Iacchus

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In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Iacchus (also Iacchos, Iakchos) (Ancient Greek : Ἴακχος) was a minor deity, of some cultic importance, particularly at Athens and Eleusis in connection with the Eleusinian mysteries, but without any significant mythology. [1] He perhaps originated as the personification of the ritual exclamation Iacche! cried out during the Eleusinian procession from Athens to Eleusis. [2] He was often identified with Dionysus, perhaps because of the resemblance of the names Iacchus and Bacchus, another name for Dionysus. By various accounts he was a son of Demeter (or apparently her husband), or a son of Persephone, identical with Dionysus Zagreus, or a son of Dionysus.

Contents

During the Greco-Persian Wars, when the Attic countryside, deserted by the Greeks, was being laid waste by the Persians, a ghostly procession was supposed to have been seen advancing from Eleusis, crying out “Iacchus”. This miraculous event was interpreted as a sign of the eventual Greek victory at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC). [3] Iacchus was also possibly involved in an Eleusinian myth in which the old woman Baubo, by exposing her genitals, cheered up the mourning Demeter.

Cult

Iacchus was one of the deities, along with Demeter and Kore (Persephone), worshipped as part of the Eleusinian Mysteries. [4] The late 1st-century BC geographer Strabo called him the ἀρχηγέτην ("leader-in-chief" or "founder") "of the mysteries". [5]

Statue, temple, and feast day

The ruins of the Pompeion The Pompeion in Kerameikos Cemetery on March 1, 2021.jpg
The ruins of the Pompeion

There was a statue of Iacchus kept in a temple at Athens. According to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the statue held a torch and was by the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. [6] A passage from Aristophanes' The Frogs (405 BC) suggests it wore a crown of myrtle. [7] According to Pausanias, the statue was kept in a temple of Demeter located near the Dipylon gate, the main entrance to ancient Athens. The temple was perhaps the one that Plutarch referred to as the "so called Iaccheion". [8] Nearby was the Pompeion, the building which was the assembly point for the procession celebrating the Eleusinian Mysteries. According to the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda , Iacchus was also the name of his "feast" day, presumably the day that Iacchus was carried to Eleusis as part of the Eleusinian procession. [9]

Eleusinian procession

Iacchus and his statue played an important part in the Eleusinian procession. [10] Plutarch referred to the procession as ἐξαγόντων Ἴακχον (“leading out Iacchus”). [11] On 19 Boedromion (probably), the statue of Iacchus was taken from its temple and carried as part of the procession of the participants in the Mysteries who walked from Athens to Eleusis, arriving on 20 Boedromion (corresponding to the 28th or 29 September). [12] Along the way, the participants in the procession would cry out the cultic exclamation, Iacche! [13]

There was a special official associated with Iacchus and his statue called the Ἰακχαγωγός ('leader/bearer of Iacchus'), whose function presumably was to carry or accompany the statue of Iacchus during the procession. [14] The Ἰακχαγωγός is listed as one of the Eleusinian officials receiving an endowment (c. 160–170 AD), [15] appears in a list of Eleusinian priests given by the 2nd-century AD Julius Pollux, [16] and had a reserved seat in the prohedria ("seats in front") of the Theater of Dionysus at Athens. [17] An incumbent of the office (126/7 AD) is mentioned on four dedications. [18]

A parody of the Eleusinian procession appears in Aristophanes' comedy The Frogs , set in Hades (the underworld). [19] There a chorus of dead mystics, singing and dancing in procession, chant their "hymn to Iacchus": "O Iacchus, Iacchus O!", and sing,

