3. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 1.25.3-1.25.4, 1.96.2, 1.96.4, 4.48.5-4.48.7, 5.49.5, 5.64.4, 5.75.4, 5.77.3, 11.45.7, 11.45.9, 15.49.1-15.49.3, 16.25.3, 16.27.1, 16.92.4 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 1.25.3. consequently, now that she has attained immortality, she finds her greatest delight in the healing of mankind and gives aid in their sleep to those who call upon her, plainly manifesting both her very presence and her beneficence towards men who ask her help. 1.25.4. In proof of this, as they say, they advance not legends, as the Greeks do, but manifest facts; for practically the entire inhabited world is their witness, in that it eagerly contributes to the honours of Isis because she manifests herself in healings. 1.96.2. For the priests of Egypt recount from the records of their sacred books that they were visited in early times by Orpheus, Musaeus, Melampus, and Daedalus, also by the poet Homer and Lycurgus of Sparta, later by Solon of Athens and the philosopher Plato, and that there also came Pythagoras of Samos and the mathematician Eudoxus, as well as Democritus of Abdera and Oenopides of Chios. 1.96.4. Orpheus, for instance, brought from Egypt most of his mystic ceremonies, the orgiastic rites that accompanied his wanderings, and his fabulous account of his experiences in Hades. 4.48.5. The moment the king fell, the Greeks took courage, and the Colchi turned in flight and the larger part of them were slain in the pursuit. There were wounded among the chieftains Jason, Laërtes, Atalantê, and the sons of Thespius, as they are called. However they were all healed in a few days, they say, by Medea by means of roots and certain herbs, and the Argonauts, after securing provisions for themselves, set out to sea, and they had already reached the middle of the Pontic sea when they ran into a storm which put them in the greatest peril. 4.48.6. But when Orpheus, as on the former occasion, offered up prayers to the deities of Samothrace, the winds ceased and there appeared near the ship Glaucus the Sea-god, as he is called. The god accompanied the ship in its voyage without ceasing for two days and nights and foretold to Heracles his Labours and immortality, and to the Tyndaridae that they should be called Dioscori ("Sons of Zeus") and receive at the hands of all mankind honour like that offered to the gods. 4.48.7. And, in general, he addressed all the Argonauts by name and told them that because of the prayers of Orpheus he had appeared in accordance with a Providence of the gods and was showing forth to them what was destined to take place; and he counselled them, accordingly, that so soon as they touched land they should pay their vows to the gods through the intervention of whom they had twice already been saved. 5.49.5. Now the details of the initiatory rite are guarded among the matters not to be divulged and are communicated to the initiates alone; but the fame has travelled wide of how these gods appear to mankind and bring unexpected aid to those initiates of theirs who call upon them in the midst of perils. 5.64.4. But some historians, and Ephorus is one of them, record that the Idaean Dactyli were in fact born on the Mt. Idê which is in Phrygia and passed over to Europe together with Mygdon; and since they were wizards, they practised charms and initiatory rites and mysteries and in the course of a sojourn in Samothrace they amazed the natives of that island not a little by their skill in such matters. And it was at this time, we are further told, that Orpheus, who was endowed with an exceptional gift of poesy and song, also became a pupil of theirs, and he was subsequently the first to introduce initiatory rites and mysteries to the Greeks. 5.75.4. As for Dionysus, the myths state that he discovered the vine and its cultivation, and also how to make wine and to store away many of the autumn fruits and thus to provide mankind with the use of them as food over a long time. This god was born in Crete, men say, of Zeus and Persephonê, and Orpheus has handed down the tradition in the initiatory rites that he was torn in pieces by the Titans. And the fact is that there have been several who bore the name Dionysus, regarding whom we have given a detailed account at greater length in connection with the more appropriate period of time. 5.77.3. Such, then, are the myths which the Cretans recount of the gods who they claim were born in their land. They also assert that the honours accorded to the gods and their sacrifices and the initiatory rites observed in connection with the mysteries were handed down from Crete to the rest of men, and to support this they advance the following most weighty argument, as they conceive it: The initiatory rite which is celebrated by the Athenians in Eleusis, the most famous, one may venture, of them all, and that of Samothrace, and the one practised in Thrace among the Cicones, whence Orpheus came who introduced them â these are all handed down in the form of a mystery, whereas at Cnosus in Crete it has been the custom for ancient times that these initiatory rites should be handed down to all openly, and what is handed down among other peoples as not to be divulged, this the Cretans conceal from no one who may wish to inform himself upon such matters. 11.45.7. And the Lacedaemonians, falling in with the mother's decision, walled up the entrance and in this manner forced Pausanias to meet his end through starvation. Now the body of the dead man was turned over to his relatives for burial; but the divinity showed its displeasure at the violation of the sanctity of suppliants 11.45.9. Consequently the Spartans, thinking the oracle's command to be impracticable, were at a loss for a considerable time, being unable to carry out the injunction of the god. Concluding, however, to do as much as was within their power, they made two bronze statues of Pausanias and set them up in the temple of Athena. 