071 the Attic Dionysia. 303 thought of the arguments proposed in the last section, it will be difficult to resist the accumulation of evidence which he has produced for the separate existence of the Lensea, as a distinct festival celebrated in Gamelion. Still the subject last discussed is one perhaps not less interesting than the main question itself: and therefore our readers will probably not be unwilling to compare Boeckh's view of it with one pro- posed by Welcker in his Nachtrag %u der Schrift iieher die ^schyliscke Trilogie^ from which we subjoin a short extract. The author conceives, that the religion of Bacchus, as one of rustic origin, and long confined to the peasantry who were employed in the care of flocks and the cultivation of the vine, met with opposition from the kings and noble families, as encouraging its followers to rise above their station, and to encroach upon aristocratical privileges. He thinks that the epithets of the god which describe him as a Deliverer ('Eef- Oepioi', 'EXevOepeu^, Avctlo^^ Avaev^) refer, not to a release from care and grief, but to the abolition of political distinctions, which the lower classes gradually achieved, and naturally ascribed to their tutelary deity. This he believes to be the real ground of several Attic legends : as that of the stranger Melanthus, who conquers and gains the crown by the aid of Bacchus, who appeared to him in a rustic garb (o-vv ay poiKiKco (T^7]/uiaTi Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 890) and was afterward ho- noured as Aiovucro^ M€Xav6iSr]<$ or M€XdvaLyi<s : that of the daughters of Eleuther (the author, perhaps by mistake, names Erechtheus, but refers to Suidas: IVIeXai/), who treated the god with contempt, and were punished with madness : that of ^geus, who, he imagines, represents the AlyLKopels^ the worshippers of Bacchus, and who, though not sprung from the royal line, but only adopted by Pandion, marries the daughter of Hoples, and becomes king of Athens ^^ After
- ^ The marriages of JEgeus with Meta (whose name connects her with the noble
race of the M^jTiovlSaL) with Chalciope daughter of 'Frj^tjvcop, with Autocthe daughter of Perseus^, with TEthra daughter of the sage Pittheus;, all admit of the same interpretation, if ^geus represents a class which rose, from a condition of political degradation, to an equality with the races which in earlier times claimed the exclusive possession of power, valour, and wisdom. But in his Trilogie the author adopted Mueller's view of TEgeus, as another name for UoaeLSuiu (Atyatos). He now objects to it on the ground that in cases of a double genealogy, like that of The- seus, there is usually no connexion between the names of the heroic and the divine parent. Vol.. II. No. 5. Q Q