Iacchus, here abiding in temples most reverend,
Iacchus, O Iacchus,
come to dance in this meadow;
to your holy mystic bands
Shake the leafy crown
around your head, brimming
with myrtle,
Boldly stomp your feet in time
to the wild fun-loving rite,
with full share of the Graces, the holy dance, sacred
to your mystics. [20]

and,

Awake, for it has come tossing torches in hand,
Iacchos, Oh Iacchos,
the light-bringing star of our nocturnal rite.
Now the meadow brightly burns
Old men's knees start to sway.
They shake away their pains
and the long cycles of ancient years
Through your holy rite.
Beaming with your torch,
lead forth to the flowering stretch of marsh
the youth that makes your choruses, o blessed one! [21]

and,

Now then
Summon the god of the hour with your songs
the partner of this dance of ours.
Iacchus, honored by all, deviser of our festal song
most sweet, follow us here
to the goddess and show us how
you travel a long road with ease.
Iacchus, lover of the dance, lead me onward, [22]

The Lenaea

Iacchus also played a role in the Lenaia, the winter Athenian festival of Dionysus. [23] According to the scholiast on the Frogs of Aristophanes, participants at the Lenaia responded to the command to "Invoke the god" with the invocation, "Hail, Iacchos, son of Semele, thou giver of wealth." [24] According to the scholiast, the command to call on the god was proclaimed by the Daduchos, a high Eleusinian official [25]

At Delphi?

The name Iacchus—identified with Dionysus—was also possibly associated with cultic ritual at Delphi. [26] Sophocles' Antigone , referring to nocturnal rites occurring on Mount Parnassus above Delphi, contains the invocation:

O Leader of the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire, overseer of the chants in the night, son begotten of Zeus, appear, my king, with your attendant Thyiads, who in night-long frenzy dance and sing you as Iacchus the Giver! [27]

Name and origin

Iacchus seems to have originated as the personification of the cultic exclamation, Iacche, cried out by participants during the Eleusinian procession, [28] with the exclamation itself, having apparently derived from ιαχή ("cry"), ιάχω ("to cry"). [29] It has been suggested that the cry "iacche’’ over time came to be interpreted as the vocative form of a name "Iacchus". [30] In addition to being the cultic cry, "iacchus" was also a term for a kind of song or hymn of worship, possibly unassociated with the god. [31]

Identification with Dionysus

Iacchus is associated with Dionysus at least as early as the 5th century BC. [32] The association may have arisen because of the homophony of the names Iacchus and Bacchus, one of the names of Dionysus. Two black-figure lekythoi (c. 500 BC) may represent the earliest evidence for such an association. The nearly-identical vases, one in Berlin [33] and the other in Rome, [34] depict Dionysus along with the inscription IAKXNE, a possible miswriting of IAKXE. [35]

More certain early evidence can be found in the works of the 5th-century BC Athenian tragedians Sophocles and Euripides. [36] In Sophocles' Antigone (c. 441 BC), an ode to Dionysus begins by addressing Dionysus as the "God of many names" (πολυώνυμε), who rules over the glens of Demeter's Eleusis, and ends by identifying him with "Iacchus the Giver", who leads "the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire" and whose "attendant Thyiads" dance in "night-long frenzy". [37] And in a fragment from a lost play, Sophocles describes Nysa, Dionysus' traditional place of nurture: "From here I caught sight of Nysa, haunt of Bacchus, famed among mortals, which Iacchus of the bull's horns counts as his beloved nurse". [38] In Euripides' Bacchae (c. 405 BC), a messenger, describing the Bacchic revelries on mount Cithaeron, associates Iacchus with Bromius, another of the names of Dionysus, saying, they "began to wave the thyrsos ... calling on Iacchus, the son of Zeus, Bromius, with united voice." [39]

An inscription found on a stone stele (c. 340 BC), found at Delphi, contains a paean to Dionysus, which describes the travels of Dionysus to various locations in Greece where he was honored. [40] From Thebes, where he was born, he first went to Delphi where he displayed his "starry body", and with "Delphian girls" took his "place on the folds of Parnassus", [41] then next to Eleusis, where he is called "Iacchus":

