Pausanias, a man of exemplary piety, and generally less inclined
to scepticism than Diodôrus, thinks the occasion unsuitable for
a miracle or special interference. Having alluded to the two
causes assigned for the displeasure of Artemis (they are the two
first-mentioned in my text, and distinct from the two noticed
by Diodôrus), he proceeds to say, “But I believe that the dogs
of Aktæôn went mad, without the interference of the goddess: in
this state of madness they would have torn in pieces without
distinction any one whom they met (Paus. ix. 2, 3. ἐγὼ δὲ ἄνευ
θεοῦ πείθομαι νόσον λύσσαν ἐπιβαλεῖν τοῦ Ἀκταίωνος τοὺς κύνας).”
He retains the truth of the final catastrophe, but rationalizes
it, excluding the special intervention of Artemis.
Agavê, the remaining daughter of Kadmus, married Echiôn, one of the
Sparti. The issue of these nuptials was Pentheus, who, when Kadmus
became old succeeded him as king of Thêbes. In his reign Dionysus
appeared as a god, the author or discoverer of the vine with all its
blessings. He had wandered over Asia, India and Thrace, at the head of
an excited troop of female enthusiasts—communicating and inculcating
everywhere the Bacchic ceremonies, and rousing in the minds of women
that impassioned religious emotion which led them to ramble in solitary
mountains at particular seasons, there to give vent to violent
fanatical excitement, apart from the men, clothed in fawn-skins and
armed with the thyrsus. The obtrusion of a male spectator upon these
solemnities was esteemed sacrilegious. Though the rites had been
rapidly disseminated and fervently welcomed in many parts of Thrace,
yet there were some places in which they had been obstinately resisted
and their votaries treated with rudeness; especially by Lykurgus, king
of the Edonian Thracians, upon whom a sharp and exemplary punishment
was inflicted by Dionysus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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