nd bending over
her, at length found relief in tears.

The two weeping women sat in silence, side by side, while in front of
them the orgy went on its frantic course. A party of men and women were
dancing down the hall, singing and shouting. Flutes yelled, cymbals
clanged, drums rattled and droned, without either time or tune. Drunken
pastophori had flung open the rooms where the vestments and sacred
vessels were kept, and from these treasuries the ribald mob had dragged
forth panther-skins such as the priests wore when performing the sacred
functions, brass cars for carrying sacrifices, wooden biers on which the
images of the gods were borne in solemn processions, and other precious
objects. In a large room adjoining, a party of students and girls were
concocting some grand scheme for which they needed much time and large
supplies of wine; but most of those who had possessed themselves of the
plunder had taken it into the hypostyle and were vying with each other
in extravagant travesties.

A burly wine-grower was elected to represent Dionysus and was seated
with nothing but some wreaths of flowers to cover his naked limbs, in
a four-wheeled sacrificial car of beaten brass. An alabaster wine-jar
stood between his fat knees, and his heavy body rolled with laughter as
he was drawn in triumph through the sacred arcades by a shouting rabble,
as fast as they could run. Numbers of the intoxicated crew, mad with
excitement and wine, had cast off their clothes which lay in heaps
between the pillars, soaking in puddles of spilt wine. In their wild
dance the girls' hair had fallen about their heated faces, tangled with
withered leaves and faded flowers, and the men, young and old alike,
leaped and waltzed like possessed creatures, flourishing thyrsus-staves
and the emblems of the lusty wine-god.

A small band of priests and philosophers ventured into the chaos in the
hope of quelling the riot, but a tipsy flute-player placed himself in
front of them and throwing back his head blew a furious blast to
heaven on his double pipe, shrill enough to wake the dead, while a girl
seconded him by flinging her tambourine in the face of the intruding
pacificators. It bounced against the shaft of a column, and then fell on
the shaven head of a priestling, who seized it and tossed it back. The
game was soon taken up, and before long, one tambourine after another
was flying over the heads of the frenzied crew. Every one was eager to
have one,