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Iacchus

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Graf 2005, "Iacchus"

The iconography of I. is disputed because no labelled image is preserved. The Eleusinian images represent two young men in ependytes, Thracian boots and (often) with torches. One of them is often considered to be I., but he could also be Dionysus I. who is frequently depicted in an Eleusinian context.

Versnel, pp. 25–26

As regards the plastic art, we must admit that the numerous attempts to recognize Iacchos paerticularly in pictures of the Eleusinian circle have not yielded sure and trustworthy results. Already in 1899 E. Pottier remarked:6 "Pourant si ..." It must be added that the one picture in which Nilsson, Deubner, Mylonas and others with a fair degree of probability recognize Iacchos, viz the Niinnionpinax,1 is dated about 400 B.C. at the earliest, whereas the majority of scholars prefer a date betwwen 400 and 350 B.C.2 The representations found more recently which apparently promised a way out of the impasse, will be discussed in a later paragraph.
It is interesting to note that a seventh figure was added, —forexample on an Attic relief found in Mondragone near Sinuessa, Italy,—namely, Iacchos, a personification of the cry which was hears=d in the great procession from Athens to Eleusis at the festival of the mysteries.
  • Malonas
p. 51
...Nilson has pointed oput that the boy could not have been Iacchos, since ...
p. 198
...His young sons, Sostratos and Dioysios (Fig. 71, 1 and 9), are represented in the guise of Iacchos and hold in their hands stalks of wheat ...
p. 207
[The Lovatelli urn] ... as a matter of fact scholars have variously identified the youth as Iacchos, Triptolemos, ...
... the sarcophagas of Torre-Nova (Fig. 84). ... In the third scene we have ... looking towards a youthful Iacchos ... The figure of Iacchos corresponds to the youth of the third scene of the Lovatelli urn who thus should also be identified as Iacchos...
The Lovatelli urn ... but probably Iacchos who had ...
p. 211
[Figure 85 Pantikapaion Hydria, Hermitage] Demeter and Aphrodite are being approached by a youthful figure holding lighted torches, wearing a richly embroidered costume, a wreath of myrtle, and high, elaborate boots. There can be little doubt that he is the youthful Iacchos who, acting as mystagogos, is leading to the Goddess a youthful Herakles holding a bacchos and his club and wearing a wreath of myrtle.
p. 212
[Figure 81 Pourtales vase, British Museum] On a red-figure krater now in the British Museum, known as the Pourtales vase, ... To the seated Goddess are brought

by two mystagogoi, actuallt Iacchos painted twice, Herakles, identified by his club, standing near Demeter, and the Dioskouri ...

pp. 215-219 [Ninnion tablet]

Nonnus' account edit

The infant Iacchus (?) edit

  • Tripp, s.v. Iacchus p. 313
A youth or a child, Iacchus may have been ...
(*)/Iakxos), the solemn name of the mystic Bacchus at Athens and Eleusis. The Phrygian Bacchus was looked upon in the Eleusinian mysteries as a child, and as such he is described as the son of Demeter (Deo or Calligeneia) and Zeus, and as the brother of Cora, that is, the male Cora or Corus. (Aristoph. Frogs 338; Soph. Antig. 1121, &c.; Orph. Hymn. 51, 11.)

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References edit

To Do edit

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All

  • LIMC s.v. Iachos
p. 213 (cited by Versnel, p. 25 n. 6)

Find edit

  • Scholiast on Pindar Isth. 7.3a (cited by Parker, p. 358, Jiménez San Cristóbal 2013, p. 280 n. 30; Smith)
  • Scholiast on Euripides Trojan Women 1230

Get edit

  • Clinton 1992, Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries BU Mugar; MFA
pp. 64-71 (cited by Jiménez San Cristóbal 2013, p. 279 n. 26), 91. n. 164 (cited by Parker, p. 358), Index?, Other?

Look at edit

p. 110
Au temps des guerres médiques, il n'avait pas encore de personnalité, il désignait les chants et les acclamations poussées par le cortège des mystes, lorsqu'il se rendait d'Athènes a Éleusis. C'est le sens qu'il a très nettement dans le récit qu'Hérodote a fait du prodige qui annonça le désastre de Thria, un nuage de poussière, comme celui qu'aurait soulevé une troupe de trente mille hommes, et il entendit un grand bruit de cris qui lui semblèrent être le Iacchos mystique, xαί οἱ φαίνεσθαι τὴν φωνὴν εἶναι τὸν μυστιxὸν ἴαxχον. Et il l'expliqua de cette façon à l'ancien roi de Sparte, Demaratos, qui était mal au courant des mystères, enore peu célèbres, d'Éleusis: τὴν φωνὴν ῆς ἀxούεις ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ὁρτῇ ἰαxχάζουσιν.
At the time of the Medic wars, he had no personality yet, he [designated] the songs and acclamations pushed by the procession of mysteries when he went from Athens to Eleusis. This is the meaning which he has very clearly in Herodotus's account of the prodigy which announced the disaster of Thria, a cloud of dust, like that raised by a troop of thirty thousand men, and he heard a loud noise of cries which seemed to him to be the mystical Iacchos, xαί οἱ φαίνεσθαι τὴν φωνὴν εἶναι τὸν μυστιxὸν ἴαxχον [The cry seemed to be the “Iacchus” of the mysteries]. And he explained it thus to the ancient king of Sparta, Demaratos, who was unacquainted with the mysteries, still not very famous, of Eleusis: τὴν φωνὴν ῆς ἀxούεις ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ὁρτῇ ἰαxχάζουσιν [The voice which you hear is the ‘Iacchus’ they cry at this festival”].
  • Versnel [In folder "Iacchus"]
  • Rose 1928, A Handbook of Greek Mythology, p. 143?

Jevons edit

p. 352

In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the deities Sabzios, Zagreus, and Iacchus, who were worshipped with revived rites in the East, should have been identified by their Greek worshippers with Dionysus.

p. 371

The new movement of the sixth century spread first ... These, however, were the first ripples of the wave from the East which was speedily to invade Greece: wandering agyrtae introduced the rites and the worship of foreign gods; religious organizations, thiasi, were formed by the agyrtae and sanctioned by the legislation of Solon, for the worship of Iacchus, Zagreus, Sabazios, Cybele, and other deities unknown before in Greece. The spread of these new cults was facilitated first by their resemblance to that of Dionysus, and next by the Orphic mythology which sought to prove the identity of Iacchus, Sabazios, or Zagreus with Dionysus. The attitude of the tyrant Pisistratus towards the new movement was one of favour and protection. It was at his court that Onomacritus organised the Orphic literature which was to prove that these foreign gods were not foreign but originals of the god known to the Greks as Dionysus. It was Pisistratus that tragedy, part of the ritual of Dionysus, was welcomed from the country into the town. And it was Pisistratus that the cult of Iacchus was incorporated into the Eleusinian rites.

p. 372

The consequence of this incororation was an expansion of the cult of the Eleusinian goddesses even greater than that which followed on the union of Eleusis with Athens. The ritual was enlarged: the image of Iacchus was conveyed in procession by his worshippers from his temple in Athens, along the Sacred Way, to Eleusis, and there placed in the Eleusinion by the side of the two goddesses. This was an expression in outward act of the union of these two cults, and constituted an addition to the Elusinia, but not a modification of them. But the introduction of Iacchus did also modify the Eleusinia: Iacchus was identified with Dionysus, and the dramatic performances which were part of the worship of Dionysus now became part of the ritual of Eleusis.

p. 373

According to Orphic theology, Iacchus was the child of Persephone. It may be, therefore, that the birth of Iacchus formed the subject of some of the choral odes and dances. Persephone was made in Orphic mythology to be the mother of Iacchus, chiefly because thus the reception of the foreign god was facilitated. That the cult of Iacchus had gained a footing in Athens before it was incorporated with the Eleusinia, is shown by the fact that there was a temple of Iacchus, an Iaccheion, in Athens, in which the image of Iacchus was kept always, except for the few days when it was taken to Eleusis to take part in Eleusinia. That the cult was introduced into Athens by private individuals, as a private worship, and was carried on by means of one of the ordinary private religious associations, or thiasi, may be considered as certain on the analogy of all Eastern cults, which without exception were introduced in this way. But this thiasus of Iacchus, like all other thiasi, would be open to all who chose to become members of it, and probably large numbers did choose to join it. When, therefore, Pisistratus ordained that the circle of the Eleusian deities should be enlarged by the addition of Iacchus to their number, and that the statue of Iaccus should accordingly be carried in solemn procession by its worshippers from Athens to Eleusis, and there by them be placed by the side of the two goddesses, he not only enlarged the number of Eleusian deities, he also enlarged the circle of their worshippers.

p. 374

Initiation into the worship of Iacchus took place at the lesser mysteries,1 and eventually was required of all who wished to be admitted to the greater mysteries at Eleusis; but a memory of the time when the lesser mysteries of Iacchus were peculiarly the portal by which foreigners obtained permission to the Eleusinia, still survives in the myth that the lesser mysteries were invented for the benefit of Heracles, who wished to be admitted to the Eleusinian rites, but could be initiated because he was a foreigner; therefore the lesser mysteries were invented and thrown open to all foreigners2 (Greeks, not barbarians).
The popularity of Iacchus and of the Eleusinian mysteries was enormaously in creased in B.C. 480—half a century after the expulsion of the Pisistratidae—by the fact that the great and glorious victory over the Persians at Salamis was won on the very day appointed for the procession of Iacchus from Athens to Eleusis;

