1850.] Brdhminical Conquerors of India, 27 



other that of the grape together with its produce. As saith the Scholiast 

 (Pind. Isthm. VII. 3), (which I translate from Sobeck's Aglaophamus,) 

 (B. I. p. 150), Dionysus the associate of Demeter; according to tha 

 mystical saying, because Zagreus Dionysus, born of Persephone is 

 associate to or connected with her ; but in the physical sense because the 

 use of wine follows close upon that of wheat as food, the which is referred 

 to Demeter. Varro (Augustinus Civ. VII. c. 20 apud Sobeck) explains 

 the Eleusinian mysteries of Ceres with reference solely to the growth 

 of corn, saying that Proserpine typifies simply the germination of its 

 seed, which failing, gave rise to the fable that the ruler of the Shades 

 had borne away Ceres' fair daughter. This fanciful and elegant expo- 

 sition of the productive powers of the earth is too common to need 

 further comment ; but the excess of generative force assigned to the 

 myth of Bacchus, as master of the vine, is greatly in advance of that 

 of Ceres, and, as a symbol, is much more generally diffused. Bacchus, 

 or Zagreus Dionysus, destroyed by the Titans, his limbs dispersed, 

 and he himself reproduced and revivified even as Osiris was destroy- 

 ed in like manner by Typho, and again revived, gives the idea of 

 vital action and reaction.* Bacchus is sometimes the vovv vXlkov, 

 or typical incorporation of mind with matter (Macrobius in Somn. 1. 

 12. p. 67 1 apud Sobeck) : he is Brjfjuovpybs (Proclus in Tim. III. 

 184, ibid), sung of the more ancient poets as, brahmin-like, "twice- 

 born," and filled with a creative force, second alone to that of Jupiterf 

 himself. Identified with Osiris, he is Egyptian, and goes forth a con- 

 queror of lands, being the Bacchus of the Nile mentioned by Hero- 

 dotus ; at another while (Cicero de Natura Deorum III. 23), he is 

 the son of Jove and Proserpine, or the re-active force produced by the 

 creative and germinative elements, or the son of Caprius (according to 



* The cultivation of the vine in Egypt has been doubted, as having been anciently 

 practised: Sir G. Wilkinson (Manners and Customs, Vol. II. p. 152, et seq.) has 

 largely established the fact, and the eminent care bestowed on the plant, which 

 was trained, as to this day in Hindostan, over alleys of poles and thwarts, which 

 the vines ultimately covered so as to form a continuous arbour. The hiero- 

 glyph to express vineyard is the conventional representation of such an alley. The 

 story of Bacchus and of Osiris might be taken as figuratively expressing the pluck- 

 ing, crushing, and fermenting of the grape, a primeval antitype of Bums' ' John 

 Barleycorn.'— H. T. 



f Cap. x. lib. II. Aglaoph. Sobekii, et ibid, imo passim. 



E 2 



