The ritual of the gods whose death and resurrection were commemorated—Bacchus, Osiris, Attis, Adonis—was probably a development of the funeral ritual, and the banquet of initiation was thus related to the banquet at the grave. On the one hand, it was believed that by a mystic union with the god, men could share his blessed lot after the transient trial of a death like his.[512] On the other hand, it was with a dead man that a repast was taken, but with one who also, in some sort, had become a god, who had preceded the diners into the other world and awaited them there. “Live happy and pour out wine to our Manes,” says a Latin epitaph of Syria, engraved beneath a scene of libation, “recollecting that one day you will be with us.”[513] According to an opinion which often found expression, the shades themselves rejected whoever did not deserve to enter the abode of the Blessed, but willingly received the pious soul which had always fulfilled its duty towards them.[514] For admission to this club of posthumous diners a members vote was necessary. Thus the funeral banquet took on the character of a mystic banquet; that is, it came to be conceived as a prelibation of the banquet at which the elect feasted in the other world. The wish which the guests made to each other—“Drink and live!”—became an allusion, no more to this earthly life, but to that other existence in which they would participate in the felicity of him who had gone before them and who would help them to rejoin him therein. The following advice, repeated elsewhere in various forms, is found on the tomb of a priest of Sabazios: “Drink, eat, jest and come to me ... that is what you will carry away with you” (_hoc tecum feres_).[515] This is not to be understood here as an Epicurean invitation to enjoy life because all else is vain,[516] but a veiled expression of faith in the efficacy for the salvation of the initiate attributed to the joyous banquets which gathered men about a tomb.