of public ways, and is fynonymous with the Roman Trivia: Thus, according to this idea, Virgil addreffes the infernal Hecate, Nocturnifque Hecate triviis ululata per urbes. Æn. 4. v. 609. As fhe prefided over poifon, which the Tutor was now preparing for Ion, Barnes remarks the propriety of this addrefs of the Female Chorus. Verfe 1077. IIII. N° XXXVIII. Τὸν πολύυμνον Θεὸν, εἰ παρὰ καλλιχόροισι παγαῖς Λαμπάδα θεωρὸν Εἰκάδων Ὄψαι ἐννύχιος ἄϋπνος ὤν, Thou, whom the various hymn delights, When thy bright choir of beauteous dames among, Thou feeft, the guardian of thy myftick rites, Thine eye meantime disdaining fleep. The Chorus by this addrefs invokes Bacchus according to the idea of Brodæus, Barnes, and Mufgrave: But Heath applies it to Apollo: "because, says he', Bacchus by no means interfered in this bufinefs:" If the Critick by this expreffion • Per Tov Toλúÿμvov sov hic defignatur Phoebus; nam Bacchus huic negotio nequaquam fe immifcuerat. (Notæ in Ionem. p. 140.) I afferts, 2 afferts, that Apollo, and not Bacchus, was connected with the Eleufinian myfteries, to which the Chorus here undoubtedly alludes, he is extremely mistaken: for the latter, and not the former God, was concerned in their celebration. This appears from the Eleufinia of Meurfius, who has collected with his learned industry all the historical evidence on this fubject; and I shall avail myself of his general information to illustrate this Strophe of Euripides. We learn from Hefychius, "that not only Dionufus, and one of the days of the mysteries was called Iacchus; but alfo the fong, which the initiated fung on this occafion :" Perhaps therefore our Poet might here allude to this circumftance by the epithet πολύϋμον, or, Thou, whom the various hymn delights. 4 5 The next expreffion in the original mentions the raλχόροισι παγαῖς, or the fountains frequented by beautiful Chorufes: This is imagined by Heath and Musgrave to refer to a certain Well, called Callichorus: where the Wo men of Eleufis firft inftituted the dance, and celebrated the Goddefs with hymns according to Paufanias": Our Poet in his Supplices twice 7 alludes to this Weil; and Callimachus in his Hymn to Ceres declares," that the feated herself on the ground by this Well of Callichorus:" Thus 'Apollodorus remarks, "that on her first arrival at Eleufis Ceres refted herfelf on the rock of Agelaftus near a Well called Callichorus." But the objection to this interpretation of Heath and Muf 8 3 Vox "Iaxxor. 2 C. 27: 4 Notæ in Ion. p. 140. 6 1 V. 392 & 619. 8 V. 16. 9 Bibliot. l. 1. p. 8. ed. Æg. Spolet. 1555. grave is, that the original expreffion of Euripides alludes to fountains in the plural number, and not to the Well of Callichorus in the fingular: I therefore offer to the Reader the following explanation: "In Attica, fays Hefychius 1°, at Eleu fis are two rivulets iffuing from the fiffure of the earth: And one of them, which runs towards the fea, is esteemed to belong to the elder Goddess; but the other towards the City is confecrated to the younger, where the Bands are purified by bathing:" Now these I conceive are here alluded to by the expreffion of fountains. The next circumstance, which occurs in these lines is the Aaunada or Torch: As thefe mysteries were celebrated by night, this was an effential appendage: One of the titles of Bacchus was that of Nyctelius, or the Nocturnal God, as I fhall mention in my Preliminary Effay on the Baccha: "What will become of Iacchus, and our Eumolpidæ, fays Cicero ", if we abolish the religious folemnities by night?" There is a fcene in Ariftophanes, where the Chorus of Initiated addrefs Iacchus, and invoke him, as brandishing his burning torch, being the Lucifer of the nocturnal ceremony; Ἔγειρε φλογέας λαμπά δας, ἐν χερσὶ γὰρ ἥκεις Τινάσσων "Ιακχε Νυκτέρες τελετῆς φωσφόρος αςηρο Ranæ, v. 346. το Ρείον, ἐν τῇ ̓Αττική, δύο εἰσὶν οἱ πρὸς τῇ Ἐλευσῖνι ρειτοὶ, ῥωγμοί: καὶ ὁ μον πρὸς τῇ θαλάττη τῆς πρεσβυτέρας θεῦ νομίζεται· ὁ δὲ πρὸς το ἄσυ, τῆς νεωτέρας, ὅθεν τὰς λαθρὸς ἁγνίζεσθαι τες θιάσες. (νοκ ῥεῖοι.) Thele were fo denominated from Euinolpus, the Founder of the Initiation at Eleufis, as appears from the authorities cited by Meurfius in his Eleufinia. (c. 2. & 13.) 