Part 6

The worst disorders of Bacchus worship, as practiced in Greece, would seem to have been equaled, or even surpassed, in the Roman Commonwealth. The historian Livy (xxxix., 8–20) compares the introduction of the cult into the city and its rapid spread to a visitation of plague. According to Livy the cult was brought to Rome from Etruria. In its Etruscan and Roman form the worship of Bacchus was simply debauchery, under the thinnest possible cloak of religion. The festivals or orgies were at first observed by women; but a certain priestess of Bacchus, by command of the god, introduced the innovation of admitting men, and instead of three Bacchic festivals a year, instituted five festivals for each month; and whereas in Etruria the rites had been practiced in the day time, they now began to be held at night. From considerations of prudence the abominations of the Bacchanalia were guarded from public view by a hedge of ceremonial, and postulants for admission were required to practice for several days the strictest continence. But the term of probation being over, and the postulant admitted to the company of the Bacchanals, he or she found themselves surrounded by all conceivable incitements to the gratification of lust, in every way that the depraved instincts of man or woman had ever before, or perhaps has ever since contrived. According to Livy the Initiates of these mysteries numbered several thousand persons in the city, many of them belonging to the most distinguished families. In addition to the abominations of their secret meetings the Initiates were charged with conspiring against the commonwealth, with forgery of last testaments, with poisonings and assassinations, with the most revolting rapes. In the year 186 B. C. the Consul Spurius Postumius Albinus, having privately made inquiries into the doings of the sect, resolved to employ all the resources of the state for its suppression. The circumstances which led to this resolution were as follows: A youth of noble birth, Publius Aebutius, whose father was dead, was the ward of his stepfather, Titus Sempronius Rutilus. Now Sempronius had mismanaged the estate of Aebutius, and was unable to give an account of his guardianship, and therefore wished either to have the youth put out of the way, or to get him under his power. The easiest way was by debauching him in the Bacchanalia. Aebutius’s mother, devoted to her husband, pretended to the son that during his illness she had made vow to the gods to consecrate him to Bacchus in the event of recovery. Aebutius, nothing suspecting, told of this to one Hispala, a damsel of questionable reputation, with whom he had for some time been very intimate; but she entreated him for all the gods’ sake not to have anything to do with the Bacchanalia: that she herself, as maid, had been initiated with her mistress, and knew what shocking deeds were done in those assemblies. Having promised her that he would not seek initiation, he made his resolution known to his parents, and was by them turned out of their house. Aebutius made complaint to his aunt Aebutia, and by her advice to the Consul Postumius. The Consul summoned Hispala to his presence, and from her, not without difficulty, for she feared the vengeance of the sect, learned what she knew of the proceedings at the secret assemblies. Then he brought the matter before the Senate, who gave to him and his colleague, Quintus Marcius Philippus, full powers for the suppression of the evil. Rewards were offered for trustworthy testimony, measures were taken to prevent the escape of guilty ones, and there were numerous arrests. Seven thousand persons in all were implicated, and all Italy awaited the outcome of the prosecution intently and with alarm. The ringleaders and a multitude of their accomplices were put to death, others were condemned to imprisonment or were exiled. Aebutius and Hispala received a large money reward; and Hispala furthermore was admitted to all the rights and privileges of a Roman-born freewoman, without prejudice from her previous disreputable career. A decree of the Senate forbade forever the holding of the Bacchanalia in Rome or in Italy. The decree provided that if any one should consider such rites obligatory and necessary, or should think that he could not omit them without incurring the guilt of irreligion, he must lay the case before the Praetor Urbanus, and the Praetor must consult the Senate. If leave were granted in a senate having not less than one hundred members present, he (the person desiring to practice the worship of the god) might perform the rites, provided that not more than five persons were present at them, and that there was no common fund, nor any master of the ceremonies, or priest. All places sacred to Bacchus worship were ordered to be destroyed, “except there be here or there an ancient altar or consecrated image” of the god. But the prohibition of the Bacchanalia could not be kept in force perpetually. The abuses of the Bacchus cult went on unchecked outside of Italy, and by degrees sprung up again even on Italian ground, till they reached the pitch of absolute shamelessness in imperial times, as when the notorious Messalina, and other imperial strumpets, celebrated the most shocking orgies in the very palace.