And in your hand brandishing your night-
lighting flame, with god-possessed frenzy
you went to the vales of Eleusis
...
where the whole people of Hellas'
land, alongside your own native witnesses
of the holy mysteries, calls upon you
as Iacchus: for mortals from their pains
you have opened a haven without toils. [42]

Strabo says that Greeks "give the name 'Iacchus' not only to Dionysus but also to the leader-in-chief of the mysteries". [43] For the identification of Iacchus with Dionysus in an Orphic context see Orphic Hymn 42.4, 49.3. [44]

Dionysus Zagreus

In particular Iacchus was identified with Dionysus Zagreus, who was a son of Zeus and Persephone. [45] This Orphic Dionysus was, as an infant, attacked and dismembered by the Titans, but later reborn as Dionysus, the wine-god son of Zeus and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, the first king of Thebes. As noted above, Sophocles mentions "Iacchus of the bull's horns", and according to the 1st-century BC historian Diodorus Siculus, it was this older Dionysus who was represented in painting and sculpture with horns, because he “excelled in sagacity and was the first to attempt the yoking of oxen and by their aid to effect the sowing of the seed”. [46] Arrian, the 2nd-century Greek historian, wrote that it was to this Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone, "not the Theban Dionysus, that the mystic chant ‘Iacchus’ is sung". [47] And the 2nd-century poet Lucian refers to the "dismemberment of Iacchus". [48]

Nonnus

The 4th- or 5th-century poet Nonnus, associates the name Iacchus with a "third" Dionysus. [49] He describes the Athenian celebrations given to the first Dionysus Zagreus son of Persephone, the second Dionysus Bromios son of Semele, and the third Dionysus Iacchus:

They [the Athenians] honoured him as a god next after the son of Persephoneia, and after Semele's son; they established sacrifices for Dionysos late born and Dionysos first born, and third they chanted a new hymn for Iacchos. In these three celebrations Athens held high revel; in the dance lately made, the Athenians beat the step in honour of Zagreus and Bromios and Iacchos all together. [50]

Herodotus' "Iacchus"

Possibly the oldest testimony related to Iacchus, is given by the 5th-century Greek historian Herodotus. [51] According to Herodotus, Dicaeus an Athenian exile told the story that, he and the former Spartan king Demaratus, who had become an advisor to the Persian king Xerxes I, witnessed a miraculous event which Dicaeus interpreted as predicting the defeat of the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), during the Greco-Persian Wars:

Dicaeus son of Theocydes, an Athenian exile who had become important among the Medes, said that at the time when the land of Attica was being laid waste by Xerxes' army and there were no Athenians in the country, he was with Demaratus the Lacedaemonian on the Thriasian plain and saw advancing from Eleusis a cloud of dust as if raised by the feet of about thirty thousand men. They marvelled at what men might be raising such a cloud of dust and immediately heard a cry. The cry seemed to be the “Iacchus” of the mysteries, and when Demaratus, ignorant of the rites of Eleusis, asked him what was making this sound, Dicaeus said, “Demaratus, there is no way that some great disaster will not befall the king's army. Since Attica is deserted, it is obvious that this voice is divine and comes from Eleusis to help the Athenians and their allies. If it descends upon the Peloponnese, the king himself and his army on the mainland will be endangered. If, however, it turns towards the ships at Salamis, the king will be in danger of losing his fleet. Every year the Athenians observe this festival for the Mother and the Maiden, and any Athenian or other Hellene who wishes is initiated. The voice which you hear is the ‘Iacchus’ they cry at this festival.” To this Demaratus replied, “Keep silent and tell this to no one else. If these words of yours are reported to the king, you will lose your head, and neither I nor any other man will be able to save you, so be silent. The gods will see to the army.” Thus he advised, and after the dust and the cry came a cloud, which rose aloft and floated away towards Salamis to the camp of the Hellenes. In this way they understood that Xerxes' fleet was going to be destroyed. Dicaeus son of Theocydes used to say this, appealing to Demaratus and others as witnesses. [52]

However, while the "cloud of dust" and the ritual cry "Iacchus" are apparent references to the Eleusinian procession, no explicit reference is made by Herodotus to Iacchus' statue, nor in fact to the god himself— either here or elsewhere. [53] Some scholars have taken this passage as evidence that, for Herodotus, Iacchus was not yet a god. [54] This story, associating Iacchus with such an important Greek victory, presumably led to an increase in his fame, popularity and importance throughout Greece, [55] and so conceivably, helped to establish Iacchus as a god.

