Hence the phrase, "Bassaridum rotator Evan"--"The wheeling Evan of the Bacchantes" (STATIUS, Sylv.). Hence, also, the circular dances of the Druids as referred to in the following quotation from a Druidic song: "Ruddy was the sea beach whilst the circular revolution was performed by the attendants and the white bands in graceful extravagance" (DAVIES'S Druids). That this circular dance among the Pagan idolaters really had reference to the circuit of the sun, we find from the distinct statement of Lucian in his treatise On Dancing, where, speaking of the circular dance of the ancient Eastern nations, he says, with express reference to the sun-god, "it consisted in a dance imitating this god." We see then, here, a very specific reason for the circular dance of the Bacchae, and for the ever-revolving wheel of the great Centaurus in the infernal regions. Chapter II
Section II
Sub-Section III
The Child in Greece
Thus much for Egypt. Coming into Greece, not only do we find evidence there to the same effect, but increase of that evidence. The god worshipped as a child in the arms of the great Mother in Greece, under the names of Dionysus, or Bacchus, or Iacchus, is, by ancient inquirers, expressly identified with the Egyptian Osiris. This is the case with Herodotus, who had prosecuted his inquiries in Egypt itself, who ever speaks of Osiris as Bacchus. To the same purpose is the testimony of Diodorus Siculus. "Orpheus," says he, "introduced from Egypt the greatest part of the mystical ceremonies, the orgies that celebrate the wanderings of Ceres, and the whole fable of the shades below. The rites of Osiris and Bacchus are the same; those of Isis and Ceres exactly resemble each other, except in name." Now, as if to identify Bacchus with Nimrod, "the Leopard-tamer," leopards were employed to draw his car; he himself was represented as clothed with a leopard's skin; his priests were attired in the same manner, or when a leopard's skin was dispensed with, the spotted skin of a fawn was used as a priestly robe in its stead. This very custom of wearing the spotted fawn-skin seems to have been imported into Greece originally from Assyria, where a spotted fawn was a sacred emblem, as we learn from the Nineveh sculptures; for there we find a divinity bearing a spotted fawn or spotted fallow-deer, in his arm, as a symbol of some mysterious import.