The dwarf form leads to the figure of the divine boy, the _puer eternus_, the young Dionysus, Jupiter Anxurus, Tages,[223] and so on. In the vase painting of Thebes, already mentioned, a bearded Dionysus is represented as ΚΑΒΕΙΡΟΣ, together with a figure of a boy as Παῖς, followed by a caricatured boy’s figure designated as ΠΡΑΤΟΛΑΟΣ and then again a caricatured man, which is represented as ΜΙΤΟΣ.[224] Μίτος really means thread, but in orphic speech it stands for semen. It was conjectured that this collection corresponded to a group of statuary in the sanctuary of a cult. This supposition is supported by the history of the cult as far as it is known; it is an original Phœnician cult of father and son;[225] of an old and young Cabir who were more or less assimilated with the Grecian gods. The double figures of the adult and the child Dionysus lend themselves particularly to this assimilation. One might also call this the cult of the large and small man. Now, under various aspects, Dionysus is a phallic god in whose worship the phallus held an important place; for example, in the cult of the Argivian Bull—Dionysus. Moreover, the phallic herme of the god has given occasion for a personification of the phallus of Dionysus, in the form of the god Phales, who is nothing else but a Priapus. He is called ἑταῖρος or σύγκωμος Βάκχου[226].[227] Corresponding to this state of affairs, one cannot very well fail to recognize in the previously mentioned Cabiric representation, and in the added boy’s figure, the picture of man and his penis.[228] The previously mentioned paradox in the Upanishad text of large and small, of giant and dwarf, is expressed more mildly here by man and boy, or father and son.[229] The motive of deformity which is used constantly by the Cabiric cult is present also in the vase picture, while the parallel figures to Dionysus and Παῖς are the caricatured Μίτος and Πρατόλαος. Just as formerly the difference in size gave occasion for division, so does the deformity here.[230]