Jiménez San Cristóbal edit

2012 "Iacchus in Plutarch" [In folder "Iacchus"]

p. 125
Iacchus' figure has raised a great discussion and confusion between ancient and modern scholars. Iacchus is often considered a name of Dionysus, with whom he is identified in art and literature from early times.1 However it is a very debated question whether Iacchus is originally an independent deity who emerged in Elusinian circles and was assimulated later to Dionysus,2 or on the contrary, he is a mere epiclesis ["invocation"] of this god.3
In the Eleusinian Mysteries Iacchus accompanied Demeter abd Kore, and his image presided over the procession that carried Iacchus from Athens to Eleusis on 20 Boedromion--corresponding to 28th or 29th September. In fact, the term Ἴακχος has been associated ever since ancient times with the ritual exclamation ἴακχε that the initiates cried during the procession.4
1 S., Ant. 1151, Fr. 959 Radt; AP 9.82, 11.64; PMG 879, 1027d; Ath. 15.678a; E.. Ba 725; Luc., Salt. 39; Lucr. 4.1160; Cat. 64. 251; Verg., Aen. [sic] 6.15, see O. Kern, "Iacchus", RE IX1 (Sttugart 1914) cols. 614-622 (619-622); K. Clinton, Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries (Stockholm) 65 n 16.
2 See F. Höfer, "Iacchus", in W.H.R. Rosher, Aus ... L. R. Farnell, The Cult of the Greek States III (Oxford 1907) 148; ...
p. 126
Plutarch echoes a famous Herodotean passage, in which Dicaues, an Athenian exile who had become important among the Medes, and his guest Demaratus heard a sound in the Thriasian plain. The sound was similar to the ritual exclamation, the ... cried by the initiates expressing their joy when they go in procession to Eleusis.7 Dicaeus interprets the sound as a divine voice—because the plain is deserted—a cry helping the Athenians and their allies in battle.8
p. 127
It has been suggested that for Herodotus Iacchus was not yet a god, but simply a ritual exclamation that had subsequently given rise to the diety.11 ἴακχος seems to derive from the exclamation ἴακχε, derived in turn from ιαχή, ιάχω ("cry, to cry").12 In Herodotus' text, the expression ... makes reference to the ritual cry, but it does not prevent Iacchus from being already regarded as a god at this time. In fact several inscriptions show his presence as possibly as early as the 6th century BC at Berezan and Olbia.13 Sophocles, contemporary of Herodotus, considers Iacchus a diety identified with Dionysus, and also Euripides, ...14 Most of the later references to the episode narrated by Herodotus present Iacchus as a divinity helping the Greeks in battle.15
14 As theonym, for example, in S. Ant. 1152, fr. 959 Radt., E., Ba 725;
15 X. Simp. 8.40; Polyacn. 3.11.2; Aristodem., FGrH 104 F 1.8; Aristid., Or. 19.258 Jebb (I 418-419 Dindorf) and Or. 46.214 Jebb (II 282 Dindorf) and schol. ad loc. p. 648 Dindorf. Aeschylus does not mention, however Iacchus' intervention when he emphasizes in Persians (345-354) the importance of the gods in the Athenian victory agains Xerxes' army. Lib., Decl. 9.44 speaks of the help od daimones comming from Eleusis, but without naming Iacchus.
p. 128
In these texts ἴακχος is a kind of cry or ritual exclamation uttered by initiates. The term can also have the meaning of a song or hymn of worship, not necessarily associated with the god. In Euripides' play The Trojan Women ἴακχος is a threnody; in The Cyclops, it is Iacchus' song in honor of Aphrodite, and in a fragment of Palamedes, it refers to the sound of Dionysiac tympani.19
19 E., Tr. 1230, Cyc. 68-71, fr. 586. 4 Kannicht, see Graf, Eleusis, 56 n. 25.
p. 129
3.1 On Boedromion 19th/20th
Four of the five passages of Plutarch quoting Iacchus refer to the procession to Eleusis. In Camillus and Phocion, Plutarch says that Iacchus was carried from Athens to Eleusis on 20th of Boedromion.26 A late inscription shows that the procession started actually on the 19th, so that the initiates likely left Athens that day and came to Eleusis in the early morning of the 20th.27 On the morning of the 19th priests and priestesses took the sacred objects from the Eleusinion, where they had been sheltered since their arrival in Athens.28 They probably followed the Panathenaic Way, traversed the agora and came to a temple, in which the crowd of the initiates joined them in order to set out to Eleusis.29
This temple has been identified with a Demeter's sanctuary mentioned by Pausanias, in which the images of the Eleusinian goddesses and Iacchus himself was kept. It was probably located near the Pompeion, at the [cont.]
27IG II2 1078, 18-22 (ca. 220 CE), see K. Clinton, Eleusis. The inscription on Stone. Documents of the Sanctuary of the two Goddesses and Public Documents of Deme (Athens 2005) nr. 638. On the procession see Foucart, Les mystères, 324-327; Mylonas, Eleusis, 252-258; Kerényi, Eleusis, 60-66. On the date see Dow, "Athenian Decrees from 216-212 BC", HSCPh 48 (1937) 105-126 (113-115). Kerényi, Eleusis, 62.
28IG II2 81, 10 see Kerényi, Eleusis, 62.
29IG II2 1078, 14-15, see Graf, Eleusis, 49. See also Mylonas, Eleusis, 253.
p. 130
entrance to the city by the Dipylon Gate.30 Perhaps it is the same sanctuary that Plutarch mentions in Aristides as "the so called Iaccheion", near which a grandson of Aristides made his living by means of a sort of dream interpreting tablet.31 Plutarch himself attributes this information to Demetrius of Phalerum, but in fact only Plutarch himself and another late author, Alciphron, who probably is paraphasing him, speak of a Iacchus' temple.32
30 Paus. 1.2.4, see Foucart, Les mystères, 113, 329; Wilamovitz, Glaube, 159; Mylonas, Eleusis, 253; Graf, Eleusis, 49 and n. 43 with bibliography (see also 44 and n. 22); A.H. Somerstein, Frogs (Warminster 1996) 184.
p. 131
Euripides, in his Ion, underlines the cosmic power of the dances that the god of "many hymns" (...) leads in honor of the Maiden with golden crown and her revered Mother the night of the 20th of Boedromion. The tragedian [cont.]


p. 132
does not mention the name of Iacchus, but the Athenian audience would have no doubt of his identity.47
47 E., Ion 1074-1086, see Kerényi, Eleusis, 9. ...

2013 "The Sophoclean Dionysos" [In folder "Iacchus"]

p. 278
The term Ἴακχος is usually interpreted as one of the names of Dionysos. It has been associated ever since ancient times with the ritual exclamation ἴακχε that [cont.]
p. 279
the initiates cried during their procession to Eleusis.25 In the Eleusinian mysteries Iacchus accompanied Demeter and Kore, but it is a very debated question whether Iacchus is originally an independent deity who emerged in Eleusinian circles and was assimilated later to Dionysos, or on the contrary, he is a mere epiclesis of this god. The examination of the Sophoclean testimonies can be useful to clarify some of the issues concerning this complicated question.26 The chorus of Antigone is one of the oldest literary testimonies of the term and here it is clear that Iacchus is a name of Dionysos in Eleusinian cult.27 The god's sphere of influence expands beyond 'the hollows of Demeter of Eleusis,' which implies that Sophocles and his audience identify the Bacchus of the first antistrophe, the one who provokes the enthusiasm among Elesinian worshippers, with Iacchus in the second one, that is, the leader of the dance of the stars breathing fire' and the master of the 'Thyiads who in their frenzy dance all night.'28 The chorus, not in vain, starts by describing Dionysus as he 'who has many names' (πολυώνυμε).
In another fragment of Sophocles Iacchus is clearly identified with Dionysos of the bull’s horns, βούκερως, raised on the Mount Nysa:29
ὅθεν κατεῖδον τὴν βεβακχιωμένην
βροτοῖσι κλεινὴν Νῦσαν, ἣν ὁ βούκερως
Ἴακχος αὑτῷ μαῖαν ἡδίστην νέμει,
ὅπου τίς ὄρνις οὐχὶ κλαγγάνει;
From here I caught sight of Nysa, haunt of Bacchus, famed among mortals, which Iacchus of the bull’s horns counts as his beloved nurse; here what bird does not cry?
25 Hdt. 8.65.1; Arr. An. 2.16. Cf. Farnell 1907, 146–151; Graf 1974, 54–59; 2005, 662–663; Clinton 1992, 65–66, n. 14 (with bibliography) considers ἴακχε a cry originally common to other cults, especially the Dionysiac ones, so that the name Ἴακχος became a designation of Dionysos.
26 It is considered as an idependent divinity by Farnell 1907; Foucart 1914, 325; Kern 1914, cols. 619–622; Mylonas 1961, 238, 318. On the other hand, Graf 1974, 51–66; Richardson 1974, 320; Bowie 1993, 232–233; Lada-Richards 1999, 59, n. 60; and Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, 129–135 favour the identification. Jeanmaire 1951, 436–439 and Kerényi 1967, 156–157 (2004, 164–165) argue that the growing importance of Dionysos in Athens led to his assimilation with the Eleusinian Iacchus, who was originally an independent deity. A fine status quaestionis can be found in Clinton 1992, 64–71.
27 In many other passages it just means Dionysus, cf. for example, PMG 879, 1027d; S. fr. 959 Radt; E. Ba 725; Cat. 64.251; AP 9.82, 11.59, 11.64; Ath. 15.678a; Luc. Salt. 39; Lucr. 4.1160; Verg. Aen., cf. Clinton 1992, 65 n.16.
28 As Clinton 1992 points out, this is the typical role of Dionysus as the god of the maenads.
29 S.fr.959Radt; transl. by Lloyd-Jones 1994a, 415.
p. 280
The epithet βούκερως, refers to the epiphaby of the god in the shape of a bull, as he was invoked in certain rituals.30
30 He is also represented in this form, for example, on a crater from Thuri, cf. Kerényi 1976, Fig. 114; ...
p. 282
There are other texts of the dramatist [Euripides] where Iacchus is considered a manifestation of Dionysos.41
41 The identification of Iacchus and Bromius, son of Zeus, is clearly expressed in E.Ba.725–726, cf. Dodds 19602, 165–166. In other passages Euripides uses the term ἴακχος to refer to a Dionysiac regretful song (Tr. 1230), to a song in honour of Aphrodite (Cyc. 68–71, cf. Seaford 1988, 114–115) and to the sound of Dionysiac tympani (fr. 586.4 Kannicht); cf. Graf 1974, 56 n. 25.

