Mr F. M. Cornford of Trinity College has, with a kindness and patience for which I can offer no adequate thanks, undertaken the revision of my proof-sheets. To him I owe not only any degree of verbal accuracy attained, but also, which is much more, countless valuable suggestions made from time to time in the course of my work. Many other scholars have allowed me to refer to them on matters outside my own competency. Some of these debts are acknowledged in the notes, but I wish specially to thank Dr A. S. Murray, Mr Cecil Smith and Mr A. H. Smith of the British Museum for constant facilities afforded to me in my work there, and Mr R. C. Bosanquet and Mr M. Tod for help in Athens; and, in Cambridge, Dr Haddon, Dr Hans Gadow, Mr Francis Darwin, Mr H. G. Dakyns and Mr A. B. Cook. My debt to Dr A. W. Verrall is so great and constant that it is hard to formulate. If in one part of my book more than another I am indebted to him it is in the discussion of the Erinyes. Chapter V. indeed owes its inception to Dr Verrall’s notes in his edition of the _Choephoroi_, and its final form to his unwearied criticism. Throughout the book there is scarcely a literary difficulty that he has not allowed me to refer to him, and his sure scholarship and luminous perception have dissipated for me many a mental fog. Mr Gilbert Murray has written for me the critical Appendix on the text of the Orphic tablets, a matter beyond my competence. Many verse translations, acknowledged in their place, are also by him, and uniformly those from the _Bacchae_ and _Hippolytus_ of Euripides. It is to Mr Murray’s translation of the _Bacchae_ that finally, as regards the religion of Dionysos, I owe most. The beauty of that translation, which he kindly allowed me to use before its publication, turned the arduous task of investigation into a labour of delight, and throughout the later chapters of the book, the whole of which he has read for me in proof, it will be evident that, in many difficult places, his sensitive and wise imagination has been my guide. JANE ELLEN HARRISON. NEWNHAM COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, _September 9, 1903_. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. OLYMPIAN AND CHTHONIC RITUAL.