XXVI.—THE BACCHANALS
This poem was probably written in honour of the initiation of a boy of nine into the mysteries of Dionysus by a mock slaying-rite. That young children mere initiated into these mysteries is clear from a poem of Antistius in the Anthology, which may have been written for a similar occasion; and in Callumachus Artemis asks that her maiden attendants shall be nine years old.[1] In this poem the father describes the slaying of Pentheus by his mother, and takes credit to himself for folloning her example. The slaying of the boy is the bringing of him to Dionysus, even as the eagles made Ganymede immortal by bringing him to Zeus. The poem is almost certainly not by Theocritus, but such poems may well have figured in the competitions mentioned in line 112 of the Ptolemy.
- ↑ Antist. Anth. Pal. 11. 40, Callim. 3. 14, quoted by Cholmeley.