Lanzillotta edit

pp. 14–15

In this volume, her [Jiménez's] chapter on "Iacchus in Plutarch" relies [p. 15] on Plutarch's testimony to shed light on an inveterate interpretation related to the god, namely whether the name Iacchus originally reffered to an independent deity from Eleusinian circles that was later assimilated to Dionysus or whether it is an epiclesis of the god. Numerous artistic and literary testimonies assimilate both names and the scholarly literature on the issue is far from reaching consensus.

Petridou edit

[2]

p. 57

Encyclopedia of Word Religions edit

Kerényi 1967 edit

1967 Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter

[3]

Lada-Richards edit

  • Lada-Richards 1999, I.: Initiating Dionysos. Ritual and Theatre in Aristophanes’ Frogs, Oxford 1999.

Amazon

p. 49

Apart from the evidence (which most scholars now treat as conclusive) for the identification of Dionysus with the Eleusinian Iacchus (see below, 2.3, n. 60), the deity whose statue was carried in procession from Athens to Eleusis,13 eloquent testimonies can be sought in the Orphic/Baccic gold leaves,14 where Demeter and Persephone play a prominent role. On the recently ... The fifth ode of Sophocles' Antigone, for example invokes Dionysus 'who rules over the glens, common to all, of Eleusinian Deo (i.e. Demeter)',16
13 See e. g. IG ii2 1006, 9 προέπεμψαν (sc. the ephebes) αὺτὰ (sc. τὰ ἱερά), καὶ τὸν Ἴακχον ὡσαύτως. An allusion to the pompe may be detected in the refrain of the mystic Chrous in Frogs (403, 408, 413) ... See Graf (1974: 44).
14 See Below, 2.14; ...

p. 50 [with image]

2.1. Infant Dionysus on Demeter's lap.
fragment of rf. Attic krater: Oxford, Ashmodean Museum, 1956. 355

p. 99

Now burning of torches in imitation of Demeter's torchlit search for Core (h. Dem. 47-8) is one of the most conspicuous and impressive features of the Eleusinian initiation ritual, both at the Iacchus procession and the pannychis as well as the very closure of the rites (2.14).

p. 100

... Iacchus, the 'lover of dances' (φιλοχορευτά) (403, 408, 413), ... as dancing takes place both during the Iacchus procession (Richardson 1974: 214) ...

p. 102

In Euripides' Ion, for example, Iacchus, the god 'much sung of' (1074-5 ...), is envisaged (1074-85) as a winess of the dance of entire nature in honour of 'the gold crowned Core and her awesome mother' (1085-6) at Eleusis. Now of cource, the Mystai in the Frogd evoke the impressive picture of dionysus as the 'light bringing star of the nocturnal rite' (... 343), ... which ... would have recalled the cosmic image of Antigone 1146-7 where Dionysus was invoked as 'leader of the dance of fire-breathing stars' ...

section 2.14 (pp. 103 ff.?)

For other articles edit

Dipylon Gate? edit

Dipylon Gate

the main gate of the ancient city (fourth century B.C.)

Smith s.v. Athenae

Gates and Pompeion

Sources edit

Ancient edit

Sophocles edit

Antigone

1115–1125
Chorus
[1115] God of many names, glory of the Cadmeian bride and offspring of loud-thundering Zeus, you who watch over far-famed Italy and reign [1120] in the valleys of Eleusinian Deo where all find welcome! O Bacchus, denizen of Thebes, the mother-city of your Bacchants, dweller by the wet stream of Ismenus on the soil [1125] of the sowing of the savage dragon's teeth!
1126–1136
Chorus
[1126] The smoky glare of torches sees you above the cliffs of the twin peaks, where the Corycian nymphs move inspired by your godhead, [1130] and Castalia's stream sees you, too. The ivy-mantled slopes of Nysa's hills and the shore green with many-clustered vines send you, when accompanied by the cries of your divine words, [1135] you visit the avenues of Thebes.
1137—1145
Chorus
[1137] Thebes of all cities you hold foremost in honor, together with your lightning-struck mother. [1140] And now when the whole city is held subject to a violent plague, come, we ask, with purifying feet over steep Parnassus, [1145] or over the groaning straits!
1146–1154
Chorus
[1146] O Leader of the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire, overseer of the chants in the night, son begotten of Zeus, [1150] appear, my king, with your attendant Thyiads, who in night-long frenzy dance and sing you as Iacchus the Giver!
The sympathetic joy of the elemental powers—stars, moon, and sea—was especially associated with those night-festivals in which Dionysus bore his mystic character, as the young “Ἴακχος” of the Eleusinian ritual, the companion of Demeter and Cora (n. on O. C. 682 ff.). See Eur. Ion 1078 ff., where the reference is to the Dionysus of the Great Mysteries at Eleusis: “ὅτε καὶ Διὸς ἀστερωπὸς ι ἀνεχόρευσεν αἰθήρ, ι χορεύει δὲ Σελάνα ι καὶ πεντήκοντα κόραι ι Νηρέος”. Hence this crowning strain, which begins by greeting him as “χοραγὸς ἄστρων”, fitly closes with his Eleusinian name.
  • Versnel, pp. 23–24
In the chronologically next testimony ... Sophocles, Antigone 1146 ff, dating from shortly before 440 B.C.: ...

Fragment 959 Radt (Lloyd-Jones, pp. 414, 415)

From here I caught sight of Nysa, haunt of Bacchus, famed among mortals, which Iacchus of the bull's horns counts as his beloved nurse; here what bird does not crya ...?
a For the identification of Dionysus with the Eleusinian deity Iacchus compare Antigone 1146-52. Nysa is a mythological and not a real place.
Bowie, A. M., p. 233
I saw ecstatic Nysa, famed among mortals, which ox-horned Iacchus counts as his sweetest motherland.

Herodotus edit

8.65

Dicaeus son of Theocydes, an Athenian exile who had become important among the Medes, said that at the time when the land of Attica was being laid waste by Xerxes' army and there were no Athenians in the country, he was with Demaratus the Lacedaemonian on the Thriasian plain and saw advancing from Eleusis a cloud of dust as if raised by the feet of about thirty thousand men. They marvelled at what men might be raising such a cloud of dust and immediately heard a cry. The cry seemed to be the “Iacchus” of the mysteries, [2] and when Demaratus, ignorant of the rites of Eleusis, asked him what was making this sound, Dicaeus said, “Demaratus, there is no way that some great disaster will not befall the king's army. Since Attica is deserted, it is obvious that this voice is divine and comes from Eleusis to help the Athenians and their allies. [3] If it descends upon the Peloponnese, the king himself and his army on the mainland will be endangered. If, however, it turns towards the ships at Salamis, the king will be in danger of losing his fleet. [4] Every year the Athenians observe this festival for the Mother and the Maiden, and any Athenian or other Hellene who wishes is initiated. The voice which you hear is the ‘Iacchus’ they cry at this festival.” To this Demaratus replied, “Keep silent and tell this to no one else. [5] If these words of yours are reported to the king, you will lose your head, and neither I nor any other man will be able to save you, so be silent. The gods will see to the army.” [6] Thus he advised, and after the dust and the cry came a cloud, which rose aloft and floated away towards Salamis to the camp of the Hellenes. In this way they understood that Xerxes' fleet was going to be destroyed. Dicaeus son of Theocydes used to say this, appealing to Demaratus and others as witnesses.

Euripides edit

The Bacchae

725
They, at the appointed hour, began to wave the thyrsos in their revelries, [725] calling on Iacchus, the son of Zeus, Bromius, with united voice.
Bowie, A. M., p. 233
calling as one on Iacchus, the son of Zeus, Bromius

Cyclops

68–71
Nor on Mount Nysa can I join the Nymphs in singing the song ‘Iacchos Iacchos’ [70] to Aphrodite,

Ion

1074–1086
Chorus
I am ashamed before the god of many hymns, [1075] if he, the sleepless night watcher, shall see the torch procession on the twentieth day, beside the springs with lovely dances, when the starry sky of Zeus also joins in the dance, [1080] and the moon dances, and the fifty daughters of Nereus, in the sea and the swirls of ever-flowing rivers, celebrating in their dance [1085] the maiden with golden crown and her revered mother;
Graf 2005, "Iacchus" [in folder "Iacchus"]
SInce Soph. Ant. 1152 and Eur. Ion 1074-1077 I. has been identified in literature with -> Dionysus
iménez San Cristóbal 2012, pp. 131–132
Euripides, in his Ion, underlines the cosmic power of the dances that the god of "many hymns" (...) leads in honor of the Maiden with golden crown and her revered Mother the night of the 20th of Boedromion. The tragedian does not mention the name of Iacchus, but the Athenian audience would have no doubt of his identity.47
47 E., Ion 1074-1086, see Kerényi, Eleusis, 9. ...
Lada-Richards, p. 102
In Euripides' Ion, for example, Iacchus, the god 'much sung of' (1074-5 ...), is envisaged (1074-85) as a winess of the dance of entire nature in honour of 'the gold crowned Core and her awesome mother' (1085-6) at Eleusis. Now of cource, the Mystai in the Frogd evoke the impressive picture of dionysus as the 'light bringing star of the nocturnal rite' (... 343), ... which ... would have recalled the cosmic image of Antigone 1146-7 where Dionysus was invoked as 'leader of the dance of fire-breathing stars'

Palamedes

fr. 586 Kannicht (apud Strabo, 10.3.13) = fr. 586 Nauck (Collard and Cropp, pp. 56, 57)
Strabo, 10.3.13
And in the Palamedes the Chorus says, “Thysa, daughter of Dionysus, who on Ida rejoices with his dear mother in the Iacchic revels of tambourines.”
Collard and Cropp, pp. 56, 57
Chorus
† . . . (hair?)† of Dionysus, who upon Ida delights with the dear mother in the revel-cries [ἰάκχοις] of tambourines [τυμπάνων].1
1 The Chorus evokes the loud, ecstatic rites honouring Dionysus and the ‘Great Mother’ Cybele on Mt. Ida above Troy (cf. especially Helen 1301–68); these lyric lines may be from the Chorus’ self-identification on their first entry (cf. F 589). Vv. 1–2 are hopelessly corrupt, but there may be a reference to the wild tossing of hair in Dionysiac rites (e.g. Bacchae 241).
Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012 p. 128
in a fragment of Palamedes, it [ἴακχος] refers to the sound of Dionysiac tympani.19
19 E., Tr. 1230, Cyc. 68-71, fr. 586. 4 Kannicht, see Graf, Eleusis, 56 n. 25.
Guía, p. 110
46 Iacchos is also defined as a ritual cry or hymn: see note 53. In either case (as a ritual cry or hymn) also associated with the infant Dionysos, for example in Euripides, Palamedes (fr. 586 Kannicht = Str. 10.3.13) where the cult of the Phryrigian Mother goddess alludes to the dry of Iacchos made to the sound of the cymbals that delight the infant Dionysos, who is there with his mother.