Genealogy

Iacchus, when identified with Dionysus, as he was at the Lenaia in Athens (see above), was considered to be the son of Zeus and Semele, [56] and when identified with Dionysus Zagreus, was considered to be the son Zeus and Persephone. [57] However, several sources associate Iacchus (or Dionysus/Iacchus) with Demeter, either explicitly or implicitly, as her son. [58] The earliest such source, a 4th-century BC vase fragment at Oxford, shows Demeter holding the child Dionysus on her lap. [59] Diodorus Siculus tells us about a "second Dionysus" (i.e. Dionysus Zagreus) who "the writers of myths relate, was born to Zeus by Persephonê, though some say it was Demeter". [60] By the 1st-century BC, Demeter suckling Iacchus had become such a commonplace, that the Latin poet Lucretius could use it as an apparently recognizable example of a lover's euphemism. [61] A scholiast on the 2nd-century AD Aristides, explicitly names Demeter as Iacchus' mother. [62]

By other accounts apparently, Iacchus was the husband of Demeter. [63] And according to Nonnus, Iacchus was the son of Dionysus and the nymph Aura, who was the daughter of the Titan Lelantos and the Oceanid Periboia (or Cybele?). [64]

The anasyrma of Baubo

Iacchus was possibly involved in an Eleusinian myth concerning Demeter. [65] Following the abduction by Hades of her daughter Persephone, Demeter visits Eleusis. Because she is in mourning for her lost daughter, Demeter refuses the offered hospitality of her Eleusinian hosts. Nevertheless, she is somehow made to laugh, and breaking her fast, finally accepts the offered food and drink. There are two versions of the story. In the earliest version, given in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, an old servant woman Iambe makes Demeter laugh by telling her obscene jokes. In an apparent later Orphic version of the story, the old woman Baubo makes Demeter laugh by lifting her skirts (an anasyrma ) thereby exposing her genitals. One account of this second version, suggests the possible involvement of Iacchus. [66] The 2nd-century Christian apologist Clement of Alexandria, in giving an account of this story, attributes the following lines of verse to Orpheus:

This said, she drew aside her robes, and showed
A sight of shame; child Iacchus was there,
And laughing, plunged his hand below her breasts.
Then smiled the goddess, in her heart she smiled,
And drank the draught from out the glancing cup. [67]

