The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)

942

κήπους ὡσίουν ἐπιταφίους Ἀδώνιδι, Eustathius on Homer, Od. xi. 590.

943

Hippolytus, Refut. omn. haeres. v. 9, p. 168, ed. Duncker and Schneidewin; Socrates, Hist. Eccles. iii. 23, §§ 51 sqq. p. 204.

944

That Attis was killed by a boar was stated by Hermesianax, an elegiac poet of the fourth century b. c. (Pausanias, vii. 17); cp. Schol. on Nicander, Alex. 8. The other story is told by Arnobius (Adversus nationes, v. 5 sqq.) on the authority of Timotheus, an otherwise unknown writer, who professed to derive it ex reconditis antiquitatum libris et ex intimis mysteriis. It is obviously identical with the account which Pausanias mentions (l. c.) as the story current in Pessinus.

945

Pausanias, vii. 17; Julian, Orat. v. 177 B.

946

Ovid, Metam. x. 103 sqq.

947

On the festival see especially Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii.2 370 sqq.; Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités grecques et romaines, i. p. 1685 sq. (article “Cybèle”); W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 291 sqq.; id., Baumkultus, p. 572 sqq.

948

Julian, Orat. v. 168 c; Joannes Lydus, De mensibus, iv. 41; Arnobius, Advers. nationes, v. cc. 7, 16 sq.; Firmicus Maternus, De errore profan. relig. 27.

949

Julian, l. c. and 169 C.

950

Trebellius Pollio, Claudius, 4; Tertullian, Apologet. 25. For other references, see Marquardt, l. c.

951

Diodorus, iii. 59; Firmicus Maternus, De err. profan. relig. 3; Arnobius, Advers. nat. v. 16; Schol. on Nicander, Alex. 8; Servius on Virgil, Aen. ix. 116; Arrian, Tactica, 33. The ceremony described in Firmicus Maternus, c. 22 (nocte quadam simulacrum in lectica supinum ponitur et per numeros digestis fletibus plangitur… Idolum sepelis. Idolum plangis, etc.), may very well be the mourning and funeral rites of Attis, to which he had more briefly referred in c. 3.

952

On the Hilaria see Macrobius, Saturn. i. 21, 10; Julian, Orat. v. 168 D, 169 D; Damascius, Vita Isidori, in Photius, p. 345 A 5 sqq. ed. Bekker. On the resurrection, see Firmicus Maternus, 3, reginae suae amorem [Phryges] cum luctibus annuis consecrarunt, et ut satis iratae mulieri facerent aut ut paenitenti solacium quaererent, quem paulo ante sepelierant revixisse jactarunt… Mortem ipsius [i. e. of Attis] dicunt, quod semina collecta conduntur, vitam rursus quod jacta semina annuis vicibus † reconduntur [renascuntur, C. Halm]. Again cp. id. 22, Idolum sepelis. Idolum plangis, idolum de sepultura proferis, et miser cum haec feceris gaudes; and Damascius, l. c. τὴν τῶν ἱλαρίων καλουμένην ἐορτήν; ὅπερ ἑδήλου τὴν ἑξ ἄδου γεγονυῖαν ἡμῶν σωτερίαν. This last passage, compared with the formula in Firmicus Maternus, c. 22

θαρρεῖτε μύσται τοῦ θεοῦ σεσωμένου;

ἔσται γὰρ ἠμῖν ἐκ πόνων σωτηρία, makes it probable that the ceremony described by Firmicus, c. 22, is the resurrection of Attis.

953

Ovid, Fast. iv. 337 sqq.; Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 3. For other references see Marquardt and Mannhardt, ll. cc.

954

Pausanias, vii. 17; Arnobius, Adv. nationes, v. 6.; cp. Hippolytus, Refut. omn. haeres. v. 9, pp. 166, 168.

955

See above, p. 264 sq.

956

Firmicus Maternus, 27.

957

Above, p. 81.