The Trojan Women

1230
Chorus
Wail for the dead (νεκρῶν ἴακχον.)
Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012 p. 128
In Euripides' play The Trojan Women ἴακχος is a threnody; in The Cyclops, it is Iacchus' song in honor of Aphrodite, and in a fragment of Palamedes, it refers to the sound of Dionysiac tympani.19
19 E., Tr. 1230, Cyc. 68-71, fr. 586. 4 Kannicht, see Graf, Eleusis, 56 n. 25.

Aristophanes edit

Frogs

316–322
Chorus
O Iacchus, Iacchus O,
O Iacchus, Iacchus O!
Xanthias
This is it, Master. The band of initiates
are singing here, the ones he mentioned to us.
They're chanting Diagoras' Hymn to Iacchus.
Dionysus
I think so too, so keeping quiet's
the best thing, so we can learn for sure.
323–336
Chorus
Iacchus, here abiding in temples most reverend,
Iacchus, O Iacchus,
come to dance in this meadow;
to your holy mystic bands
Shake the leafy crown
around your head, brimming
with myrtle,
Boldly stomp your feet in time
to the wild fun-loving rite,
with full share of the Graces, the holy dance, sacred
to your mystics.
340–353
Chorus
Awake, for it has come tossing torches in hand,
Iacchos, Oh Iacchos,
the light-bringing star of our nocturnal rite.
Now the meadow brightly burns
Old men's knees start to sway.
They shake away their pains
and the long cycles of ancient years
Through your holy rite.
Beaming with your torch,
lead forth to the flowering stretch of marsh
the youth that makes your choruses, o blessed one!
396–398
Chorus
Now then
Summon the god of the hour with your songs
the partner of this dance of ours.
399–404
Chorus
Iacchus, honored by all, deviser of our festal song
most sweet, follow us here
to the goddess and show us how
you travel a long road with ease.
Iacchus, lover of the dance, lead me onward,

Philodamus of Scarpheia edit

Paean to Dionysus

PHI Greek Inscriptions

BCH 19 (1895) 393 (BCH = Bulletin de correspondance hellénique (Paris).)
ca. 340 BC
ὀργίων ὁσί[ων Ἴα]κ-
35 χον

Bowie, E. L.,

p. 101
(1) [Hither lord, D]ithyrambus, Bacchus
[greeted with "Euoi," bull, i]vey-tressed,
Roarer [Βρόμι'], come
p. 102
And in your hand brandishing your [night]-
lighting flame, with god-possesed frenzy
you went to the vales of [Eleu-]
(30) sis rich in flowers —
Euoi, O Iobacchus, O Ie Paean —
where the whole people of Hellas'
land, alongside [you own] native witnesses
of the ho[ly] mysteries, calls upon you
(35) as Iacchus: for mortals from their pains
you have op[ened a ha[ven [without toils]-
Ie Paean, come, saviour,
benignly preserve this city
with a blessed era of prosperity.
p. 105
The Delphic paean for Dionysus by Philodamas, from Ozolian Locrian city of Scarpheia, ... The paean is known to us because the stele on which it was inscribed, at some date in the fourth century, was later used for re-paving the Sacred Way in Delphi.
p. 106
We now seem to have a firm date for its first performance, not because we know anything of Philodamas himself, but because the office of the Delphic eponymous magistrate in charge of arrangements, Etymondas, can be dated to 340/339 BC. At this date the temple of Apollo, destroyed in 373 BC, had not yet been completely rebuilt, and one of the divine commands the paean seeks to reinforce is the acceleration of that work of rebuilding.
p. 107
Dionysus then went to Eleusis, taking his place in its cult as Iacchus;
p. 108


Fantuzzi

p. 189
Close in time to the earliest possible date for Isyllus is a Delphic inscription which contains a long paean to Dionysus going under the name of Philodamus of Skarpheia (39 Käppel). The paean itself, which is fragmentarily [cont.]
p. 190
preserved, is followed by a prose subscription which not only specifies who wrote the paean — Philodamus and his brothers Epigenes and Mantidas — but also authorizes the preceeding song. It states that, under the eponymous magistrate Etymondas (porbably 340/339 BCE), the Delphians granted Philoamus, his brothers, and his descendants a number of privileges ... to honor them for preceding peaan to Dionysus, which the three brothers composed "according to the oracular command of the god"
...
The first five strophes describe a series of locations where Dionysus brought his blessings, landmarks of his cult. After seeing the light in Thebes (strophe 1) and establishing his rites there, Dionysus is presented as first visiting Delphi (strophe 2), where "revealing his sarry frame [he[ stood among his Delphic maidens in the folds of Parnassus" (21-3). He then went to Eleusis, where he came to be invoked in the [cont.]
p. 191
Mysteries as "Iakchos" (strophe 3), and after the unreadable strophe 4 we find him in Olympus and Pieria (58-61):

Attalus.org

Harrison

p. 416
p. 541
In the ritual hymn of Delphi, ... Dionysos, who in the proœmium is addressed by his titles as a cereal drink, as Bromios and Braites, is when he leaves Parnassos and comes to Eleusis hailed by his new name Iacchos2:

...

And they called thee by thy name,
Loved Iacchos, he who came
To bring salvation,

Angus p. 345

Lucretius edit

4.1168–1169 [=1160? see Grimal]

The pursy female with protuberant breasts
She is "like Ceres when the goddess gave
Young Bacchus [Iaccho] suck";

Catullus edit

64.251

at parte ex alia florens uolitabat Iacchus
In another part of the tapestry youthful Bacchus was wandering

Diodorus Siculus edit

3.64.1–2

The second Dionysus, the writers of myths relate, was born to Zeus by Persephonê, though some say it was Demeter.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus edit

De Compositione Verborum

17 Radermacher 1904
Ἴακχε θρίαμβε, σὺ τῶνδε χοραγέ.
17 p. 172 9, p 173 Rhys 1910
Ἴακχε θρίαμβε, σὺ τῶνδε χοραγέ.
Triumphant Iacchus that leadest this chorus.2
2 Nauck T.G.F., Fragm. Adesp. 140
Usher Loeb 1974, 1985
Ἴακχε θρίαμβε, σὺ τῶνδε χοραγέ
Triumphant Iacchus that leadest this chorus.
Adesp. 140 Nauck p. 869 2nd edition 1889
Page, PMG 1027d [in folder]
  • Versnel, p. 24

Virgil edit

Eclogues

6.15
inflatum hesterno venas, ut semper, Iaccho:
7.61
Populus Alcidae gratissima, vitis Iaccho,
“The poplar doth Alcides hold most dear, the vine Iacchus,

Georgics

1.165–166
Then the cheap wicker-ware of Celeus old,
Hurdles of arbute, and thy mystic fan,
Iacchus;
virgea praeterea Celei vilisque supellex,
arbuteae crates et mystica vannus Iacchi.

Strabo edit

10.3.10

Now most of the Greeks assigned to Dionysus, Apollo, Hecate, the Muses, and above all to Demeter, everything of an orgiastic or Bacchic or choral nature, as well as the mystic element in initiations; and they give the name "Iacchus" not only to Dionysus but also to the leader-in-chief of the mysteries, who is the genius of Demeter.
Ἴακχόν τε καὶ τὸν Διόνυσον καλοῦσι καὶ τὸν ἀρχηγέτην τῶν μυστηρίων, τῆς Δήμητρος δαίμονα
LSJ s.v. ἀρχηγ-έτης: "first leader, author, esp. founder of a city or family
Farnell, p. 146: "the daemon of Demeter, the founder of the mysteries."
Guía, p. 110 n. 46: "Strabo (Str. 10.3.10) says that the name Iacchos is given both to Dionysos and to the archegetes of the mysteries."

10.3.13

And in the Palamedes the Chorus says, “Thysa, daughter of Dionysus, who on Ida rejoices with his dear mother in the Iacchic revels of tambourines.”

Plutarch edit

Alcibiades 34.3

Ever since Deceleia had been fortified, and the enemy, by their presence there, commanded the approaches to Eleusis, the festal rite had been celebrated with no splendor at all, being conducted by sea. Sacrifices, choral dances, and many of the sacred ceremonies usually held on the road, when Iacchus is conducted forth from Athens to Eleusis, [ἐξελαύνωσι τὸν Ἴακχον] had of necessity been omitted.

Aristides 27.3

And the Phalerean says, in his ‘Socrates,’ that he remembers a grandson of Aristides, Lysimachus, a very poor man, who made his own living by means of a sort of dream-interpreting tablet, his seat being near the so-called Iaccheium. To this man's mother and to her sister, Demetrius persuaded the people to give, by formal decree, a pension of three obols per diem; though afterwards, in his capacity of sole legislator, he himself, as he says, assigned a drachma instead of three obols to each of the women.

Camillus 19.6

I am not unaware that, at about the time when the mysteries are celebrated, Thebes was razed to the ground for the second time by Alexander, and that afterwards the Athenians were forced to receive a Macedonian garrison on the twentieth of Boedromion, the very day on which they escort the mystic Iacchus forth in procession [μυστικὸν Ἴακχον ἐξάγουσιν].

Phocion 28.1

For the garrison was introduced on the twentieth of the month Boëdromion, while the celebration of the mysteries was in progress, on the day when the god Iacchus is conducted from the city to Eleusis,

Themistocles 15.1

At this stage of the struggle they say that a great light flamed out from Eleusis, and an echoing cry filled the Thriasian plain down to the sea, as of multitudes of men together conducting the mystic Iacchus in procession [μυστικὸν ἐξαγόντων Ἴακχον].

