back with triumphant remembrance to ancient
conquest, but has his victories in the present, also, and in the great
Hereafter. For triumph was connected with all Dionysiac symbols, hints
of which are preserved to us in representations found upon ancient
vases: such, for instance, as the figure of Victory surmounting the
heads of the ivy-crowned Bacchantes in their mystic orgies; or the
winged serpents which bear the chariot of the victor-god,--as if in
this connection even the reptiles, whose very name (_serpentes_) is
a synonyme for what creeps, are to be made the ministrants of his
conquering flight. The tombs of the ancients from Egypt to Etruria are
full of these symbols. Many of them have become dim as to their meaning
by oblivious time; but enough is evident to indicate the prominence
of hope in ancient faith. This appears in the very multiplicity of
Dionysiac symbols as compared with any other class. Thus, out of
sixty-six vases at Polignano, all but one or two were found to be
Dionysiac in their symbolism. And this instance stands for many others.
The _character_ of the scenes represented indicates the same prominence
of hope, sometimes as connected with the relations of life,--as, for
example, the representation, found upon a sepulchral cone, of a husband
and wife uniting with each other in prayer to the Sun. Frequent
inscriptions--such as those in which the deceased is carefully committed
to Osiris, the Egyptian Dionysus--point in the same direction; as
also the genii who presided over the embalmed dead, a belief in whose
existence surely indicated a hopeful trust in some divine care which
would not leave them even in the grave. Statues of Osiris are found
among the ruins of palaces and temples; but it was in the monuments
associated with death that they dwelt most upon his name and expressed
their faith in most frequent incarnation and inscription.

The epic movement of Eleusinian triumph was in its range as unlimited
as the movement of sorrow. Each found expression in sculptured
monument,--the one hinting of flight into darkness, and the other of
resurrection into light; each in its cycle inclosed the world; each
widened into the invisible; as the wail of Achtheia reached the heart of
Hades, so the paean of Dionysus was lost in the heavens.

* * * * *

But in what manner did this Dionysus make his _avatar_ in the world? For
he must needs have first touched the earth as human