9. DEBASED MYSTERIES FROM THE EAST.

Near akin to the Dionysos cult, in many points coinciding with it, as well as with one another, and also, like the depraved forms of that cult, surreptitiously introduced from the Orient into Greece and then into Rome, we have the mysteries of the mother of the gods Rhea or Cybele, those of Mithras, and those of Sabazios—cults and deities that were finally grouped together by the Orphic sect, of which anon.

Rhea was sister and spouse of Cronos and mother of the king of the gods, Zeus, whom she took to Crete, as we have already seen, to save him from his father’s violence. She is the Earth deified, like her mother Gaea, and is therefore often confounded with other goddesses answering to the same element, specially with the earth-goddess Kybele (Cybele), named after Mt. Kybelos or Kybela in Phrygia, who, according to Phrygian myth, when exposed by her father, King Maeon, was suckled by panthers and brought up by herdsmen, and afterward fell in love with the youth Attis (afterward Papas, both meaning “father”), of whom she exacted a vow of chastity as her priest. Attis having broken his vow for the sake of a lovely nymph, the goddess in her wrath deprived him of reason, and in his frenzy he castrated himself. The goddess thereupon ordained that in future all her priests should be eunuchs. There are countless other stories told of Attis and Cybele, but they nearly all agree in telling that Attis with manhood lost life also, and that Cybele, frenzied by grief, thereafter roamed about disconsolate and despairing. Like Dionysos, she was always followed by a long human and animal retinue (the moon with the starry host!), and rode in a wain drawn by lions, a mural crown circling her veiled head; while Attis was always represented as an ecstatically sentimental youth beneath a tree, with the Phrygian cap on his head and wearing white bag trousers. In Phrygia Cybele was worshiped under the form of a simple stone. The scene of her feats and sufferances was laid in gorgeous wildernesses, in fragrant groves, among the hillsides and glades known to the shepherd and the hunter. As in Dionysos we see the wild abandon of a jovial spirit, so in Cybele we have the recklessness of a soul weary of life; hence at her festivals all centred in the loss of Attis, and a pine tree was felled, because his catastrophe took place under a tree of that species. All this was accompanied by a hubbub of wild music, and the winding of horns on the second day announced the resurrection of Attis. In the ecstasy of joy the participants were seized by a wild frenzy. With shouts and cries, their long locks disheveled, and in their hands bearing torches, the priests danced and capered like madmen, roaming over hill and dale, mutilating themselves, even emasculating themselves (as the myth required), and bearing about, instead of the figure of the Phallus, the proofs of their compliance with the precept of the goddess. The cult of Cybele was for the first time formally organized as a mystic society in Rome, but the orgiast frenzy clung to it at all times. The processions did not move with measured steps and in orderly ranks, as those of other cults, but the Initiates ran in confused troops, shouting their religious songs, through hamlets and towns, armed with curved blades, tokens of castration. At Rome the priests of Cybele were called Galli, that is, cocks. In the time of the emperors purifications in the blood of bulls and rams were introduced, apparently in honor of the Springtide, when the sun enters the constellations Taurus and Aries, and the vegetable powers of nature reappear. That is the theme of all the ancient mysteries, and indeed of all mysticism from the earliest times to this day. In all of them the vicissitudes of the vegetal world, its sickening, decline, and death in the Fall, its new-birth and resurrection in the Spring, are allegorized into the sufferances, the death and the resurrection of a god. Out of this nature-cult are little by little developed the feeling of alienation of man from God, the quest for the god, the finding of him, and the consequent reunion, with the result of strengthening the assurance of the soul’s immortality. The excess of sensual delight found in the Bacchanalia, and the extreme renunciation of delights by the castrate ministers of Cybele, are only variations of one same theory of human life.

