Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose | Page 8

the air, was shady with the foliage of myrtles and laurels. Everywhere
the ground was carpeted with flowers, though the season was
mid-winter, with roses and white lilies and blossoms of the gardens. By
the columns round the whole pavilion were arrayed a hundred effigies
in marble, executed by the most famous sculptors, and on the middle
spaces were hung works by the painters of Sicyon and tapestry woven

with stories of the adventures of the gods. Above these, again, ran a
frieze of gold and silver shields, while in the higher niches were placed
comic, tragic, and satiric sculptured groups 'dressed in real clothes,'
says the historian, much admiring this realism. It is impossible to
number the tripods, and flagons, and couches of gold, resting on golden
figures of sphinxes, the salvers, the bowls, the jewelled vases. The
masquerade of this winter festival began with the procession of the
Morning-star, Heosphoros, and then followed a masque of kings and a
revel of various gods, while the company of Hesperus, the Eveningstar
followed, and ended all. The revel of Dionysus was introduced by men
disguised as Sileni, wild woodland beings in raiment of purple and
scarlet. Then came scores of satyrs with gilded lamps in their hands.
Next appeared beautiful maidens, attired as Victories, waving golden
wings and swinging vessels of burning incense. The altar of the God of
the Vine was borne behind them, crowned and covered with leaves of
gold, and next boys in purple robes scattered fragrant scents from
golden salvers. Then came a throng of gold-crowned satyrs, their naked
bodies stained with purple and vermilion, and among them was a tall
man who represented the year and carried a horn of plenty. He was
followed by a beautiful woman in rich attire, carrying in one hand
branches of the palm-tree, in the other a rod of the peach-tree, starred
with its constellated flowers. Then the masque of the Seasons swept by,
and Philiscus followed, Philiscus the Corcyraean, the priest of
Dionysus, and the favourite tragic poet of the court. After the prizes for
the athletes had been borne past, Dionysus himself was charioted along,
a gigantic figure clad in purple, and pouring libations out of a golden
goblet. Around him lay huge drinking-cups, and smoking censers of
gold, and a bower of vine leaves grew up, and shaded the head of the
god. Then hurried by a crowd of priests and priestesses, Maenads,
Bacchantes, Bassarids, women crowned with the vine, or with garlands
of snakes, and girls bearing the mystic vannus Iacchi. And still the
procession was not ended. A mechanical figure of Nysa passed, in a
chariot drawn by eighty men, among clusters of grapes formed of
precious stones, and the figure arose, and poured milk out of a golden
horn. The Satyrs and Sileni followed close, and behind them six
hundred men dragged on a wain, a silver vessel that held six hundred
measures of wine. This was only the first of countless symbolic vessels

that were carried past, till last came a multitude of sixteen hundred
boys clad in white tunics, and garlanded with ivy, who bore and handed
to the guests golden and silver vessels full of sweet wine. All this was
only part of one procession, and the festival ended when Ptolemy and
Berenice and Ptolemy Philadelphus had been crowned with golden
crowns from many subject cities and lands.
This festival was obviously arranged to please the taste of a prince with
late Greek ideas of pictorial display, and with barbaric wealth at his
command. Theocritus himself enables us in the seventeenth idyl to
estimate the opulence and the dominion of Ptolemy. He was not master
of fertile Aegypt alone, where the Nile breaks the rich dank soil, and
where myriad cities pour their taxes into his treasuries. Ptolemy held
lands also in Phoenicia, and Arabia; he claimed Syria and Libya and
Aethiopia; he was lord of the distant Pamphylians, of the Cilicians, the
Lycians and the Carians, and the Cyclades owned his mastery. Thus the
wealth of the richest part of the world flowed into Alexandria,
attracting thither the priests of strange religions, the possessors of
Greek learning, the painters and sculptors whose work has left its traces
on the genius of Theocritus.
Looking at this early Alexandrian age, three points become clear to us.
First, the fashion of the times was Oriental, Oriental in religion and in
society. Nothing could be less Hellenic, than the popular cult of Adonis.
The fifteenth idyl of Theocritus shows us Greek women worshipping in
their manner at an Assyrian shrine, the shrine of that effeminate lover
of Aphrodite, whom Heracles, according to the Greek proverb, thought
'no great divinity.' The hymn of Bion, with its luxurious lament, was
probably meant to be chanted at just