,
whom they consider more powerful than the Madonna of their neighbors, so
in Greece the same god was invoked in various localities under different
surnames. The Arcadian Zeus had the surname of Lycaeus, derived, probably,
from [Greek: Lux], Lux, light. The Cretan Jupiter was called Asterios.
At Karia he was Stratios. Iolaus in Euripides (the Herakleidae, 347) says:
"We have gods as our allies not inferior to those of the Argives, O king;
for Juno, the wife of Jove, is their champion, but Minerva ours; and I
say, to have the best gods tends to success, for Pallas will not endure to
be conquered."[260] So, in the "Suppliants" of Aeschylus, the Egyptian
Herald says (838): "By no means do I dread the deities of this place; for
they have not nourished me nor preserved me to old age."[261]

Two modes of worship met in Greece, together with two classes of gods. The
Pelasgi, as we have seen, worshipped unnamed impersonal powers of the
universe, without image or temple. But to this was added a worship which
probably came through Thrace, from Asia and Egypt. This element introduced
religious poetry and music, the adoration of the muses, the rites and
mysteries of Demeter, and the reverence for the Kabiri, or dark divinities
of the lower world.

Of these, the MYSTERIES were the most significant and important. Their
origin must be referred to a great antiquity, and they continued to be
practised down to the times of the Roman Emperors. They seem not to belong
to the genuine Greek religion, but to be an alien element introduced into
it. The gods of the Mysteries are not the beings of light, but of
darkness, not the gods of Olympus, but of the under-world. Everything
connected with the Mysteries is foreign to the Hellenic mind. This
worship is secret; its spirit is of awe, terror, remorse; its object is
expiation of sin. Finally, it is a hieratic worship, in the hands of
priests.

All this suggests Egypt as the origin of the Mysteries. The oldest were
those celebrated in the island of Samothrace, near the coast of Asia
Minor. Here Orpheus is reputed to have come and founded the Bacchic
Mysteries; while another legend reports him to have been killed by the
Bacchantes for wishing to substitute the worship of Apollo for that of
Dionysos. This latter story, taken in connection with the civilizing
influence ascribed to Orpheus, indicates his introducing a purer form of
worship. He reformed the licentious drunken rites, and established