958

Hippolytus, Ref. omn. haeres. v. cc. 8, 9, pp. 162, 168; Firmicus Maternus, De errore prof. relig. 3.

959

Julian, Orat. v. 174 a b.

960

Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums,5 i. 456, note 4; Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie, i. c. 724. Cp. Polybius, xxii. 20 (18).

961

The conjecture is that of Henzen in Annal. d. Inst. 1856, p. 110, referred to in Roscher, l. c.

962

See pp. 84, 231.

963

Article “Phrygia,” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, ninth ed. xviii. 853.

964

xii. 5, 3.

965

The myth, in a connected form, is only known from Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, cc. 13-19. Some additional details, recovered from Egyptian sources, will be found in the work of Adolf Erman, Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum, p. 365 sqq.

966

Le Page Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 1879, p. 110; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 614; Ad. Erman, l. c.; Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, i. § 56 sq.

967

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 13; Diodorus, i. 14; Tibullus, i. 7, 29 sqq.

968

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 8.

969

So Brugsch, op. cit. p. 617. Plutarch, op. cit. 39, says four days, beginning with the 17th of the month Athyr.

970

In the Alexandrian year the month Athyr corresponded to November. But as the old Egyptian year was vague, that is, made no use of intercalation, the astronomical date of each festival varied from year to year, till it had passed through the whole cycle of the astronomical year. From the fact, therefore, that, when the calendar became fixed, Athyr fell in November, no inference can be drawn as to the date at which the death of Osiris was originally celebrated. It is thus perfectly possible that it may have been originally a harvest festival, though the Egyptian harvest falls, not in November, but in April; cp. Selden, De diis Syris, p. 335 sq.; Parthey on Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, c. 39.

971

Brugsch, l. c. For a specimen of these lamentations see Brugsch, op. cit. p. 631 sq.; Records of the Past, ii. 119 sqq. For the annual ceremonies of finding and burying Osiris, see also Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum, 2 § 3; Servius on Virgil, Aen. iv. 609.

972

Brugsch, op. cit. p. 617 sq.; Erman, Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum, p. 377 sq.

973

Erman, l. c.; Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 68, 82; Tiele, History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 46.

974

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35. ὁμολογεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ τιτανικὰ καὶ νὺξ τελεία τοῖς λεγομένοις Ὀσίριδος διασπασμοῖς καὶ ταῖς ἀναβιώσεσι καὶ παλιγγενεσίαις, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς ταφάς.

975

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 39.

976

Tibullus, i. 7, 33 sqq.

977

Brugsch, op. cit. p. 621.

978

Servius on Virgil, Georg. i. 166.

979

Above, p. 267.

980

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 73, cp. 33; Diodorus, i. 88.

981

Plutarch, op. cit. 31; Herodotus, ii. 38.

982

Herrera, quoted by Bastian, Culturländer des alten Amerika, ii. 639.

983

Lefébure, Le mythe Osirien (Paris, 1874-75), p. 188.

984

Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum, 2, § 6, defensores eorum volunt addere physicam rationem, frugum semina Osirim dicentes esse; Isim terram, Tyfonem calorem: et quia maturatae fruges calore ad vitam hominum colliguntur et divisae a terrae consortia separantur et rursus adpropinquante hieme seminantur, hanc volunt esse mortem Osiridis, cum fruges recondunt, inventionem vero, cum fruges genitali terrae fomento conceptae annua rursus coeperint procreatione generari; Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. iii. 11, 31, ὁ δὲ Ὄσιρις παρ᾽ Αἰγυπτίος τὴν κάρπιμον παρίστησι δύναμιν, ἤν θρήνοις ἀπομειλίσσονται εἰς γῆν ἀφανιζομένην ἐν τῷ σπόρῳ. καὶ ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν καταναλισκομένην εὶς τὰς τροφάς.

985

Op. cit. 27, § 1.

