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gods. Euripides, in the Bacchae, does the same thing, con
joining, from the proximity of the countries, note Lydian and
Phrygian customs.
Blest and happy he who, initiated into the sacred rites of the gods,
leads a pure life; who celebrating the orgies of the Great Mother Cybele, who brandishing on high the thyrsus and with ivy crowned, becomes
Dionysus' worshipper. Haste, Bacchanalians, haste, and bring Bromius
Dionysus down from the Phrygian mountains to the wide plains of
Greece."Then forsaking Tmolus, the rampart of Lydia, my maidens, my pride,
[whom I took from among barbarians and made the partners and companions of my way, raise on high the tambourine of Phrygia, the tambourine of the great mother Rhea,] my invention.
And again, in what follows, he combines with these the Cretan rites.
Hail, sacred haunt of the Curetes, and divine inhabitants of Crete,
progenitors of Jove, where for me the triple-crested Corybantes in their
caves invented this skin-stretched circle [of the tambourine], who
mingled with Bacchic strains the sweet breath of harmony from Phrygian
pipes, and placed in Rhea's hands this instrument which re-echoes to the
joyous shouts of Bacchanalians: from the Mother Rhea the frantic
Satyri succeeded in obtaining it, and introduced it into the dances of the
Trieterides, among whom Dionysus delights to dwell. note
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Strabo, Geography (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Str.].
