276 The Honey-Makers 



Makris, or Brisa, taught Bacchus to press the honey from 

 the honey-comb. 



In the Dionysian temple, upon the Lesbian promontory 

 Brisa, Bacchus was worshipped as Bacchus Brisaeus, the 

 god of sweetness, the honey-god. 



Bacchus, as the distributer of flowers over the meadows, 

 easily became the father of the bees, or the creator of 

 honey, — an honor, however, that he shared with others. 



Euripides sings thus of Dionysos : — 



" To Phrygia's steeps, to Lydia's ridges high 

 He leads, exulting leads his train, 

 While Evoe, Evoe, is the joyful cry, 

 And as they pass, through every plain 

 Flows milk, flows wine, the nectar'd honey flows, 

 And round each soft gale Syrian odors throws." 



The priestesses of Dionysos brandished in their hands 

 the thyrsos, a cane with a crown of ivy, and as Euripides 



tells us, — 



" — the ivy wands 

 Distilled from all their tops rich store of honey." 



Honey is known to possess a sleep-producing power, 

 and consequently was used as an offering to death, sleep to 

 the ancients being a symbol of death. Beside the body on 

 the bier was placed, in Homeric times, a vessel of honey, 

 as the " Iliad " tells us was done at the burial of Patroclus. 

 Achilles prepared the sacrifices, placing them about the 

 body upon the funeral pyre. 



" And he set therein two-handled jars of honey and oil, 

 leaning them against the bier." 



It was the custom of the survivors to pour honey upon 

 the graves of their beloved dead, and the shepherds o 

 Lokris were wont to smear the grave of Hesiod with honey, 

 as we learn from an inscription on the poet attributed to 

 Alcasus, which runs thus: — 