Notes

  1. ↑ Graf 2005, "Iacchus"; Hard, p. 134; Grimal, s.v. Iacchus, p. 224; Tripp, s.v. Iacchus; Rose, Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. Iacchus; Smith, s.v. Iacchus.
  2. ↑ Compare with Hymenaios, whose name derived from a traditional wedding-cry, see Hard, p. 223.
  3. ↑ Herodotus, 8.65.
  4. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 125.
  5. ↑ Strabo, 10.3.10; Farnell, p. 146. However Farnell, p. 148, arguing that Iacchus was a late addition to the Eleusinian Mysteries, discounts Iacchus as "founder of the mysteries" saying: "if Strabo, in styling [Iacchus] the ἀρχηγέτης τῶν μυστηρίων, means more than that he led the mystae down the saced way to the mystic shrine, we need not be influenced by Strabo against better evidence."
  6. ↑ Pausanias, 1.2.4, 1.37.4.
  7. ↑ Mylonas, p. 253; Aristophanes, Frogs 323–330.
  8. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, pp. 129–130; Graf 2005, "Iacchus"; Mylonas, pp. 253–254; Farnell, p. 147; Plutarch, Aristides 27.3.
  9. ↑ Suda, s.v. Ἴακχος (iota,16); Rose, Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. Iacchus; Harrison, p. 542; Farnell, p. 147.
  10. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 125; Versnel, p. 25; Kerényi 1967, pp. 62–66; Mylonas, pp. 252–258.
  11. ↑ Plutarch, Themistocles 15.1; Graf 2005, "Iacchus". See also Plutarch, Camillus 19.6, Alcibiades 34.3, Phocion 28.1.
  12. ↑ Leaving Athens on 19th Boedromion, and arriving in Eleusis on the 20th, are the most likely dates for the procession, see Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, pp. 125, 129; Versnel, p. 25; Kerényi 1967, p. 62; Mylonas, p. 252; Dow, pp. 113–115; Farnell, p. 147 n. a.
  13. ↑ Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 149; Graf 2005, "Iacchus"; Farnell, p. 147; Herodotus, 8.65; Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 2.16.3. See also Aristophanes, Frogs 316–336, 340–353, 396–404.
  14. ↑ Clinton 1974, p. 96; Farnell, p. 147.
  15. ↑ The "Eleusinian endowment": Inscriptiones Graecae ||2 1092.31.
  16. ↑ Julius Pollux, Onomasticon I 35.
  17. ↑ Inscriptiones Graecae II2 5044.2.
  18. ↑ Inscriptiones Graecae ||2 3733.20–21, 3734.1–3, 4771.11–12, 4772.7–9.
  19. ↑ Versnel, p. 24; Kerényi 1967, p. 9; Harrison, pp. 540–541.
  20. ↑ 323–336.
  21. ↑ 340–353.
  22. ↑ 396–404.
  23. ↑ Guía, pp. 109–113; Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 149. Guía, p. 110, suggests that at the Lenaia, Iacchus, in addition to being a young man, and torchbearer, was possibly personified as a child, 'The son of Semele'.
  24. ↑ Translation by Farnell, p. 149 (citing scholiast on Frogs 482). See also Guía, pp. 103, 109; Bowie, A. M., p. 233; Rose, Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. Iacchus; Versnel, p. 25; scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs 479 (Rutherford, p. 332); PMG 879 (Page, p. 466).
  25. ↑ (Farnell, p. 149; Guía, p. 103).
  26. ↑ Guía, pp. 109–113, which adds the qualification "at least in Attic tragedy" (p. 110).
  27. ↑ Sophocles, Antigone , 1146–1154.
  28. ↑ Harrison, p. 413; Foucart, pp. 110–113; Persson, p. 151; Guthrie, pp. 287–288; Mylonas, p. 238; Versnel, p. 26; Clinton 1974, p. 96; Grimal, s.v. Iacchus; Graf 2005, "Iaccus"; Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 149; Guía, p. 112, who asserts that "the figure of Iacchos probably originated in Athens as a ritual song or cry, not initially in relation to the mysteries and the Eleusinian festival, but in the context of the agricultural festivals of Dionysos".
