Greek tragedy, then, is a religious art, not merely because associated with the festival of dionysus, nor because the life which it represented was that of men who believed, with all the Hellenes, in Zeus, Apollo, and Athena, or in the power of Moira and the Erinyes,- not merely because it represented 'the dread strife Of poor humanity's afflicted will Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny,' but much more because it awakened in the Athenian spectator emotions of wonder concerning human life, and of admiration for nobleness in the unfortunate-a sense of the infinite value of personal uprightness and of domestic purity-which in the most universal sense of the word were truly religious,-because it expressed a consciousness of depths which Plato never fathomed, and an ideal of character which, if less complete than Shakespeare's, is not less noble.
"The Seven Plays in English Verse"
Sophocles
Thus, among other instances, he told me that a Greek poet named Theocritus sets out in one of his idyls how a woman called Agave, being engaged in a secret religious orgie in honour of a demon named dionysus, perceived her own son Pentheus watching the celebration of the mysteries, and thereon becoming possessed by the demon she fell on him and murdered him, being aided by the other women.
"Montezuma's Daughter"
H. Rider Haggard
Thus Attis became one with the dionysus-Sabazius of the conquerors, or at least assumed some of his characteristics.
"The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism"
Franz Cumont
