XXI.] THE ANDROGYNOUS DIONYSOS.

AMPELOS. 7

It seems, even from what little has been stated, that both poets and artists did much towards rendering the sex of Dionysos ambiguous. Later authorities 35 go still further, and assert that he was actually both male and female.

Hence the epithet androgynous is bestowed on a statue of Dionysos, by the Christian author Theodoret 36, in a passage of his Ecclesiastical History, where he is speaking of the persecution suffered by the Church when the Emperor Julian was re-establishing the old religion of the Roman world.

The youth on whose shoulder the right arm of Dionysos reposes must next be considered. We find in the Dionysiacs of Nonnus a youthful companion of the God whose society he preferred even to the feasts of the Gods and the friendship of Zeus37, and of whose beauty the poet gives an elaborate and glowing description 38. His name was Ampelos, and I have no doubt that he is meant to be represented by the youth in the car. The little tail seen on his back, and his pointed

explained by HESYCHIUS and SUIDAS, and is used by PHILOSTRATUS, Vit. Sophist. 11. 31. 2. where Perizonius supposes it to indicate Heliogabalus.

35 This is the account given in the ORPHIC POEMS: Hymn xxx. Κικλήσκω Διόνυσον-πρωτόγονον διφυῆ. Hymn XLII. 4.

Αρσενα καὶ θῆλυν διφυῆ λύσειον Ιακχον. ARISTIDES, p. 52. 8. Ταῦτ ̓ ἄρα καὶ ἄῤῥην τε καὶ θῆλυς ὁ θεός. Again, p. 52. 10. Ἐστὶ δὲ τῇ φύσει καὶ τὴν μορφὴν προςεοικώς ὥςπερ γὰρ δίδυμος πάντη αὐτὸς πρὸς ἑαυτόν ἐστι. See Voss, Mythologische Briefe, and, on the other hand, HEINRICH's academical dissertation, "Hermaphroditorum, artis antiquae operibus illustrium, origines et causae."

36 His words are, (Eccles. Hist. III. 7.) 'Ev 'Eμéon dè τy òμópw tóλei, Διονύσῳ τῷ γύννιδι τὴν νεόδμητον ἀφιέρωσαν ἐκκλησίαν, τὸ καταγέ λαστον καὶ ἀνδρόγυνον ἐν αὐτῇ ἱδρύσαντες ἄγαλμα.

37 NONNUS, x. 284.

Οὐ πόθον ἕλκω

νέκταρος, ἀμβροσίης δ ̓ οὐ δεύομαι· οὐκ αλεγίζω,
Ἄμπελος εἰ φιλέει με, καὶ ἐχθαίρει με Κρονίων.

OVID, Fasti, III. 409.

Ampelon intonsum, Satyro Nymphaque creatum,
Fertur in Ismariis Bacchus amasse jugis.

38 NONNUS, 1. c. v. 175-192.

8

GROUPS OF DIONYSOS AND AMPELOS.

[CHAP.

goat-like ears, sufficiently identify the figure with that of the young Satyr" whom Dionysos so fondly loved.

The attitude of Dionysos and Ampelos in the car is one in which they are found on several other ancient monuments. In a well-known group, Eros has conducted Dionysos to the place where Ariadne is sleeping, and the God's left arm rests on the shoulder of his youthful companion 40. Among the statues of what was once the Ducal palace at Venice, is a group consisting of Dionysos and Ampelos11: they are also seen on a sarcophagus in the Vatican 42. In other monuments Dionysos's right hand rests on the same youth13: and we find them together in a bronze group discovered lately at Pompeii, and now in the Studij at Naples11. A young Satyr supports the left arm of the bearded Dionysos in an ancient monument of Greek sculpture contained in the noble collection of the Vatican 15, and

39 NONNUS, x. 208.

Εἰ Κρονίδης με φύτευσε, σὺ δὲ χθονίης ἀπὸ φύτλης
βουκεράων Σατύρων μινυώριον αἷμα κομίζεις,
ἴσον ἐμοὶ βασίλευε θεῷ βροτός.