  29. ↑ Versnel, p. 27; Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 127.
  30. ↑ Versnel, p. 27; Encinas Reguero, p. 350.
  31. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 128; Guía, p. 110 n. 46; Liddell & Scott, s.v. Ἴακχος; Suda Ἴακχος (iota,16). For example see Euripides, The Trojan Women 1230: νεκρῶν ἴακχον, where ἴακχον is used to denote a threnody, a lament for the dead, thus Coleridge translates the line as "Wail for the dead"; Cyclops 68–71, where the song "Iacchos Iacchos" is sung to Aphrodite; Palamedes fr. 586 Kannicht [apud Strabo, 10.3.13] (= fr. 586 Nauck) (Collard and Cropp, pp. 56, 57), where the word ἰάκχοις, translated by Collard and Cropp as "revel-cries", is used to refer to the sound of Dionysiac tambourines (τυμπάνων).
  32. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 125; Bowie, A. M., p. 232; Harrison, pp. 540–542.
  33. ↑ Antikensammlung Berlin F1961 (Beazley Archive 302354).
  34. ↑ National Etruscan Museum 42884, (Beazley Archive 9017720).
  35. ↑ Versnel, pp. 32 ff.; Bowie, A. M., p. 232.
  36. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 127; Graf 2005, "Iacchus".
  37. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2013, p. 279, Bowie, A. M., pp. 232–233; Sophocles, Antigone 1115–1125, 1146–1154; Versnel, pp. 23–24. Jebb, in his note to line 1146 χοράγ᾽ ἄστρων, understands the Sophoclean use of the name "Iacchus" as specifically denoting the Eleusinian Dionysus.
  38. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2013, pp. 279–280; Bowie, A. M., p. 233; Sophocles, fragment 959 Radt (Lloyd-Jones, pp. 414, 415).
  39. ↑ Encinas Reguero, p. 350; Jiménez San Cristóbal 2013, p. 282, with n. 41; Bowie, A. M., p. 233; Euripides, Bacchae 725. Jiménez San Cristóbal also sees possible associations between Iacchus and Dionysus in Euripides: Ion 1074–1086, The Trojan Women 1230, Cyclops 68–71, and fr. 586 Kannicht (apud Strabo, 10.3.13) = fr. 586 Nauck (Collard and Cropp, pp. 56, 57).
  40. ↑ Bowie, E. L., pp. 101–110; Fantuzzi, pp. 189, 190, 191; PHI Greek Inscriptions, BCH 19 (1895) 393.
  41. ↑ 21–24, Bowie, E. L., pp. 101–102.
  42. ↑ 27–35, Bowie, E. L., p. 102.
  43. ↑ Strabo, 10.3.10.
  44. ↑ Athanassakis and Wolkow, pp. 37, 41.
  45. ↑ Parker, p. 358; Grimal, s.v. Iacchus; Tripp, s.v. Iacchus; Smith, s.v. Iacchus.
  46. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2013, pp. 279–280; Diodorus Siculus, 4.4.2, see also 3.64.1–2.
  47. ↑ Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 2.16.3
  48. ↑ Lucian, De Saltatione ("The Dance") 39 (Harmon, pp. 250, 251).
  49. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.26–28 I pp. 4, 5 with Rouse' note a; Bernabé and García-Gasco, p. 109.
  50. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 48.962–968 III pp. 492, 493.
  51. ↑ Versnel, p. 23; Kerényi 1967, pp. 7–10; Harrison, p. 542; Herodotus, 8.65. Versnel describes the Herododean passage as the "oldest testimony". However, Encinas Reguero, p. 350, says only that it "could be the oldest". Though the event described by Herodotus supposedly took place prior to the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC, as Encinas Reguero points out, it is not known whether Herodotus wrote before or after the reference made to Iacchus in Sophocles' Antigone (c. 442–441 BC). Also possibly older testimony are the two lekythoi vases (c. 500 BC) mentioned above, as well as certain inscriptions from Berezan and Olbia ("possibly as early as the 6th century BC") noted by Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 127.
