[411] Xanthias, his strength exhausted and his patience gone, prepares to lay down his load. Asses were used for the conveyance from Athens to Eleusis of everything that was necessary for the celebration of the Mysteries. They were often overladen, and from this fact arose the proverb here used by Xanthias, as indicating any heavy burden. [412] The Ancients believed that meeting this or that person or thing at the outset of a journey was of good or bad omen. The superstition is not entirely dead even to-day. [413] Dionysus had seated himself _on_ instead of _at_ the oar. [414] One of the titles given to Dionysus, because of the worship accorded him at Nysa, a town in Ethiopia, where he was brought up by the nymphs. [415] This was the third day of the Anthesteria or feasts of Dionysus. All kinds of vegetables were cooked in pots and offered to Dionysus and Athené. It was also the day of the dramatic contests. [416] Dionysus' temple, the Lenaeum, was situated in the district of Athens known as the _Linnae_, or Marshes, on the south side of the Acropolis. [417] He points to the audience. [418] A spectre, which Hecaté sent to frighten men. It took all kinds of hideous shapes. It was exorcised by abuse. [419] This was one of the monstrosities which credulity attributed to the Empusa. [420] He is addressing a priest of Bacchus, who occupied a seat reserved for him in the first row of the audience. [421] A verse from the Orestes of Euripides.--Hegelochus was an actor who, in a recent representation, had spoken the line in such a manner as to lend it an absurd meaning; instead of saying, [Greek: gal_en_en], which means _calm_, he had pronounced it [Greek: gal_en], which means _a cat_. [422] The priest of Bacchus, mentioned several verses back. [423] High-flown expressions from Euripides' Tragedies. [424] A second Chorus, comprised of Initiates into the Mysteries of Demeter and Dionysus. [425] A philosopher, a native of Melos, and originally a dithyrambic poet. He was prosecuted on a charge of atheism. [426] A comic and dithyrambic poet. [427] This Thorycion, a toll collector at Aegina, which then belonged to Athens, had taken advantage of his position to send goods to Epidaurus, an Argolian town, thereby defrauding the treasury of the duty of 5 per cent, which was levied on every import and export. [428] An allusion to Alcibiades, who is said to have obtained a subsidy for the Spartan fleet from Cyrus, satrap of Asia Minor. [429] An allusion to the dithyrambic poet, Cinesias, who was accused of having sullied, by stooling against it, the pedestal of a statue of Hecaté at one of the street corners of Athens. [430] Athené. [431] The route of the procession of the Initiate was from the Ceramicus (a district of Athens) to Eleusis, a distance of twenty-five stadia. [432] A shaft shot at the _choragi_ by the poet, because they had failed to have new dresses made for the actors on this occasion.