986

Isis et Osiris, 21, αινῶ δὲ τομὴν ξύλου καὶ σχίσιν λίνου καὶ χοὰς χεομένας. διὰ τὸ πολλὰ τῶν μυστικῶν ἀναμεμῖχθαι τούτοις. Again, c. 42, τὸ δὲ ξύλον ἐν ταῖς λεγομέναις; Ὀσίριδος ταφαῖς τέμνοντες κατασκευάζουσι λάρνακα μηνοειδὴ.

987

See above, p. 304.

988

Lefébure, Le mythe Osirien, pp. 194, 198, referring to Mariette, Denderah, iv. 66 and 72.

989

Lefébure, op. cit. pp. 195, 197.

990

Birch, in Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 84.

991

Wilkinson, op. cit. iii. 63 sq.; Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i. §§ 56, 60.

992

Wilkinson, op. cit. iii. 349 sq.; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 621; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 20. In Plutarch l. c. Parthey proposes to read μυρίκης for μηθίδης, and this conjecture appears to be accepted by Wilkinson, l. c.

993

Lefébure, Le mythe Osirien, p. 191.

994

Lefébure, op. cit. p. 188.

995

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35. One of the points in which the myths of Isis and Demeter agree, is that both goddesses in their search for the loved and lost one are said to have sat down, sad at heart and weary, on the edge of a well. Hence those who had been initiated at Eleusis were forbidden to sit on a well. Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 15; Homer, Hymn to Demeter, 98 sq.; Pausanias, i. 39, 1; Apollodorus, i. 5, 1; Nicander, Theriaca, 486; Clemens Alex., Protrept. ii. 20.

996

Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 645.

997

C. P. Tiele, History of Egyptian Religion, p. 57.

998

Hibbert Lectures, 1879, p. 111.

999

Diodorus, i. 14. Eusebius (Praeparat. Evang. iii. 3) quotes from Diodorus (i. 11-13) a long passage on the early religion of Egypt, prefacing the quotation (c. 2) with the remark γράφει δὲ καὶ τὰ περὶ τούτων πλατύτερον μὲν ὁ Μανέθως, ἐπετετμημένως δὲ ὁ Διόδωρος, which seems to imply that Diodorus epitomised Manetho.

1000

Brugsch, op. cit. p. 647.

1001

Brugsch, op. cit. p. 649.

1002

Brugsch,l. c.

1003

Herodotus, ii. 59, 156; Diodorus, i. 13, 25, 96; Apollodorus, ii. 1, 3; Tzetzes, Schol. in Lycophron. 212.

1004

Antholog. Planud. 264, 1.

1005

Orphica, ed. Abel, p. 295 sqq.

1006

Jablonski, Pantheon Aegyptiorum (Frankfurt, 1750), i. 125 sq.

1007

i. 11.

1008

See p. 310, note.

1009

See the Saturnalia, bk. i.

1010

Saturn. i. 21, 11.

1011

Maspero, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient4 (Paris, 1886), p. 35.

1012

Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 353.

1013

Isis et Osiris, 52.

1014

De errore profan. religionum, 8.

1015

Lepsius, “Ueber den ersten aegyptischen Götterkreis und seine geschichtlich-mythologische Entstehung,” in Abhandlungen der königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1851, p. 194 sq.

1016

The view here taken of the history of Egyptian religion is based on the sketch in Erman's Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im Altertum, p. 351 sqq.

1017

On this attempted revolution in religion see Lepsius in Verhandl. d. königl. Akad. d. Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1851, pp. 196-201; Erman, op. cit. p. 355 sqq.

1018

Tiele, History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 44.

1019

Tiele, op. cit. p. 46.

1020

Ib. p. 45.

1021

Le Page Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 1879, p. 111 sqq.

1022

Hibbert Lectures, 1879, p. 113. Cp. Maspero, Histoire ancienne,4 p. 35; Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i. §§ 55, 57.