Arrian edit

Anabasis of Alexander

2.16.3
Herodotus1 says that the Egyptians reckon him one of the Twelve Deities, just as the Athenians worship a different Dionysus, son of Zeus and Kore. It is to him, not the Theban Dionysus, that the mystic chant ‘Iacchus’ is sung.2
1 ii 43, § 1–6 are clearly A’s own digression, cf. App, IV, 4.
2 Oxf. Class. Dict. s.v. Iacchus.


  • A Historical Commentary on Arrian's History of Alexander: Commentary ...
p. 236
1-6) it comes from Arrian himself. … ‘The mystic Iacchus hymn’. The god Iacchus is variously alleged to be the son of Demeter or Persephone and Zeus or Dionysus himself (cf. Roscher ii 1. 1 ff.) Arrian’s genealogy, from Zeus and Persephone, seems orthodox (‘’Etym. Man.’’ 406. 47). Iacchus … [4]

Pausanias edit

1.2.4

On entering the city there is a building for the preparation of the processions, which are held in some cases every year, in others at longer intervals. Hard by is a temple of Demeter, with images of the goddess herself and of her daughter, and of Iacchus holding a torch. On the wall, in Attic characters, is written that they are works of Praxiteles. Not far from the temple is Poseidon on horseback, hurling a spear against the giant Polybotes, concerning whom is prevalent among the Coans the story about the promontory of Chelone. But the inscription of our time assigns the statue to another, and not to Poseidon. From the gate to the Cerameicus there are porticoes, and in front of them brazen statues of such as had some title to fame, both men and women.

1.37.4

Across the Cephisus is an ancient altar of Zeus Meilichius （Gracious）. At this altar Theseus obtained purification at the hands of the descendants of Phytalus after killing brigands, including Sinis who was related to him through Pittheus. Here is the grave of Theodectes of Phaselis, and also that of Mnesitheus. They say that he was a skilful physician and dedicated statues, among which is a representation of Iacchus.

Pollux edit

Onomasticon

I 35
... ἰακχαγωγὸς ... κουροτρόφος ...

Lucian edit

Saltatio or De Saltatione ("The Dance")

39 (Harmon, pp 250, 251)
Δευκαλίωνα ἐπὶ τούτοις, καὶ τὴν μεγάλην ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνου τοῦ βίου ναυαγίαν, καὶ λάρνακα μίαν λείψανον τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου ^ γένους φυλάττουσαν, καὶ ἐκ λίθων ἀνθρώπους πάλιν εἶτα Ἰάκχου σπαραγμὸν ... (Perseus)
Next comes Deucalion, ... Then the dismemberment of Iacchus,2
2 Dionysus Zagreus (Sabazius), son of Persephone, was dismembered by the Titans, boiled in a cauldron, and eaten; Zeus swallowed his heart. He was born as Iacchus.

Athenaeus edit

15.22 = 15.678a [Greek]

15.22 [English]

22. There is the word πυλέων. And this is the name given to the garland which the Lacedoemonians place on the head of Juno, as Pamphilus relates. I am aware, also, that there is a kind of garland, which is called Ίάκχας by the Sicyonians, as Timachidas mentions in his treatise on Dialects. And Philetas writes as follows:—"'Ιάκχα—this is a name given to a fragrant garland in the district of Sicyon—
She stood by her sire, and in her fragrant hair
She wore the beautiful lacchian garland."

Clement of Alexandria edit

Protrepticus ["Exhortation to the Greeks"]

Butterworth, pp. 42, 43 (Harvard University Press) [= Orphic fr. 52 Kern]
I will quote you the very lines of Orpheus, in order that you may have the originator of the mysteries as witness of their shamelessness:
This said, she drew aside her robes, and showed
A sight of shame; child Iacchus was there,
And laughing, plunged his hand below her breasts.
Then smiled the goddess, in her heart she smiled,
And drank the draught from out the glancing cup.

Arnobius edit

Adversus Gentes (also called Adversus Nationes)

3.10 (p. 157)
the full-breasted Cerses nursing Iaccus,1
1 Cererem ab Iaccho, either as above or "loved by Iacchus." Cf. Lucret. iv. 1160: At tumida et mammosa Ceres est ipsa ab Iaccho.
5.26 (p. 250)
An account of the Baubo story but without Iacchus

Orphic Hymns edit

42. To Mise

Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 37 1–10
I call upon law-giving Dionysos,
who carried the fennel stalk,
unforgettable and many-named
seed of Eubouleus,
...
Redeeming Iacchos, lord, I summon you,
whether you delight in Eleusis
in your fragrant temple,
or with Mother you partake [6]
of mystic rites in Phrygia,
or you rejoice in Kypros
with fair-wreathed Kythereia,
or yet you exult in fields
wheat-bearing and hallowed
along Egypt's river [9]
with your divine mother,
the revered and blake-robed Isis,
as your train of nurses tends to your needs.

49. To Hipta

Athanassakis and Wolkow, p 41 3
and in the dances
of roaring Iacchos.

Servius edit

On Virgil, Georgics

1.166
ET MYSTICA VANNUS IACCHI id est cribrum areale. legimus tamen et 'vallus' secundum Varronem †hanc fisticula pollio mysta vallus, quod idem nihilominus significat. 'mystica' autem 'Iacchi' ideo ait, quod Liberi patris sacra ad purgationem animae pertinebant, et sic homines eius mysteriis purgabantur, sicut vannis frumenta purgantur. hinc est quod dicitur Osiridis membra a Typhone dilaniati Isis cribro superposuisse: nam idem est Liber pater—in cuius mysteriis vannus est, quia, ut diximus, animas purgat, unde et Liber ab eo, quod liberet, dictus est—, quem Orpheus a gigantibus dicit esse discerptum. nonnulli Liberum patrem apud Graecos λικμητὴν dici adserunt; vallus autem apud eos λικμὸς nuncupatur, ubi de more positus esse dicitur, postquam est utero matris editus. alii 'mysticam' sic accipiunt, ut vannum vas vimineum latum dicant, in quod ipsam propter capacitatem congerere rustici primitias frugum soleant et Libero et Liberae sacrum facere: inde 'mystica'.
Harrison 1903, p. 293 [In folder]
'The mystic fan of Iacchus, that is the sieve of the threshing floor. He calls it the mystic fan of Iacchus, because the rites of Father Liber had reference to the purification of the soul, and men are purified by fans. It is because of this that Isis is said to have placed the limbs of Osiris, when they had been torn to pieces by Typhon, on a sieve, for Father Liber is the same person, he in whose mysteries the fan plays a part, because, as we said, it purifies souls. Whence also he is called Liber, because he liberates, and it is he who Orpheus said was torn asunder by the Giants. Some add ...
Guía, p. 111
[46 cont.] ...Iacchos associated with the 'mystic winnowing-fan' or λικνον in Serv. Georg. 1.166.

Nonnus edit

Dionysiaca

1.26–28 I pp. 4, 5
Thyone's [Semeles'] son [Dionysos] love-sick for Aura the desirable, boarslayer, daughter of Cybele, mother of the third Bacchus late-borna [Iacchus].
aThyone is one of the names of Semele. Aura, for whom see inf., xlviii. 238 ff., was one of the nymphs of Artemis, hence a huntress. There are many traditions about the birth and birthplace of Dionysos, and hence it came to be thought that there were several deities confused. Diodorus (iii.63) gives five, Cicero three (Nat. Deor. iii. 23). the third here is Iacchos.
31.66–68 II pp. 426, 427
[Hera to Persephone] Let not Athens sing hymns to a new Dionysos, let him not have equal honour with Eleusinian Dionysos [Iacchus], let him not take over the rites of Iacchosa who was there before him.’"
a Remarkably accurate for Nonnus. Iacchos, one of the Eleusinian deities, was not the same as Dionysos, though early identified with him.
48.238–246 III pp. 440, 441
Then he left the halls of Pallene and Thracian Boreas, and went on to Rheia's hiuse, where the divine court of the prolific Cybele stood on Phrygian soil. There grew Aura the moubtain maiden of Rhyndacos, and hunted over the foothills of rocky Dindymon, She was yet unacquainted with love, a comrade of the Archeress. She kept aloof from the notions of unwarlike maids, like a young Artemis, this daughter of Lelantos; for the father of this [cont.]
48.247–248 III pp. 442, 443
stormfoot girl was ancient Lelantos the Titan, who wedded Periboia, a daughter of Oceanus; a manlike maid she was, who knew nothing of Aphrodite.
48.848–858 III pp. 484, 485
She spoke, and the nymph in childbirth was indignant and angry, ... A babe came quickly into the light; for even as Artemis yet spoke the word that shot out the delivery, the womb of Aura was loosened, and twin children [Iakkhos (Iacchus) and his brother] came forth of themselves; ...
48.870–886 III pp. 486, 487
[Dionysus/Bacchus to Nicaia mother of Telete] "Now at last, Nicaia, you have found consolation for your love. Now again Dionsos has stolen a marriage bed, and ravished another maiden: woodland Aura in the mountains, who shrank once from the vary name of love, has seen a marriage the image of yours. Not you alone drank deceitful wine which stole your maiden girdle; ... I beseech you, hasten to lift up my boy ... Iacchos ...
48.948–957 III pp. 490, 491
The father gave charge of his son [Iacchus] to, Nicaia the nymph as nurse. She took him and fed the boy, pressing out the lifegiving juice of her childnursing breasts from her teat, until he grew up. While the boy was young, Bacchos took into his car this Bacchos his father's namesake, and presented him to Attic Athena amid her muysteries, babbling "Euoi." Goddess Pallas in her temple received him into her maiden bosom, which had welcome for a god; she gave that boy that pap that only Erechtheus had sucked, and let the alien milk trickle of itself from [cont.]
48.958–968 III pp. 492, 493
her unripe breast. The goddess gave him in trust to the Bacchants of Eleusis; the wives of Marathon wearing ivy tript around the boy Iacchos, and lifted the Attic torch in the nightly dances of the diety lately born. They honoured him as a god next after the son of Perseponeia [Zagreus], and after Semele's son; they established sacrifices for Dionysus late born and Dionysos first born, and third they chanted a new hymn for Iacchos.a In these three celebrations Athens held high revel; in the dance lately made, the Athenians beat the step in honour of Zagreus and Bromios and Iacchos all together.

