were substantially the same, and which find their parallels in the spring and midsummer customs of our European peasantry. The nature and worship of these deities have been discussed at length by many learned writers; all that I propose to do is to sketch those salient features in their ritual and legends which seem to establish the view here taken of their nature. We begin with Adonis or Thammuz.
The worship of Adonis was practised by the Semitic peoples of Syria, from whom it was borrowed by the Greeks as early at least as the fifth century before Christ. The name Adonis is the Phoenician Adon, “lord.”[1] He was said to have been a fair youth, beloved by Aphrodite (the Semitic Astarte), but slain by a boar in his youthful prime. His death was annually lamented with a bitter wailing, chiefly by women; images of him, dressed to resemble corpses, were carried out as to burial and then thrown into the sea or into springs;[2] and in some places his revival was celebrated on the following day.[3] But the ceremonies varied somewhat both in the manner and the season of their celebration in different places. At Alexandria images of Adonis and Aphrodite were displayed on two couches; beside them were set ripe fruits of all kinds, cakes, plants growing in flower pots, and green bowers twined with anise. The marriage of the lovers was celebrated one day, and on the next the image of Adonis was borne by women attired as mourners, with streaming hair and bared breasts, to
- ↑ Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, i. 299; W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald-und Feldkulte, p. 274.
- ↑ Plutarch, Alcibiades, 18; Zenobius, Centur. i. 49; Theocritus, xv. 132 sq.; Eustathius on Homer, Od. xi. 590.
- ↑ Besides Lucian (cited below) see Jerome, Comment, in Ezcchiel. viii. 14, in qua (solemnitate) plangitur quasi mortuus, et postea reviviscens, canitur atque laudatur . . . interfectionem et resurrectionem Adonidis planctu et gaudio prosequens.