12 Quid ergo agat Lacchus, Eumolpidæque noftri, & augufta illa mysteria, fiquidem facra nocturna tollimus. (De Leg. 1. 2. c. 14.) 17 18 Here the Scholiaft obferves, that at Eleufis there was a fhrine of the God Dionufus; and we learn from Paufanias 13, "that in the temple of Ceres at Athens there were images of the Goddess herself, her Daughter, and of Iacchus with a torch." Thus Pindar 14 calls Dionufus the Affociate of Ceres: And this mystick God in the Pagan Mythology was by some confidered, as the fon of Ceres, and by others as the Son of Proferpine: Diodorus Siculus mentions the former, as his Mother; but Hyginus 16, Arrian "7, Tzetzes ", and the Scholiaft" of Pindar, refer it to the latter. Hence we difcover the immediate propriety of this invocation of him by the Chorus, who in the fequel of the Strophe 20 mentions both Proferpine and Ceres. It only remains to illuftrate the expreffion of Einadwy: This was the 20th day of the Attick month Boedromion, as we are exprefsly informed by Plutarch, who adds, "that on this day they carried the God Iacchus in folemn proceffion from the City of Athens to Eleufis:" And the Scholiaft 2 of Aristophanes remarks, “that one of the days of the myfteries, on which they invoked Iacchus, was called the Eixás." I have now fully demonstrated by unravelling the historical allufions in this paffage of Euripides, that Bacchus, and not Apollo according to the idea of Heath, must be the Deity addreffed. But, independent of the connexion of the former in the Eleufinian Mysteries, Εἰκάδων 22 13 Πλησίον ναὸς ἐςὶ Δήμητρος, ἀγάλματα δε αυτή τε καὶ ἡ παῖς καὶ δᾄδα ἔχων "Ianhos. L. 1. c. 2. p. 6. 14 Iith. Od. 7. v. 3•. 16 Fab. 155. 18 On Lycophron (v. 355.) 20 V. 1086 & 187. 15 L. 3. c. 62. ed. Weffelin. vol. I. p. 231. 17 De Exped. Alex. 1. 2. 19 On Ifth. Od 7. v. 3. 21 Phocion, ed. Bryan, vol. 4. p. 202. This paffage is cited by Brodeus, and inferted in the Editions of Barnes and Mufgrave. 22 On the Rana, (v. 326.) This paffage is cited by Barnes from Meurfus. (Eleuf. 27. there there is another reafon, arifing from the internal evidence of this Choral Ode, why the latter fhould not be here mentioned by the Female Chorus: Because they have already been imploring in the preceding part of it the Infernal Hecate to affift the intended poifon now prepared for Ion, Minifter of Apollo; and here by a folemn appeal to the tutelary Deities of the Myfteries at Athens they express their abhorrence in the ftrongeft terms, that "this Delphick vagrant 23" should mount the throne of their ftate; and confequently participate of thofe facred rites, from which all Foreigners were excluded according to the original inftitution of Eumolpus 24 Verfe 1127. Οπληρίων. No XXXIX. A grateful offering for his Son 1156. Thus recognized. THE OTTO was properly a prefent, bestowed on the first fight of an object by a Friend. Thus, when Phoebe in Æfchylus presents Phoebus with a gift at his birth, the Scho liaft there expressly fays, that it was for an orgio: In the fame manner Vulcan is defcribed by Callimachus, as inviting Latona to bring her infant Diana, "OπWS ČπTÝρia doin. (Hym. in Dian. v. 74.) 23 V. 1089. 24 ̓Αλλ ̓ ὁ θεὸς τὰ μυςήρια ἐκέλευε ξένες μὴ μυτίσθαι, (Tzetzes ad Lycophron, cited in Meurfius Eleuf, c. 2.) See alfo c. 19. where this learned author has collected the whole evidence on the subject of this exclufion. On the Eumen, V. 7. According |