  52. ↑ Herodotus, 8.65.
  53. ↑ Versnel, p. 23; Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 126, p. 127.
  54. ↑ Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 127; see for example Foucart, p. 110: Au temps des guerres médiques, il n'avait pas encore de personnalité, il désignait les chants et les acclamations poussées par le cortège des mystes, lorsqu'il se rendait d'Athènes a Éleusis. C'est le sens qu'il a très nettement dans le récit qu'Hérodote a fait du prodige qui annonça le désastre des Perses à Salamine. Dans la plaine déserte de Thria, un exilé athénien, au service du Grand Roi, aperçut un nuage de poussière, comme celui qu'aurait soulevé une troupe de trente mille hommes, et il entendit un grand bruit de cris qui lui semblèrent être le Iacchos mystique, xαί οἱ φαίνεσθαι τὴν φωνὴν εἶναι τὸν μυστιxὸν ἴαxχον.
  55. ↑ Mylonas, p. 255; Farnell, p. 147.
  56. ↑ Scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs 479 (Rutherford, p. 332).
  57. ↑ Parker, p. 358; Grimal, s.v. Iacchus.
  58. ↑ Marcovich, p. 23; Parker, p. 358; Graf 1974, p. 198.
  59. ↑ Marcovich, p. 23; Bianchi, p. 18; Graf 1974, p. 198; Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Inv. 1956-355.
  60. ↑ Diodorus Siculus, 3.64.1.
  61. ↑ Parker, p. 358 n. 139; Lucretius, 4.1168–1169. Arnobius, Adversus Gentes (also called Adversus Nationes) 3.10 (p. 157) referring to the Lucretius verse, lists "the full-breasted Cerses nursing Iaccus" as a sight "the mind longs" to see. Compare with Photius, s.v. Ἴακχος and Suda, s.v. Ἴακχος (iota,16), which identify Iacchus with Διόνυσος ἐπὶ τῷ μαστῷ ('Dionysus at the breast').
  62. ↑ Parker, p. 358 n. 139; scholiast on Aristides, Vol. 3, p. 648 213, 18 Dindorf.
  63. ↑ Hard, p. 134; Grimal, s.v. Iacchus; Tripp, s.v. Iacchus; Rose, Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. Iacchus; scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs 324 (Rutherford, p. 316).
  64. ↑ Bernabé and García-Gasco, p. 109; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.26–28 I pp. 4, 5, 48.245–247 III pp. 440–443, 48.848–968 III pp. 484–493. At 48.245–247, Nonnus seems to imply that Aura is the daughter of Lelantos by his wife Periboia, however at 1.27–28, he calls Aura the "daughter of Cybele".
  65. ↑ Marcovich, pp. 20–27; Olender, p. 85 ff.; Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 149; Kerényi 1951, pp. 242–244.
  66. ↑ Farnell, pp. 147–148, is dismisive of Iacchus' involvement, saying "It is of no importance that a late and reckless composer of an 'Orphic' hymn chooses to introduce him into the old Eleusinian myth of Baubo", noting that "the soundness of the text may be doubted, see Lobeck, Aglaoph."
  67. ↑ Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus ["Exhortation to the Greeks"] (Butterworth, pp. 42, 43 [= Orphic fr. 52 Kern]. For a discussion regarding the uncertainty of Clement's text, see Marcovich, pp. 20–27. See also O'Higgins, p. 194 n. 53.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demeter</span> Greek goddess of the harvest, grains, and agriculture