Now, as this suffering godhead—which was the prime inspiration of all these sensualists and adventurers—was an importation from Thrace in the form of Zagreus-Dionysos, and from Phrygia as Attis, so was Mithras an importation from Persia. Among the ancient Persians Mithras was the light, conceived as a personality, and hence was the highest manifestation of the good god Ormuzd, while the darkness represented Ahriman, the evil god. Hence the worship of Mithras is worship of the light, and, therefore is the purest cult that heathendom could imagine; in the later times of the Persian empire Mithras worship was combined with sun-worship, and Mithras, as sun-god, found a place in the religion of European peoples. In those later times also came belief in a female deity called Mithra: but Mithra was unknown to the primitive Persians, and the name was a transformation of the Babylonian Mylitta, the moon-goddess. Of the existence of secret cults among the Persians we know nothing whatever, hence nothing about any mysteries sacred to Mithras. To the Greeks Mithras was unknown, but in the latter days of the Roman empire, among many mysteries those of Mithras made their appearance and even gained great pre-eminence, as is proved by numerous monuments still extant. These monuments all consist of representations in stone of a young man in a cave, wearing the Phrygian cap, in the act of slaying with a dagger a bull; all around are figures of men and animals, all symbolical of constellations, as the scorpion, dog, serpent, etc. The groups have been variously interpreted, but the most probable view is that the youth stands for the sun-god, who, on subduing Taurus (in May), begins to develop his highest power.

The mysteries of Mithras, like their symbolic representation in the monuments, were celebrated in grottoes, and had for their original end worship of light and of the sun, and the glorifying of the sun’s victory over the darkness; but this lofty idea gave way, in these as in other mysteries, to vain reveries and subtilities; and in the corrupt age of the Roman emperors it had, in all probability, some very ugly developments, such as were seen in the Bacchanalia. The rites of initiation were more elaborate than in the Grecian mysteries. The postulants were subjected to a long series of probationary tests—eighty in all, it is supposed—which grew more and more severe till they became actually dangerous to life. Among the initiatory rites the principal ones were a baptism and the drinking of a potion of meal and water. Admission to the highest secrets was reached through several degrees, probably seven, each having its special ritual and its special doctrines. At times the Initiates were required to fast, and those of the highest degree were vowed to celibacy. Such abstinences were all unknown to the ancient Persians; on the other hand human sacrifices came in with Mithraism from the East, and, despite the decrees of the Emperor Hadrian, such sacrifices were offered in the Mithras cult. Commodus with his own hand immolated a man to Mithras, and his successors, in particular the monster Heliogabalus, carried the abomination farther, and made of the pure god of light a bloodthirsty Moloch. Nay, after the empire had been christianized, Julian the apostate consecrated in Constantinople a sanctuary to Mithras. But after the death of Julian the cult was forbidden in the empire (A. D. 378) and the grotto of Mithras at Rome destroyed. Coins were struck in honor of Mithras, and he was honored with public inscriptions in the words, Soli Invicto (to the unconquered sun); a festival also was instituted in his honor, called the Natal Day of the Unconquered Sun: it fell on December 25th and was publicly observed: the same day was in Persia New Year’s. In the monuments already mentioned, which commemorate the worship of Mithras, are seen inscribed alongside the neck of the bull the words “Nama Sebesio,” supposed by some to be a mixture of Sanskrit and Persian, and to signify Worship to the Pure; but in these words we have an allusion to a new god and his cult. In the latter Graeco-Roman time, when the mystery craze possessed all minds, a combination of Zagreus, Attis, and Mithras was made, and the result was dubbed Sabazius. The name Sabazius is given by sundry writers to various gods and sons of gods, and the word comes probably from the Greek verb Sabazein (to smash, break to pieces), indicating the wild disorder of this cult. Diodorus gives this name to the inventor of the use of oxen in ploughing, other authors confound Sabazius, as discoverer of the vine, with Bacchus. There existed in Greece a public and a secret cult of Sabazius, both resembling the Bacchic cult, with ludicrous dances, uproarious singing, and loud thumping of cymbals and drums. The orator Aeschines, rival of Demosthenes, was an enthusiastic Sabazist. At initiation into the Sabazian mysteries the postulant had snakes dropped into his bosom, was robed in fawnskin, his face daubed with clay, then washed in token of a mystic purification; he was now to exclaim: From evil I am escaped and have found the better. There was much hocuspocus and absurd jugglery withal, but the real object was to give opportunity to Initiates of both sexes to indulge in the most shameless gluttony and lewdness. The priests of this cult were the most impudent of mendicants. Aristophanes exhausted on Sabazius, the “trumpery god,” all the resources of his caustic sarcasm.

