The two deities who chiefly presided over mysteries were Demeter and Dionysus. Demeter "has no real personality in Homer," says Mr. Leaf, "except in _Odyssey,_ v. 125," where we merely hear that she lay with Iasion in a thrice ploughed fallow field, and that Zeus slew Iasion with a thunderbolt. Dionysus, again, to quote Mr. Leaf, is only mentioned in _Iliad_, xiv. 325, in the "Leporello Catalogue" of the amours of Zeus, and in doubtful passages of the _Odyssey_ (xi. 325). He is the son of Semele, and a golden cup is a gift of his. Finally, and most to the purpose, in _Iliad_, vi. 130-140, Diomede tells the story of Lycurgus, a Thracian king, who beat the nymphs, the nurses of Dionysus, with an ox-goad, and frightened Dionysus into the deeps of the sea. Zeus blinded Lycurgus, and he did not last long. This tale is regarded as a late and pious interpolation, because the whole scene is looked on as in crying contradiction with the events of _Iliad_, Book v. For proof that there is no inconsistency at all, see "The Great Discrepancies." We must be very anxious to find "late" things in Homer, if we say that the passage about Dionysus in _Iliad_, vi., "dates from the very last part of the Epic period," namely, perhaps, from the seventh century B.C. It may be true that "the great religious movement" connected with Dionysus "spread over Greece apparently in the seventh century."[13] But it is more probable that the "movement" was especially taken up by literature, Orphic poetry, at that period, for I am unaware that we have any historical evidence, as in Herodotus, for the religious furies and homicidal ferocities of the women in the seventh century. These, all the stories of the sanguinary frenzy of the sex, their endeavours to "interview" kings, and tear them to tatters, are thrown back into legendary times. Nobody can tell how ancient the legends are, but it seems to be generally admitted that Dionysus and his rites are of "Indo-European" but not of Greek origin. His mother was Semele, and Kretschmer would connect Semele "with a Phrygian root, _zemel_," which occurs on Phrygian tombstones in curses directed against any one who should violate the tombs. The word Kretschmer interprets as meaning "earth." So Semele would be the earth goddess.[14] Be it so, Phrygian _Zemel_, the earth, is Greek Semele, the earth-mother of the son of the sky, Zeus. But "Dionysus in Greek mythology is closely connected with Thrace," and Lycurgus, the enemy of Dionysus in _Iliad_, vi., is a Thracian king. Now "the result of recent philological inquiries is to show a close connection between the Thracian and Phrygian tongues, which are found to be both Aryan."[15] Again, Attica, if ever her legends deviate into truth, was closely connected with Thrace; and Homer himself treats the Thracian Chersonese as an ally of Troy,[16] and Rhesus brings in his levies.[17]