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although Demeter is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Underworld. She is also called Deo. In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Like her other siblings except Zeus, she was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Euripides</span> 5th-century BC Athenian playwright

Euripides was a Greek tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete. There are many fragments of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hades</span> God of the underworld in Greek mythology

Hades, in the ancient Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed joint rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog of the underworld, standing at his side.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persephone</span> Greek goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld

In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone, also called Kore or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld, who would later also take her into marriage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eleusinian Mysteries</span> Secret religious rites in ancient Greece

The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Eleusis in ancient Greece. They are considered the "most famous of the secret religious rites of ancient Greece". Their basis was a Bronze Age agrarian cult, and there is some evidence that they were derived from the religious practices of the Mycenean period. The Mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades, in a cycle with three phases: the descent (loss), the search, and the ascent, with the main theme being the ascent of Persephone and the reunion with her mother. It was a major festival during the Hellenic era, and later spread to Rome. Similar religious rites appear in the agricultural societies of the Near East and in Minoan Crete.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dionysus</span> Ancient Greek god of winemaking and wine

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus by the Greeks for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. As Dionysus Eleutherius, his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erechtheus</span> Archaic king of Athens

Erechtheus in Greek mythology was a king of Athens, the founder of the polis and, in his role as god, attached to Poseidon, as "Poseidon Erechtheus". The name Erichthonius is carried by a son of Erechtheus, but Plutarch conflated the two names in the myth of the begetting of Erechtheus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telephus</span> Son of Heracles in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Telephus was the son of Heracles and Auge, who was the daughter of king Aleus of Tegea. He was adopted by Teuthras, the king of Mysia, in Asia Minor, whom he succeeded as king. Telephus was wounded by Achilles when the Achaeans came to his kingdom on their way to sack Troy and bring Helen back to Sparta, and later healed by Achilles. He was the father of Eurypylus, who fought alongside the Trojans against the Greeks in the Trojan War. Telephus' story was popular in ancient Greek and Roman iconography and tragedy. Telephus' name and mythology were possibly derived from the Hittite god Telepinu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plutus</span> Greek god of wealth

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Plutus is the god and the personification of wealth, and the son of the goddess of agriculture Demeter and the mortal Iasion.

In Greek Mythology, Eumolpus was a legendary king of Thrace. He was described as having come to Attica either as a bard, a warrior, or a priest of Demeter and Dionysus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dionysia</span> Festivals of Dionysus in ancient Athens

The Dionysia was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia. The Dionysia actually consisted of two related festivals, the Rural Dionysia and the City Dionysia, which took place in different parts of the year. They were also an essential part of the Dionysian Mysteries.

The Lenaia was an annual Athenian festival with a dramatic competition. It was one of the lesser festivals of Athens and Ionia in ancient Greece. The Lenaia took place in Athens in Gamelion, roughly corresponding to January. The festival was in honour of Dionysus Lenaios. There is also evidence the festival also took place in Delphi.

Lycus is the name of multiple people in Greek mythology:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cult of Dionysus</span> Cult in Ancient Greece

The cult of Dionysus was strongly associated with satyrs, centaurs, and sileni, and its characteristic symbols were the bull, the serpent, tigers/leopards, ivy, and wine. The Dionysia and Lenaia festivals in Athens were dedicated to Dionysus, as well as the phallic processions. Initiates worshipped him in the Dionysian Mysteries, which were comparable to and linked with the Orphic Mysteries, and may have influenced Gnosticism. Orpheus was said to have invented the Mysteries of Dionysus. It is possible that water divination was an important aspect of worship within the cult.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thoas (king of Lemnos)</span> Greek mythological figure

In Greek mythology, Thoas was a son of the god Dionysus and Ariadne, the daughter of the Cretan king Minos. He was the king of Lemnos when the Lemnian women decided to kill all the men on the island. He was the only man to survive the massacre, having been saved by his daughter Hypsipyle. He is sometimes identified with the Thoas who was the king of the Taurians when Iphigenia was taken to the land of the Taurians and became a priestess of Artemis there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aura (mythology)</span> Divine personification of the breeze in Greek and Roman mythology

In Greek and Roman mythology, Aura is a minor wind goddess, whose name means "breeze". The plural form, Aurae is sometimes found to describe a group of breeze nymphs. According to the late antiquity writer Nonnus, Aura is the daughter of the Titan Lelantos and the mother, by Dionysus, of Iacchus, a minor deity connected with the Eleusinian mysteries, while Quintus Smyrnaeus makes the Aurae daughters of Boreas, the god of the north wind. Aurae was the title of a play by the Athenian comic poet Metagenes, who was contemporary with Aristophanes, Phrynichus, and Plato.

Lelantos or Lelantus is a minor mythological figure that appears in the late epic Dionysiaca by Nonnus of Panopolis, written in the early fifth century AD.

In Greek mythology, the name Chthonius or Chthonios may refer to:

In Greek mythology, the name Oenoe or Oinoe may refer to:

References

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