1. This points to a comic contest as a time-
honoured institution at the Chytroi, later superseded by the more
brilliant shows of the City Dionysia, but restored in the fourth
century B.C. as a first heat or preliminary competition. Theatrical
displays of a quasi-comic character were certainly given at the
Anthesteria during the first or second century of our era2; for
Philostratos3 says of Apollonios :

' The story goes that he rebuked the Athenians for the way in which they
kept the Dionysiac festival in the month of Anthesterion. He supposed that
they were flocking to the theatre in order to hear solos and songs, choruses
and music, such as you get in comedy and tragedy. But, when he heard that,
as soon as the flute gave the signal, they danced with all sorts of contortions
and performed the epic and theological poems of Orpheus, playing the parts
of Horai or Nymphs or Bacchants, he broke out into open censure of their
conduct.'

Ten months later came the Rural Dionysia, a festival which
we have already taken to be the equivalent of the Lenaia4. As
such it would involve that ' rustic ode' which set forth the rending
of Dionysos and so furnished the original core of tragedy. In
short, the Anthesteria was an early festival of reproduction, at
which the begetting of Dionysos was celebrated with rites that
led on towards comedy ; the Rural Dionysia was another early
festival, at which the life-history of Dionysos was represented with
rites that developed into tragedy. It will doubtless be objected5
that Dikaiopolis, who in Aristophanes' Acharnians conducts a
private celebration of the Rural Dionysia6, equips his daughter
with a basket, his slave Xanthias with a phallos, and himself sings
a phallic song7,—a performance more comic than tragic. To

1 A. Westermann Biographi minores Brunswick 1845 p. 272, 39 ff.

2 Hence perhaps the curious and misleading statement of Diog. Laert. 3. 56 dlov
e/cetVot (the Attic tragedians) rerpaaL dpa/iacnv rjywvL^ovTO, AiovvaioLS, ArjvaLois, Ilavadrj-
vaiois, Xi/rpots, cSv to reraprov rjv HarvpiKov. ra 5e rerrapa 8pdp.ara eKaXelro rerpaXoyia.

3 Philostr. v. Apoll. 4. 21 p. 140 Kayser.

4 Supra pp. 666, 673.

5 The objection was at once pointed out to me by Mr F. M. Cornford.

6 Aristoph. Ach. 195 ff.

7 Cp. Plout. de cupid. divit. 8 i] irdrpLos tQp AiovvaLwv eoprr) to waXaiou eirepLirero
8r)fxoTLK:G)is /cat iXapuis, dpupopevs otvov /cat /cX^/mTts, elra rparyov tls el\nev, dXXos iax^Soov
dppLXou rjKoXovdeL Kop.ifav, eirl Trdcri de 6 <pa\\6s. d\Ad vvv ravra napopdraL /cat i)<pdvi<STa.i,
Xpvatop,dTO)v TrepMpepo/xtviop /cat ifxariuv TroXvreX&v /cat £evy&v iXavvop-^wv /cat vpoauTreLwv.
There is here, however, no definite indication of season, place, or date.