Bernabé and García-Gasco

"Nonnus and Dionysiac-Orphic Religion" in Brill's Companion to Nonnus
p. 109
In respect to Telete, born from Dionysus' first female lover, Nicaea, after her rape (16.270-291), she only has one function unique to her character; together with her mother, Athena, and the Eleusinian nymphs, she will care for Iacchus (48.948-968), the son of the nymph Aura.63 Iacchus is, at that point, the third person called Dionysus in the poem,64 the son that the second Dionysus leaves to the world before his expected apotheosis. In the quoted passage, Nonnus identifies him with Erichthonius, a mythical character with no relation to the religious sphere, and concurrently, with Iacchus, the son of Demeter, a figure of hardly any mythological weight, but with a strong presence in the Eleusinian mysteries

Palatine Anthology edit

Antipater of Thessalonica (c. 15 BC)

9.82
The sea is the enemy of Bacchus [Ίάκχῳ]

Macedonius of Thessalonica (c. 500-560 AD]

11.59
We deep drinkers, champions of Bacchus [Ίάκχου] the king,

Agathias ) (c. 530-590 AD]

11.64
We treading the plenteous fruit of Bacchus [Ίάκχου] were weaving in a band the rythmic revellers' dance.

Inscriptiones Graecae edit

||2 81.10
||2 1006.9
... προέπεμψ[α]ν αὐτά, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὸν Ἴαχχον·...
[compare w Kearns, p. 170 citing ||2 1006.10]
  • Kearns, p. 170: "I. was particularly associated with the procession of mystai from Athens to Eleusis ... IG II2 1006.10, cf. Plut. Phoc. 28)."
||2 1028.10
[10] αὐτά, καὶ τὸν Ἴακχον ὡσαύτως· ἤραντο δὲ καὶ τοῖς μυστηρίοις τοὺς βοῦς
  • Graf 2005, "Iacchus" [in folder "Iacchus"]: "Attic inscriptions describe the escort, which the ephebes provide for the procession as the ‘escort of I.’(e.g. IG II 2 1028,10)."
||2 1078.14–15
[ραπ]έμψωσιν τὰ ἱερὰ μέχ[ρι] τοῦ Ἐλευσινίου τοῦ ὑπὸ
[15] [τῆι π]όλει, ὧς ἂν κόσμο[ς τ]ε πλείων καὶ φρουρὰ μείζων
  • Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 129: They probably followed the Panathenaic Way, traversed the agora and came to a temple, in which the crowd of the initiates joined them in order to set out to Eleusis.29 ... 29IG II2 1078, 14-15, see Graf, Eleusis, 49. See also Mylonas, Eleusis, 253.
  • Graf 1974 Eleusis, p. 49: The Eleusinian priesthood brought the Hiera, which had been lodged in the Eleusinion below the castle,41 ... 41 IG II2 1078, 14f. — ... Mylonas 246 f. (Bibl. 247 Anm. 114), Travlos 198 f.
||2 1078.18–22
[ἥκει τὰ] ἱερὰ κ[αὶ] ἡ παραπέμπουσα στρατιά, κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ
[δὲ τῆι] ἐνάτηι ἐπὶ δέκα τοῦ Βοηδρομιῶνος προσ-
[20] [τάξα]ι τῶι κοσμητῆι τῶν ἐφήβων ἄγειν τοὺς ἐφή[βους]
[πάλιν Ἐ]λευεῖνάδε μετὰ τοῦ αὐτοῦ σχήματος π[αραπέμ]-
[πο]ντας τὰ ἱερά.  μέλειν δὲ τούτου τῶι κατ’ ἐν[ιαυτὸν]
  • Jiménez San Cristóbal 2012, p. 129: A late inscription shows that the procession started actually on the 19th, so that the initiates likely left Athens that day and came to Eleusis in the early morning of the 20th.27 ... 27IG II2 1078, 18-22 (ca. 220 CE), see K. Clinton, Eleusis. The inscription on Stone. Documents of the Sanctuary of the two Goddesses and Public Documents of Deme (Athens 2005) nr. 638. On the procession see Foucart, Les mystères, 324-327; Mylonas, Eleusis, 252-258; Kerényi, Eleusis, 60-66. On the date see Dow, "Athenian Decrees from 216-212 BC", HSCPh 48 (1937) 105-126 (113-115). Kerényi, Eleusis, 62.
  • Kerényi 1967 Eleusis, p. 62: "Then came the 19th of Böedromion,55 the first day of the festival which was called Mysteria, The Mysteries, ... , p. 198: 55 IG II2 1078.11"
||2 1092.31 ["Eleusinian Endowment"]
[31] ἱεροκῆρυξ διπλῆν· Ἰαχχαγωγὸ[ς — — — — —
  • Clinton, p. 96 ca. 160-170
II2 3733.20–21
[20] κοσμητεύοντος ἰακχαγωγοῦ
Διονυσίου Μαραθωνίου
  • Clinton, p. 96: "The only known incumbent [of the 'Ἰακχαγωγός] is: Διονύσιος Μαραθώνιος. I.G., II2, 3733, 3734, 4771, 4772. In office 126/7. He was cosmete in 126/7 (I.G., II2, 3733 and 3734)."
II2 3734.1–3
[1] [ἦρ]χε μὲν Ἡρώδης, κοσμήτεε δ’ ἐσθλὸς
[Ἰάκχο]υ | εἱροπόλος νυχίων μυστιπό-
[λος συνό]δων·
  • Clinton, p. 96: "The only known incumbent [of the 'Ἰακχαγωγός] is: Διονύσιος Μαραθώνιος. I.G., II2, 3733, 3734, 4771, 4772. In office 126/7. He was cosmete in 126/7 (I.G., II2, 3733 and 3734)."
II2 4771.11–12
οντος ἰακχαγωγοῦ Διονυ-
σίου Μαραθωνίου, ζακορ-
  • Clinton, p. 96: "The only known incumbent [of the 'Ἰακχαγωγός] is: Διονύσιος Μαραθώνιος. I.G., II2, 3733, 3734, 4771, 4772. In office 126/7."
II2 4772.7–9
τοῦ ἱερέως [ἰακχα]-
γωγοῦ Διον[υσίου]
Μαραθωνίο[υ, στο]-
  • Clinton, p. 96: "The only known incumbent [of the 'Ἰακχαγωγός] is: Διονύσιος Μαραθώνιος. I.G., II2, 3733, 3734, 4771, 4772. In office 126/7."
II2 5044.2
[1]    ἱερέως
Ἰακχαγωγοῦ
  • Clinton, p. 96: "[the 'Ἰακχαγωγός] had a seat in the prohedria of the Theater of Dionysos.16 ... 16 I.G., II2, 5044 and append. III."

Scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs edit

Dindorf 1837 ??

Dubner 1877 ??

324 Rutherford [Presumably = 323b cited by Parker]

Rutherford, p. 316
In as much as Dionysus is throned with Demeter; at any rate there are some who say that he was the son of Persephone, and others that he was married to Demeter, and others that Iacchus was different from Dionysus, and others that he was the same.
Parker, p. 358
140... Σ vet. Ar. Ran. 323b [Presumably = 324 Ruthewrford] ('Dionysus': but the verse commented on speaks of Iacchus); ... This DIonysus/Iacchus had intercourse with Demeter, according to Σ Ar. Ran. loc. cit.
Hard, p. 134
(or indeed as the husband of Demeter).179
179 D.S. 3.64.1, schol. Arist., vol. 3 p.648 Dindorf, Suidas s.v. iacchos.
Dubner?

326 Rutherford

Rutherford, p. 316
326. ... observe that there is one day of the Mysteties, namely the twentieth day of the month, on which they bring Iacchus forth (from the sanctuary).
[See Dow, p. 114]

479 Rutherford

Rutherford
p. 331
479. ...
p. 332
...at the Lenaean festival of Dionysus, his daduchus grasping a torch in one hand repeats the formula "Call ye on God," and his hearers raise the cry "Iacchus, Semele's child, giver of riches."
Page, PMG [in folder]
879 (I) SCHOL. RV AR. RAN. 479
Σεμελήϊ ἼαΚχε πλουτοδότα
Bowie, A. M., p. 233
At the Lenaea, the Daduchus cried 'Call on the god' and the people replied 'Son of Semele, Iacchus giver of Wealth',27
27 Schol. Frogs 482. [presumably = 479 Rutherford]
Guía
p. 103
The references we have [for the Lenaia] mention a procession and ἀγών held 'by torchlight,' where the Δᾳδοῦχος (an Eleusinian official, but one originating in Athens, as we shall see later) invoked or called on the god and the chorus responded 'Iacchos, son of Semele, Πλουτοδότης.' The ἀγών, like the procession, was led by the archon-king and some Eleusinian officials, the Epimeletes and the Dadouchos.
p. 109
In this sense, the reference of the scholiast to Aristophanes' Frogs is consistent in saying that the god was called or invoked at the Lenaia with shouts of 'Iacchos, son of Semele, Πλουτοδότης ('giver of riches').' The passage in Aristophanes' work, glossed by the scholiast, probably makes a veiled allusion, in the first place, as Lada-Richards has pointed out, to the dismemberment (Frogs, 464-478), then to the invocation (of Δᾳδοῦχος: Frogs, 479) and finally to 'arising' (Frogs, 480), a sequence that we could find in the Lenaia (σπαραγμός, invocation and awakening of the god), festivals with which the scholiast explains this invocation.39
Farnell
p. 149
and again a most valuable piece of Attic evidence is preserved by the scholiast on the Frogs of Aristophanes 205 d, who tells us that at the Lenaia the δᾳδοῦχος, one of the highest Eleusinian officials, proclaimed to the people, as he held a lighted torch in his hand, 'Invoke the god'; and that the people in answer cried out, 'Hail, Iacchos, son of Semele, thou giver of wealth.'
p. 352
[205] d Schol. Arist. Ran 482 [presumably = 479 Rutherford] ἐν τοῖς Δηναϊκοῖς ἀγῶσι Διονύσου ὁ δᾳδοῦχος κατέχων λαυπάδα λέγει καλεῖτε Θεόν και οἱ ὑπακούοντες βοῶσι Σεμελήϊ ἼαΚχε πλουτοδότα.
Rose, Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. Iacchus
at the Lenaea, when the daduchus said 'Invoke the god' the congregation answered Σεμελήϊ ἼαΚχε πλουτοδότα (Schol. on Ar. op. cit. 479)

Scholiast on Aristides edit

Vol. 3, p. 648 213, 18 Dindorf

ὁ μἐν Ἴακχος ... Δήμητρος ...
Parker, p. 358
139... Σ Aristid. p. 648.15-16, Ἴακχο 21-3 Dindorf (where Demeter is explicitly identified as mother);
Versnel, p. 23
In later times a scholion on Aristides III (p. 648 Dind.) still ...