1023

There are far more plausible grounds for identifying Osiris with the moon than with the sun – 1. He was said to have lived or reigned twenty-eight years; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, cc. 13, 42. This might be taken as a mythical expression for a lunar month. 2. His body was rent into fourteen pieces (ib. cc. 18, 42). This might be interpreted of the moon on the wane, losing a piece of itself on each of the fourteen days which make up the second half of a lunation. It is expressly mentioned that Typhon found the body of Osiris at the full moon (ib. 8); thus the dismemberment of the god would begin with the waning of the moon. 3. In a hymn supposed to be addressed by Isis to Osiris, it is said that Thoth

“Placeth thy soul in the bark Ma-at,In that name which is thine, of God Moon.”

And again,

“Thou who comest to us as a child each month,We do not cease to contemplate thee,Thine emanation heightens the brilliancyOf the stars of Orion in the firmament,” etc.

Records of the Past, i. 121 sq.; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 629 sq. Here then Osiris is identified with the moon in set terms. If in the same hymn he is said to “illuminate us like Ra” (the sun), this, as we have already seen, is no reason for identifying him with the sun, but quite the contrary. 4. At the new moon of the month Phanemoth, being the beginning of spring, the Egyptians celebrated what they called “the entry of Osiris into the moon.” Plutarch, Is. et Os. 43. 5. The bull Apis, which was regarded as an image of the soul of Osiris (Is. et Os. cc. 20, 29), was born of a cow which was believed to have been impregnated by the moon (ib. 43). 6. Once a year, at the full moon, pigs were sacrificed simultaneously to the moon and Osiris. Herodotus, ii. 47; Plutarch, Is. et Os. 8. The relation of the pig to Osiris will be examined later on.

Without attempting to explain in detail why a god of vegetation, as I take Osiris to have been, should have been brought into such close connection with the moon, I may refer to the intimate relation which is vulgarly believed to subsist between the growth of vegetation and the phases of the moon. See e. g. Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 221, xvi. 190, xvii. 108, 215, xviii. 200, 228, 308, 314; Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. iii. 10, 3; Aulus Gellius, xx. 8, 7; Macrobius, Saturn. vii. 16, 29 sq. Many examples are furnished by the ancient writers on agriculture, e. g. Cato, 37, 4; Varro, i. 37; Geoponica, i. 6.

1024

Herodotus, ii. 42, 49, 59, 144, 156; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 13, 35; id., Quaest. Conviv. iv. 5, 3; Diodorus, i. 13, 25, 96, iv. 1; Orphica, Hymn 42; Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. iii. 11, 31; Servius on Virgil, Aen. xi. 287; id., on Georg. i. 166; Hippolytus, Refut. omn. haeres. v. 9, p. 168; Socrates, Eccles. Hist. iii. 23, p. 204; Tzetzes, Schol. in Lycophron, 212; Διηγήματα, xxii. 2, in Mythographi Graeci, ed. Westermann, p. 368; Nonnus, Dionys. iv. 269 sq.; Cornutus, De natura deorum, c. 28; Clemens Alexandr. Protrept. ii. 19; Firmicus Maternus, De errore profan. relig. 7.

1025

Lucian, De dea Syria, 7.

1026

Herodotus, ii. 49.

1027

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35.

1028

Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dionysus were all explained by him as the sun; but he stopped short at Demeter (Ceres), whom, however, he interpreted as the moon. See the Saturnalia, bk. i.

1029

On Dionysus in general see Preller, Griechische Mythologie,3 i. 544 sqq.; Fr. Lenormant, article “Bacchus” in Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités grecques et romaines, i. 591 sqq.; Voigt and Thraemer's article “Dionysus,” in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, i. c. 1029 sqq.

1030

Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 3, Διονύσῳ δὲ δενδρίτῃ πάντες, ὡς ἔθος εἰπεῖν, Ἕλληνες θύουσιν.

1031

Hesychius, s. v. Ἔνδενδρος.

1032

See the pictures of his images, taken from ancient vases, in Bötticher, Baumkultus der Hellenen, plates 42, 43, 43a, 43b, 44; Daremberg et Saglio, op. cit. i. 361, 626.

1033

Daremberg et Saglio, op. cit. i. 626.

1034

Cornutus, De natura deorum, 30.

1035

Pindar, quoted by Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35.

