Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

Bacchic Mysteries. 49even to Virgil himself, who has so elegantlydescribed their external form ;for notwithstandingthe traces of Platonism which areto be found in the jEnei-d, nothing of anygreat depth occurs throughout the whole,except what a superficial reading of Platoand the dramas of the Mysteries might easilyafford. But this is not perceived by modernreaders, who, entirely unskilled themselves inPlatonism, and fascinated by the charms ofhis poetry, imagine him to be deeply knowingin a subject with which he was most likelybut slightly acquainted.This opinion is stillfarther strengthened by consideringthat thedoctrine delivered in his Eclogues is perfectlyEpicurean, which was the fashionable philosophy of the Augustan age and that there;is no trace of Platonism in any other part ofhis works but the present book, which, containing a representation of the Mysteries,was necessarily obliged to display some ofthe principal tenets of this philosophy, sofar as they illustratedand made a part ofthese mystic exhibitions. However, on thesupposition that this book presents us with