15.49.1. In Ionia nine cities were in the habit of holding sacrifices of great antiquity on a large scale to Poseidon in a lonely region near the place called Mycalê. Later, however, as a result of the outbreak of wars in this neighbourhood, since they were unable to hold the Panionia there, they shifted the festival gathering to a safe place near Ephesus. Having sent an embassy to Delphi, they received an oracle telling them to take copies of the ancient ancestral altars at Helicê, which was situated in what was then known as Ionia, but is now known as Achaïa. 15.49.2. So the Ionians in obedience to the oracle sent men to Achaïa to make the copies, and they spoke before the council of the Achaeans and persuaded them to give them what they asked. The inhabitants of Helicê, however, who had an ancient saying that they would suffer danger when Ionians should sacrifice at the altar of Poseidon, taking account of the oracle, opposed the Ionians in the matter of the copies, saying that the sanctuary was not the common property of the Achaeans, but their own particular possession. The inhabitants of Bura also took part with them in this. 15.49.3. But since the Achaeans by common decree had concurred, the Ionians sacrificed at the altar of Poseidon as the oracle directed, but the people of Helicê scattered the sacred possessions of the Ionians and seized the persons of their representatives, thus committing sacrilege. It was because of these acts, they say, that Poseidon in his anger brought ruin upon the offending cities through the earthquake and the flood. 16.25.3. Philomelus so resented this that he joined battle with the Locrians and, bending every effort, slew some of the enemy, and having got possession of their bodies compelled the Locrians to make an exchange of the dead. As he was master of the open country, he sacked a large portion of Locris and returned to Delphi, having given his soldiers their fill of the spoils of war. After this, since he wished to consult the oracle for the war, he compelled the Pythian priestess to mount her tripod and deliver the oracle. 16.27.1. When Philomelus had control of the oracle he directed the Pythia to make her prophecies from the tripod in the ancestral fashion. But when she replied that such was not the ancestral fashion, he threatened her harshly and compelled her to mount the tripod. Then when she frankly declared, referring to the superior power of the man who was resorting to violence: "It is in your power to do as you please," he gladly accepted her utterance and declared that he had the oracle which suited him. He immediately had the oracle inscribed and set it up in full view, and made it clear to everyone that the god gave him the authority to do as he pleased. 16.92.4. Philip was enchanted with the message and was completely occupied with the thought of the overthrow of the Persian king, for he remembered the Pythian oracle which bore the same meaning as the words quoted by the tragic actor. |
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9. Strabo, Geography, 10.3.11, 10.3.16
| 10.3.11. In Crete, not only these rites, but in particular those sacred to Zeus, were performed along with orgiastic worship and with the kind of ministers who were in the service of Dionysus, I mean the Satyri. These ministers they called Curetes, young men who executed movements in armour, accompanied by dancing, as they set forth the mythical story of the birth of Zeus; in this they introduced Cronus as accustomed to swallow his children immediately after their birth, and Rhea as trying to keep her travail secret and, when the child was born, to get it out of the way and save its life by every means in her power; and to accomplish this it is said that she took as helpers the Curetes, who, by surrounding the goddess with tambourines and similar noisy instruments and with war-dance and uproar, were supposed to strike terror into Cronus and without his knowledge to steal his child away; and that, according to tradition, Zeus was actually reared by them with the same diligence; consequently the Curetes, either because, being young, that is youths, they performed this service, or because they reared Zeus in his youth (for both explanations are given), were accorded this appellation, as if they were Satyrs, so to speak, in the service of Zeus. Such, then, were the Greeks in the matter of orgiastic worship. 10.3.16. Also resembling these rites are the Cotytian and the Bendideian rites practiced among the Thracians, among whom the Orphic rites had their beginning. Now the Cotys who is worshipped among the Edonians, and also the instruments used in her rites, are mentioned by Aeschylus; for he says,O adorable Cotys among the Edonians, and ye who hold mountain-ranging instruments; and he mentions immediately afterwards the attendants of Dionysus: one, holding in his hands the bombyces, toilsome work of the turner's chisel, fills full the fingered melody, the call that brings on frenzy, while another causes to resound the bronze-bound cotylae and again,stringed instruments raise their shrill cry, and frightful mimickers from some place unseen bellow like bulls, and the semblance of drums, as of subterranean thunder, rolls along, a terrifying sound; for these rites resemble the Phrygian rites, and it is at least not unlikely that, just as the Phrygians themselves were colonists from Thrace, so also their sacred rites were borrowed from there. Also when they identify Dionysus and the Edonian Lycurgus, they hint at the homogeneity of their sacred rites. |
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