1036

Maximus Tyrius, Dissertat. viii. 1.

1037

Athenaeus, iii. pp. 78 c, 82 d.

1038

Himerius, Orat. i. 10, Διόνυσος γεωργεῖ.

1039

Orphica, Hymn l. 4, liii. 8.

1040

Aelian, Var. Hist. iii. 41; Hesychius, s. v. Φλέω[ς]. Cp. Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 8, 3.

1041

Pausanias, i. 31, 4; id. vii. 21, 6 (2).

1042

Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 3.

1043

Pausanias, ii. 2, 6 (5) sq. Pausanias does not mention the kind of tree; but from Euripides, Bacchae, 1064 sqq., and Philostratus, Imag. i. 17 (18), we may infer that it was a pine; though Theocritus (xxvi. 11) speaks of it as a mastich-tree.

1044

Müller-Wieseler, Denkmäler der alten Kunst, ii. pl. xxxii. sqq.; Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, i. figures 489, 491, 492, 495. Cp. Lenormant in Daremberg et Saglio, i. 623; Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 700.

1045

Pausanias, i. 31, 6 (3).

1046

Athenaeus, iii. p. 78 c.

1047

Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum, 6.

1048

Clemens Alexandr., Protrept. ii. 17. Cp. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 1111 sqq.

1049

Clemens Alexandr., Protrept. ii. 19.

1050

Clemens Alexandr., Protrept. ii. 18; Proclus on Plato's Timaeus, iii. 200 D, quoted by Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 562, and by Abel, Orphica, p. 234. Others said that the mangled body was pieced together, not by Apollo but by Rhea. Cornutus, De natura deorum, 30.

1051

Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 572 sqq. For a conjectural restoration of the temple, based on ancient authorities and an examination of the scanty remains, see an article by Professor J. H. Middleton, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. ix. p. 282 sqq.

1052

Diodorus, iii. 62.

1053

Macrobius, Comment. in Somn. Scip. i. 12, 12; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini tres Romae nuper reperti (commonly referred to as Mythographi Vaticani), ed. G. H. Bode (Cellis, 1834), iii. 12, 5, p. 246; Origen, c. Cels. iv. 171, quoted by Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 713.

1054

Himerius, Orat. ix. 4.

1055

Proclus, Hymn to Minerva, in Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 561; Orphica, ed. Abel, p. 235.

1056

Hyginus, Fab. 167.

1057

The festivals of Dionysus were biennial in many places. See Schömann, Griechische Alterthümer,3 ii. 500 sqq. (The terms for the festival were τριετηρίς, τριετηρικός both terms of the series being included in the numeration, in accordance with the ancient mode of reckoning.) Probably the festivals were formerly annual and the period was afterwards lengthened, as has happened with other festivals. See W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, pp. 172, 175; 491, 533 sq., 598. Some of the festivals of Dionysus, however, were annual.

1058

Firmicus Maternus, De err. prof. relig. 6.

1059

Mythogr. Vatic. ed. Bode, l. c.

1060

Plutarch, Consol. ad uxor. 10. Cp. id., Isis et Osiris, 35; id., De ei Delphico, 9; id., De esu carnium, i. 7.

1061

Pausanias, ii. 31, 2, and 37, 5; Apollodorus, iii. 5, 3.

1062

Pausanias, ii. 37, 5 sq.; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35; id., Quaest. Conviv. iv. 6, 2.

1063

Himerius, Orat. iii. 6, xiv. 7.

1064

For Dionysus, see Lenormant in Daremberg et Saglio, i. 632. For Osiris, see Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1878), iii. 65.

1065

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35; id., Quaest. Graec. 36; Athenaeus, xi. 476 a; Clemens Alexandr., Protrept. ii. 16; Orphica, Hymn xxx. vv. 3, 4, xlv. 1, lii. 2, liii. 8; Euripides, Bacchae, 99; Schol. on Aristophanes, Frogs, 357; Nicander, Alexipharmaca, 31; Lucian, Bacchus, 2.