And thus in time, as Grecian philosophy began to undermine the thrones of the Olympian gods, and to banish the phantoms of the netherworld, and the educated people to look on the fair forms of the world of gods as fictions of imagination; simultaneously the mysteries began to be stript of the glory of a heavenly origin, and it was seen that their rites were not only of the earth earthy, but as time went on, that they were become mischievous: yet the Initiates, lost to all shame and all moral sense, persisted nevertheless in their sacred hypocrisy, till heathendom as a whole had passed out of the bloody, hideous night of the gods.

_PART THIRD._ _The Pythagorean League and Other Secret Associations_.

1. PYTHAGORAS.

The mysteries so far considered had for their foundation the worship of the gods. They were accessible only to the initiated; but candidates for admission were not carefully selected; and in Athens anyone of fair repute was eligible for initiation into the Eleusinia. Nor do we discern in the mysteries any “end” aimed at—any idea to be realized, any thought to be embodied in action. From all that we can learn with certainty regarding the mysteries, their object was either simply to illustrate or interpret certain ideas (such as we have already characterized) by means of elaborate ceremonies; or—in their state of decay and degeneration—to minister to unbridled sensuality. For this reason we cannot regard the mysteries we have been studying as true “secret societies,” for the distinctive note of such societies is that they make a special selection of their members, and have a specific aim. The earliest historic instance of such a secret society is afforded by the Pythagorean League.

The great philosopher Pythagoras was a sort of Grecian Moses or Jesus, a Messiah to whom were ascribed supreme wisdom, far-reaching plans, ideas of worldwide reform; who proclaimed new ideas, quite unknown in the previous history of his nation, and preached a new system of nature and of life; who gathered around him disciples that swore in his words and pursued peculiar ends disconnected from the interests of this world; who on that account was, with his disciples, persecuted, prisoned, and martyred for his principles, by a world which deemed itself outraged; and whose history, because of its extraordinary character, became deeply incrusted with fable and fiction, till at last there was left only a figure in which, if not quite impossible, it is certainly difficult, to decide how far it conforms to the truth.