45

Compare WINCKELMANN, Monumenti antich. ined. Par. prim. p. 6. On the tails of the Satyrs see LI BRONZI D'ERCOLANO, Tom. II. Tav. XXXVIII. XXXIX. and p. 146. If the presence of the tail is indispensable in the figure of Ampelos, as I think it must be considered, Mr Becker's conjecture respecting the Dresden statue (AUGUSTEUM DRESDENS, Vol. III. p. 90.) cannot be received. Visconti's assertion, too, (MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO, Tom. IV. Tav. XXII. p. 48.) that on a lion's back "siede senza freno il fanciullo Ampelo," seems difficult to admit; for, fitly as Ampelos is placed on a lion's back, (see NONNUS, XI. 66. foll.) yet we can hardly venture to call by his name a figure in which all the marks of a caprine origin are wanting.

40 Published elsewhere, and in Mr HIRT'S Bilderbuch, Tab. x. Fig. 5. 41 STATUE DI SAN MARCO, Tom. II. Tav. XIV. XXVI. where the God's arm rests on the young Satyr's shoulder. See also the STATUAE MUSEI FLORENTINI, Tab. XLVIII.

42 MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO, Tom. v. Tav. VIII.

43 In the MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO, Tom. I. Tav. XLII. "Bacco con Fauno:" and Sir WILLIAM GELL'S Pompeiana, Vol. 11. Pl. LXXVIII.

44 MUSEO BORBONICO, Tom. III. Tav. IX. Bacco ed Ampelo. Gruppo di bronzo alto palme tre oncie due. Ampelos alone appears in the MUSEUM FLORENTINUM, Gemmae, Tom. I. Tav. LXXXviii. 8.

45 MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO, Tom. IV. Tav. XXV. VISCONTI, p. 52. observes, "Un fauno per molle commodità il sostiene sotto il sinistro cubito."

XXI.] AMPELOS, ACRATOS AND OTHER DEMONS. 9

46

the attitudes of the two figures remind us of those in which we have seen the youthful God and Ampelos. Elsewhere also the thyrsus-bearing and bearded God is accompanied by Ampelos 16. In different museums other groups are found in which figures have been taken for Ampelos, sometimes, perhaps, without sufficient authority17.

He is sometimes called the genius of Dionysos, and seems to be entitled to rank as one of those ministering powers who attended on and performed the behests of superior deities. Acratos was another genius of the same God: he is mentioned by Pausanias 48, is called Acratopotes in Athenaeus, and is represented, on ancient monuments, as a winged boy, with a smiling, and, not unfrequently, a drunken countenance 50.

We know the names of very few of the thirty thousand demons, spirits of departed heroes, who, according to Hesiod1, exist on the earth, and superintend the

46 D'HANCARVILLE, Antiquités Etrusques Grecques et Romaines, Tom. 11. Pl. v. pp. 110-111. STATUAE MUSEI FLORENTINI, Tom. v. Tab. XLVIII.

47 For instance, in the "Bacchus cum Ampelo" of the MUSEUM FLORENTINUM, Tom. III. Tab. XLVII. p. 52. the supposed Ampelos bears no mark of his descent Σατύρων ἀπὸ φύτλης. The same thing may be said of the figure taken for Ampelos in the MUSEO CAPITOLINO, Tom. IV. p. 249. WINCKELMANN, however, takes the former figure for a Satyr: Werke, Vol. III. p. x. See Obss. p. 4. Again, in a group of the MUSEO BORBONICO, Tom. VIII. Tav. LI. "Bacco da l'uva alla vite," I should hardly take the little boy seen receiving a bunch of grapes, for Ampelos, who is, however, in all probability meant to be represented by the figure of a youth drawn in a car, on a bas-relief of the Vatican, MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO, Tom. IV. Tav. xxv. Visconti's supposition, that it is Acratos, is clearly indefensible, if the view which I have taken of these two genii is correct. In another group, MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO, Tom. IV. Tav. xx. Visconti describes Bacchus as "retto dal giovinetto Acrato o Ampelo;" where the sculptor must have designed to represent Ampelos alone.

48 PAUSANIAS, I. p. 2. Δαίμων τῶν ἀμφὶ Διόνυσον Ἄκρατος. 49 ATHENAEUS, II. p. 39.

50 GORII Gemmae Musei Florentini, p. 95. MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO, MUSEO BORBONICO, Tom. v. Tav. VIII. Tom. VII. Tav. LXII.

51 HESIOD, Works and Days, 1. 250.

Τρὶς γὰρ μύριοι εἰσὶν ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ
ἀθάνατοι Ζηνὸς φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων.