[178] Dionusus like Bacchus came to India from _the west_.--_Philostratus_, lib. ii. 64; _Byrant_, ii. 78. The Indian Bacchus "appears in the character of a wise and distinguished oriental monarch; his features an expression of sublime tranquillity and mildness."--_Smith, Myth. Dic._ [179] This appears to me still more apparent in the 26th Idyll of Theocritus, where, when the Bacchanals were at their revels, "Perched on the sheer cliff Pentheus would espy All.... (For profaning thus "these mysteries weird that must not be profaned by vulgar eyes," Pentheus is torn to pieces by the Bacchanals).... "Warned by this tale, let no man dare defy Great Bacchus; lest a death more awful should he die. And when he counts _nine_ years or scarcely _ten_ Rush to his ruin. May I pass my days _Uprightly_, and be loved by _upright_ men. And take this motto, all who covet praise ('Twas ægis-bearing Jove that spoke it first), The godly seed fares well, _the wicked is accurst_." --_Caverley's Theocritus_, xxvi. This seems to bear out what is perhaps only vaguely implied in the sacred text that the curse was on Chanaan--the boy and his posterity--and not on the whole race of Cham.--_Vide ante_: also compare the "Bacchæ" of Euripides, in the following passage from Grote's "Plato" (iii. 333):--"So in the 'Bacchæ' of Euripides, the two old men, Kadmus and Teiresias, after vainly attempting to inculcate upon Pentheus the belief in and the worship of Dionysus, at last appeal to his prudence and admonish him of the danger of unbelief;" which, if it be tradition, would look as if Chanaan's offence was only the final and overt expression of previous unbelief. III. _Janus._--Janus represented the most ancient tradition of Noah in Italy; subsequent migrations brought in the legend of Saturn, and thus we find them variously confounded--Saturn sometimes figuring as his guest, sometimes as his son, sometimes as his colleague on the throne. Like Saturn he appears as double-headed or bifrons, he is said to have introduced civilisation among the wild tribes of Italy, and under him, as under Saturn, there appears to have been a golden age. I have made reference to _Saturn_ as Oceanus (_vide Montfauçon_, i. 5), and as Oceanus his representations are very remarkable. In one he appears as an old man sitting on the waves of the sea, with a _sea monster_ on one side of him, and his spear or rod in his hand. In another as sitting on the waves of the sea with ships about him; he is "holding an urn and pours out water, the symbol of _the sea, and also of rivers and fountains_."