Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

19, 20,List of Illustrations. 251PAGE.say the phallus bearers at Rome carried images (phalloi) at thetop of long poles, and their bodies were stained with wine lees,and partly covered with a lamb-skin, their heads crowned witha wreath of ivy. (See page 14.)21. FROM ETRUSCAN VASES Florentine Museum. 22Human sacrifice may be indicated in the lower group.22. VENUS AND PROSERPINA IN HADES 28Galerie des Peintres.The myth relates that Venus gave Proserpina a pomegranateto eat in Hades, and so made her subject to the law which required her to remain four months of each year with Pluto inthe Underworld, for Venus is the goddess who presides overbirth and growth in all cases. Cerberus (see page 65) keepsguard, and one of the heads holds her garment, signifying thathis master is entitled to one-third of her time.23. RAPE OF PROSERPINA. CARRIED DOWN TO HADES(INVISIBILITY) Flor. Mus 29See note, p. 152.24. PALLAS, VENUS, AND DIANA CONSULTING 30Gal. des Peint.Jupiter ordered these divinities to excite desire in the heart ofProserpina as a means of leading her into the power of therichest of all monarchs, the one who most abounds in treasures.(See page 140.)25. DIONYSUS AS GOD OF THE SUN 31Pit. Ant. Ercolano.Dionysus Bacchus symbolizes the sun as god of the seasons ;rides on a panther, pours wine into a drinking-horn heldby a satyr, who also carries a wine skin bottle. The winged geniiof the seasons attend. Winter carries two geese and a cornucopia ; Spring holds in one hand the mystical cist, and in theother the mystic zone ;Summer bears a sickle and a sheafof grain ;and Autumn has a hare and a horn-of -plenty full offruits. Fauns, satyrs, boy-fauns, the usual attendants ofBacchus, play with goats and panthers between the legs of thelarger figures.26. HERSE AND MERCURY 42Pit. Ant. Ercolano.A fabled love match between the god and a daughter of Cecrops,the Egyptian who founded Athens, supplied the ritual forthe festivals Hersephoria, in which young girls of sevento eleven years, from the most noted families, dressed in