Pythagoras was born in the island of Samos B. C. 580, or, according to some authorities, 569. He is represented as of distinguished presence and imposing stature. That he possessed uncommon intellectual power is shown by his scientific discoveries and by his wonderfully organized discipleship. Even in his youthful years, it is related, he busied himself with his favorite sciences, mathematics and music, the mutual relations of which and their mutual influence he is, in fact, believed to have discovered. His years of study ended—of them we have no definite knowledge—his years of travel followed. And whither should a man in his day, athirst for wisdom, direct his steps if not to the land of wonders on the Nile, where the veiled image at Sais sat enthroned, and where the mystic silence of the priests suggested to the visitant treasures of knowledge hidden in their temples? Whether the counsel to visit Egypt came from Thales, first of Grecian philosophers to seek the land of Nile—tradition, which gives the glamour to everything, likes to bring renowned men together; whether Polycrates, tyrannos of Samos, commended him to his friend the Pharao Amasis—of this we have no certainty, though the thing is not improbable, for the chronology is consistent, especially when we bear in mind the discrepancies between authors as to the year of Pythagoras’s birth: at all events, Pythagoras voyaged to Egypt. The serious difficulties he met with on the part of the priests of Osiris, then not so complaisant as they afterward became, we have described already when giving account of the Egyptian mysteries. By hook or by crook he obtained, whether at Thebes, Heliopolis, or elsewhere, we know not, indoctrination in the theology of the One God. But of what avail could that be to him? His countrymen had already fashioned their own ideas of the divine nature. They based their theology on nature and spiritualized nature: the Greeks knew nothing of an impassable gulf yawning between god and world; for them these two were bound together and pervaded each other: to such a people one could not preach an “architect of the universe.” Pythagoras, therefore, fain would communicate to the Greeks of the Egyptian wisdom whatever seemed adapted to their use; and he the more willingly complied with the Initiate’s oath to observe lifelong silence regarding what he had seen and heard in the temples, as his countrymen would not have understood even a monotheism specially designed for them. For the Greeks the intimate association between god and universe was not only an idea, it was flesh of their flesh, bone of their bones: it was gloriously immortalized in the imperishable masterworks of their architecture and sculpture, and surely Grecian sculptors must not go to school in Egypt to learn how to carve cows’ horns and hawks’ heads. Nevertheless, the doctrine of the one god must necessarily have impressed the mind of Pythagoras deeply: he must have recognized therein a profound philosophy, though it may not have satisfied him completely; and hence it was his task, as it was the task of Plato and of all other Greeks initiated in the Egyptian mysteries, to expound the doctrine of the one god according to Grecian ideas—to couple Oriental wisdom with Grecian fancy.

The traditional story represents Pythagoras as tarrying in Egypt when the Persian king Cambyses conquered the country, and tells how that tyrant had the Grecian philosopher deported, with other captives, to Babylon, where Pythagoras became acquainted with Zoroaster, and to his knowledge of the Egyptian wisdom now added a mastery of the wisdom of the Persians. Pythagoras was undoubtedly contemporary with Cambyses; but the time of Zoroaster is so undecided that the story must be regarded as fiction.

When he returned to his native Samos, purposing to set up as a master, he found to his chagrin that independent science is a plant that does not thrive under tyranny, and, compelled by force of circumstances to change his abode, he settled in Magna Graecia—Southern Italy. On the eastern coast, in what became afterward Calabria, were two Achaean cities, Sybaris and Crotona. Pythagoras intended at first to make his home in Sybaris, but Sybaris could be no congenial home for such a philosopher. Crotona afforded a more promising field for his work, and there the labors of Pythagoras before long were abundantly rewarded. The Greeks ever were eager for novelties (novarum rerum cupidi), and whoever brought anything new was welcome. As yet, philosophy was a thing unknown among the Crotoniats; therefore they received its apostle with gladness and enthusiasm. Pythagoras commenced by giving public lectures in the council hall; as these awakened more and more interest every day, the philosopher was employed by the authorities to give counsel to the citizens; he then established a school, thus adding to his public functions the duties of a private instructor. Pythagoras used three agencies in his work, viz., his Doctrine, his School, and the League instituted by him.

The Doctrine of Pythagoras holds a distinct place among the philosophic systems of the Greeks. With regard to the opposition existing between the spiritual and the physical, and the uncertainty and obscurity that reigns as to the relations between them and the true constitution of each, the doctrine solves all difficulties by the theory that Number is at once the form and the substance of all things. All things consist of Numbers, corporeal elements as well as spiritual (mental, or intellectual) forces, and henceforth Pythagoras’s philosophy became mathematics. But the silly tricks with numbers that occupied the ingenuity of later Pythagoreans possess no interest for us. It is probable that the master contented himself with the undeniable fact that the matter and essence of things rest on mathematical relations—a view of great profundity, considering the age in which the philosopher lived. To Pythagoras and his school are credited the distinction of numbers into even and odd, the decimal numeration, square and cubic numbers, as also the famous Pythagorean theorem, the triumph of geometry.