Hesychius of Alexandria edit

s.v. Βαυβώ

s.v. Ἴακχος

s.v. Σαβάζιος

Photius edit

s.v. Ἴακχος

Ἴακχος: Διόνυσος ἐπὶ τῷ μαστῷ: xαὶ ἥρως τις xαὶ ἡ ἐπ' αὐτῷ ᾠδή: xαὶ ἡ ἡμέρα, καθ' ἣν εἰς αὐτὸν ἡ πανήγυρις. ἔνιοι δὲ xαὶ θόρυβος.

Suda edit

[5]

s.v. Ἴακχος (iota,16)

Ἴακχος: Διόνυσος ἐπὶ τῷ μαστῷ. καὶ ἥρως τις: καὶ ἡ ἐπ' αὐτῷ ᾠδή: καὶ ἡ ἡμέρα, καθ' ἣν εἰς αὐτὸν ἡ πανήγυρις. ἔνιοι δὲ καὶ θόρυβος. ὅ τε μυστικὸς Ἴακχος ἠκούσθη κατὰ τὴν ναυμαχίαν Περσῶν καὶ Ἑλλήνων. Ἴακχος οὖν παρὰ τὸ ἰάκχω. καὶ μέντοι καὶ ὁ Ἴακχος ἠκούσθη ἐκ τοῦ Ἀρείου πεδίου, ὑμνούμενός τε καὶ ᾀδόμενος.
[Meaning] Dionysos at the breast. And a certain hero; and the song for him; and the day on which the feast for him [is held].

Guía p. 110

The Suda Lexicon (Suda s.v. Ἴακχος) identifies him with Dionysus 'in the womb' [email from online SUDA claims this translation is in error] (it also says it is a [cont.] hymn in honour of this god).

Orphicorum Fragmenta edit

fr. 52

Tzetzes edit

Scholiast on Lycophron Alexandra (= Cassandra) 355 p. 137 Scheer

Scheer, p. 137
Linforth, p. 310–311
Now though the scholiast on Lycophron neither uses the name Zagreus nor mentions the parentage of Dionysus, it is not unlikely that both he and the Etymologicum Magnum are referring to the same poem of Callimachus, because the name Zagreus is sometimes used for the god who was torn to pieces by the Titans. This fact is stated explicitly in another scholium on Lycophron (355), where, after certain derivations for the name Pallas have been mentioned, another possible one is offered, thus: ῆ παρὰ τὸ παλλομένην ...

Modern edit

Athanassakis and Wolkow edit

p. 149

42.4 Iacchos: participants in the Elusian Mysteries would walk from Athens to Elusis at night by torchlight with song and dance, and bawdy banter; see OH 40.11n. The god invoked was Iacchos, who seems to be a personification of the cry "iakkhe!" This god was identified with Dionysos; see Sophokles, Antigone 1146-1152. The chorus of initiates calls on Iacchos in their procession in Aristophanes Frogs 340-353 and 372-416, and a ghost procession is supposed to have materialized during the Persian Wars as a sign of the eventual disaster of the Persian campaign (Herodotos 8.65). The name Iacchos appears in the Eleusinian myth in which Baubo exposes her genitals to the mourning Demeter (Orphic fragment 395 and see OH 41.4n), where there probably was a pun "iakkhos" ('female genitalia") and Iacchos also played a role in the Lenaia, an Athenian festival (see OH 50i).

p. 158

Of particular relevance is that officials from the Eleusinian Mysteries were involved in the procession and that part of the ritual involved worshippers calling on the god as "son of Semele, Iacchos, giver of wealth" (for Iacchos see OH 42.4n)

Bernabé edit

Bernabe, Alberto, "Dionysus in the Mycenaean World", in Redefining Dionysos [in folder]

p. 30

Furthermore, throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s some proposals were made to interpret various Mycenaean terms as references to the god, which today are completely overlooked, but which I include here for curiosity value:
...
b) In the case of i-wa-ka, i-wa-ko, i-wa-ka-o a possible link to Ἴακχος was suggested, but it is an anthroponym carried by, among other men, a bronze worker and a deer hunter.

Bernabé and García-Gasco edit

p. 109

[Re Nonnus' Dionysica] In respect to Telete, born from Dionysus' first female lover, Nicaea, after her rape (16.270-291), she only has one function unique to her character, she will care for Iacchus (48.948-968), the son of the nymph Aura.63 Iacchus is, at that point, the third person called Dionysus in the poem,64 the son that the second Dionysus leaves to the world before his expected apotheosis. In the quoted passage, Nonnus identifies him with Erichthonius, a mythical character with no relation to the religious sphere, and concurrently, with Iacchus, the son of Demeter, figure of hardly any mythological weight, but with a strong presence in the Eleusinian mysteries.

Bowie, A. M. edit

[in folder "Iacchus"]

p. 232

The relationship between Dionysus and the Mysteries has long been problematic, but it is now fairly clear that such a relationship did exist.24 It can best be seen in the way he is associated with Iacchus as early as the fith century, an association no doubt aided by the homophony of 'Bacchus' and 'Iacchus', and also by the fact that the Eleusinian procession had an ecstatic character. The earliest evidence is uncertain. In Berlin, there is a black-figure lecythus of about 500, which shows a bearded Dionysus with the inscription IAKXNE, which may be a miswriting for IAKXE. Later in the century there is more compelling, literary evidence. The famous ode in Antigone addresses Dionysus with reference to Eleusis 'you rule over Eleusinian Deo's glens which receive all' (119-21), and to Iacchus, whose name is the last word of [cont.]
24 Graf 1974; 40-78; also Metzger 1944-5; Mylonas 1961: 275-8; Bérard 1974: 94 n. 2; Richardson 1974 on H. Dem. 489; Burkert 1983a: 279 n. 23; Simon 1983: 32.

p. 233

the ode.25 The description of Icchus in Frogs 342 as 'bright star of nocturnal ritual' recalls Ant. 1146ff., where, in the same hymn to 'polyonymous' Dionysus, Iacchus is invoked as 'chorus-leader of the fire-breathing stars, guardian of the voices of night', a passage which the scholiast describes as 'in accordance with some mystic logos'. In another, unknown play, Sophocles speaks of Dionysus' place of nurture, Nysa:26 'I saw ecstatic Nysa, famed among mortals, which the ox-horned Iacchus counts as his sweetest motherland.' In Bacchae 725f., the messenger describes Maenads as 'calling as one on Iacchus, son of Zeus, Bromius'.
There is also evidence from cult. At the Lenaea, the Daduchus cried 'Call on the god' and the people replied 'Son of Semele, Iacchus giver of Wealth',27 and the Lesser Mysteries at Agrae contained an 'imitation of the things about Dionysus', though we do not know what about Dionysus.28 It would seem reasonable therefore to see Dionysus and Iacchus as deities who in an Eleusinian context could be identified with each other.29
25 1151f.
26 Fr. 959.1-3.
27 Schol. Frogs 482.
28 Steph. Byz. s.v. Agra kai Agrai; ...
29 Graf 1974:54. A vase from Apollonia shows them separately: Venedikov et. al. 1963: 92ff., plates 13ff.; Bérard 1974: 94f.

Clinton edit

1974 [in folder "Iacchus"]

p. 96
Ἰακχαγωγός
He is mentioned in the list of officials appended to the Eleusinian Endowment15 of ca. 160-170 and he had a seat in the prohedria of the Theater of Dionysos.16 His function is clear from his title: he carried or accompanied the statue of Ἵακχος. Since this diety was a late comer to the cult, probably as a personification of the mystic cry,17 so too of course was the priest. It would be interesting to know from which genos he came, but the evidence is only of a negative sort. He is not in the list of the priests of the Kerykes in the degree of 20/19 for the daduch Themistocles;18 thus he was probably a Eumolpid.
The only known incumbent is: Διονύσιος Μαραθώνιος. I.G., II2, 3733, 3734, 4771, 4772. In office 126/7.
He was cosmete in 126/7 (I.G., II2, 3733 and 3734). In I.G., II2, 3734 he is not named but called ἐσθλὸς [cont.]
15 See above pp. 35-36. He also appears in the list of Eleusinian priests in Pollux, I, 35 (ed. Bethe).
16 I.G., II2, 5044 and append. III.
17 See Foucart, 1914; pp. 110-113.
18 See above, pp. 50-52.
p. 97
[Ἰάκχο]υ εἱροπόλος νυχίων μυστιπό[λος συνό]δων. He still has the title of Ἰακχαγωγός in two other dedications, I.G., II2, 4771 and 4772, which do not belong to the year that he was cosmete; this led Foucart to conclude that the priesthood was held for life.19 These dedications seem to indicate that he was also a priest in the cult of Isis.
Hieronymy was not observed.
19 1914: p. 208

Dow edit

[in folder "Iacchus"]

p. 113
Boedromion 19 No extant decree is dated on this day. Apparently specifying part of the main ποππή, I.G., II12, 1078 of ca. 210/1 A.D. provides that the ephebes are to accompany the ἱερά to Eleusis on [cont.]
p. 114
Boedromion 19.1 In the third century after Christ, therefore, this was an official holiday, the day of the great procession. It might be conceived that in Roman times the ποππή, formerly held on the 20th, was moved forward a day. The absence of decrees, though it may be fortuitous, points to the conclusion that in Hellenistic times as well the 19th was the day of the procession. It is conceivable but unlikely thjat the ephebes were sent ahead with certain ἱερά to Eleusis one day in advance of the main ποππή, to make preparations.
Boedromion 20 No extant decree is dated on this day. Three literary references, two of which are in Plutarch, tell us plainly that on the 20th they "lead out" Iakchos or "send him from the city to Eleusis."3 Influenced by the decree of 210/11 A.D., scholars have [cont.]
p. 115
agreed that this means arrival in Eleusis after the sundown which ended the 19th.1
This strains the literal meaning of ἐξάγουσι, which refers properly to the piont of departure, not of arrival; and the whole passage, seems to indicate that the procession itself was disturbed by the Macedonain seizure of Munychia. Now the present theory, which "harmonizes" the figures 19 and 20, would have the procession already near or in Eleusis at the end (sundown) of the 19th. The absence at present of decrees dated on the 19th suggests that the 19th was a holiday, and consequently that the procession really was on the 19th, as the decree of 210/11 A.D. prescribes. The difficulties in Plutarch can only be overcome, however, by supposing that his two passages are carelessly expressed. Carelessly, not ignorantly: Plutarch would have precise knowledge on such a point.2

Encinas Reguero edit

[In folder "Iacchus"]

p. 350

1 The Names of Dionysos: Meaning and Suggested
Interpretation
Dionysos is referred to in Bacchae in three different manners. These are: Dionysos, Bromios and Bacchos. And there are two other names that are used exceptionally, which are Iacchos (725) and Dithyrambos (526).2
The first of the two last names I have mentioned, Iacchos (Ἴακχος), is the embodiment of the ritual cry, which was uttered in certain moments during the worship in the Eleusinian mysteries.3 It seems that the ritual cry ἴακχε was understood as a vocative, from which the nominative Ἴακχος was derived and this was identified gradually with Dionysos.4 Iacchos appears as an embodiment of the ritual cry in Herodotus and that could be the oldest preserved evidence.5 This term is used also in Sophocles, where Iacchos is an epithet of Dionysos in his function of leader or χοραγός of the maenads.6 In Aristophanes, however, Iacchos seems to be a divinity independent of Dionysos.7 In Bacchae this name is used in the first messenger’s speech in a passage (725), in which the Bacchic ceremonies are described, and there the epithet alludes undoubtedly to the god of wine.8
2 Both the second part of the name Dionysos and the name Bacchos or Dithyrambos are terms that are not of Greek origin; cf. Burkert 1977, 253–254.
3 Cf. Burkert 1972, 307–308; Versnel 1972, 26–29.
4 The interpretation of Ἴακχος as a nominativ derived from ἴακχε and that at first had nothing to do with Dionysos is widespread enough. However, some different interpretations have been suggested because of some evidence. So, Versnel 1972, 37–38, defends that the connection with Dionysos existed already before the embodiment of the god Iacchos. Furthermore, since the cry ἴακχε was related with Eleusis, Versnel raises a hypothesis, namely, that Peisistratus could favour the propagation of the Dionysiac elements to win the support of the lower classes and in order that, he could use just an element of the Eleusinian mysteries, in which it is known that the tyrant was very interested in.
5 Hdt. 8.65. It is impossible to know when Herodotus exactly wrote his great play. But the passage of Aristophanes, Acharnians 247–253, whose first performance took place in the year 425 BCE, makes us think that it happened prior to that date, so that the audience could acknowledge the reference. That situates the writing of Herodotus at a date near that of Antigone, which is generally dated in 442–441 BCE.
6 S. Ant. 1152. Because of its connection with Eleusis, Henrichs 1990, 266, considers that the reference to Iacchos is used by Sophocles to pay his tribute to the attic Dionysos. Cf. Jiménez San Cristóbal in this book.
7 Ar. Ra. 320, 324–325, 341, 399, 404, 410, 416. Cf. Versnel 1972, 23–24, and note 4 above.
8 Dodds 1944, 157, considers inappropriate that the name Iacchos is used to refer to Dionysos by the Theban followers.

Kearns edit

p. 170

Place of worship. I. was particularly associated with the procession of mystai from Athens to Eleusis (προέπεμψαν τὸν Ἴαχχον, IG II2 1006.10, cf. Plut. Phoc. 28). A building in Athens called the Iaccheion was presumably on this route.

Farnell edit

[6]

p. 146

More important and perplexing are the questions about Iacchos, 'the daemon of Demeter, the founder of the mysteries,' as Strabo describes him.229 n The author of the hymn is silent about him, and considering his later prominence we may in this case interpret silence as ignorance. The first mention of him occurs in the early fifth-century Attic inscription concerning ..., to which reference has already been made,176 if the restoration I venture to adopt is correct.d His recognition in the mysteries appears to have [cont.]

p. 147

been complete by the time of Herodotus, who describes the πανήγυρις as raising the cry Ἴακχε, or calling the god Ιακχος in the festival of Demeter and Kore;171 and perhaps this memorable association of Iacchos with the great fight for freedom may have increased his fame and poularity in Greece. As regards to the locality of his worship and its value for the mystic service, the evidence is clear and important. We hear of the Ἰάκχειον at Athens,229 f and his statue representing him as holding a torch stood in the temple of Demeter in a group with the mother and the daughter near the Dipylon gate.143 On the evening evening of the nineteenth and on the twentieth day of Boedromion,a a day specially sacred to him, and itself called Ἴακχος,211, 229 l the multitude of mystae, protected by the armed escort of ephebi, escorted him from the city along the sacred way to Eleusis, the god being represented either by an image or his human counterpart.185, 186 We hear of his formal reception at Eleusis, and of a special attendant, the Ἰακχαγωγός, who waited upon him on the route, and who may possibly been associated in this task by another official known as the κουροτφος.193, 208 It is clear then that Iacchos had no abiding home: we hear of no altar, of no temple, consecrated to him there; he comes as a stranger and a visitor, and departs at the end of the sacred rites: nor does his name occur in any branch of Eleusinian genealogy. The conclusion then is certain, and generally accepted,b that Iacchos does not belong to the original Eleusinian cult or to the inner circle of the mysteries. It is of no importance that [cont.]
a The precession certainly started on the nineteenth (R. 187), but it must have occupied part of the twentieth day (R. 211, 229l).

p. 148

a late and reckless composer of an 'Orphic' hymna chooses to introduce him into the old Eleusinian myth of Baubo:b and if Strabo, in styling him the ἀρχηγέτης τῶν μυστηρίων, means more than that he led the mystae down the saced way to the mystic shrine, we need not be influenced by Strabo against better evidence. On the other hand, Iacchos is certainly Attic, perhaps specially Athenian; in spite of the loose use of his name by late writers, there is no trace of his cult outside this districtc; and if future discovery were to prove its existence elsewhere, we should be justified in assuming that it was an exportation from Attica. His intrusion, therefore, into the Eleusinian ceremony cannot have happened at a very early epochd; else those Greek communities, and there were several, that at a probably early period had borrowed Eleusinia from Eleusis, would have surely borrowed this personage also; and, as we have seen, the author of the hymn appears to have been ignorant of him. Now Iacchus os no obscure hero, but a deity whose cult aroused the enthusiasm of the greatest Attic poets. Who then is this deity whose power was such that he was chosen—perhaps from the sixth century onwards—to lead the mystae to the home of the mystery? We are accustomed, as were most of the ancients, to call him Dionysos, and this is probably righte, but there is much that requires cleaning up. As regards to the name itself, assuming the identification as correct, we may be content with one of two explanations: it may arise, as Curtius suggested, from some reduplication of Βάκχος, from Ϝίϝακχος, by dropping the digammas; or [cont.]
a Orph. Frag. 16.
b The soundness of the text may be doubted, see Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 820.
c On this point the writer of the article 'Iacchos' in Roscher's Lexicon, 2, p. 9, is misleading.
d O. Kern, Ath. Mitth. 1892, p. 140, suggests that Iacchos grew into prominence from the aid he may have been supposed to have given at Salamis: he there rightly protests against the belief that Iacchos-cult made any deep impress upon the mysteries.
e This view is sometimes questioned as for instance by Rohde, Psyche, vol. I, p. 284, but a priori, even apart from real evidence, it seems the only reasonable one. For Iacchos is a high god, and such deities did not grow up obscurely in a corner of Attica and suddenly emerge into power in the sixth century B. C. And what other high god of the Greek Pantheon can claim his name but Dionysos? We notice that Iacchos is the ὡραῖος θεός229a, the type of Dionysos that was beginning to be popular from the sixth century onwards in literature and from the fifth century in art.

p. 149

from the root that is found in ἰαΧεῖν, 'to cry aloud,' so that the word would designate Dionysos as the god of the loud cry, and would be the equivalent of 'Bromios.' Now regards the identification itself, we do not discover it by any clear sign in the glowing invocation of the Aristophanic chorus ...
...
and again a most valuable piece of Attic evidence is preserved by the scholiast on the Frogs of Aristophanes 205 d, who tells us that at the Lenaia the δᾳδοῦχος, one of the highest Eleusinian officials, proclaimed to the people, as he held a lighted torch in his hand, 'Invoke the god'; and that the people in answer cried out, 'Hail, Iacchos, son of Semele, thou giver of wealth.'

PLATE XVI facing p. 240

p. 243

His youthful form would suit Dionysus-Iacchos, ...

p. 345

176 Early fifth-century inscription: Ath. Mitth. 1899, p. 253 ...

p. 347

185
186

p. 352

[205] d Schol. Arist. Ran 482 ἐν τοῖς Δηναϊκοῖς ἀγῶσι Διονύσου ὁ δᾳδοῦχος κατέχων λαυπάδα λέγει καλεῖτε Θεόν και οἱ ὑπακούοντες βοῶσι Σεμελήϊ ἼαΚχε πλουτοδότα.
208 ... Pollux, I. 35 ... ἰακχαγωγὸς ...

p. 353

211Plut. Phok. 6 ... Ibid. c. 28 ... Philosstr. Vit. Soph. Kayser 2, p. 104 ... C. I. G. 523 ...

p. 360

229 The goddesses and Iacchos: vide R. 115b, 143, 171, 176, 185, 186, 193, 205d, 211, 216f.
a Arist. Ran. 324:
340 ...
395 ... ὡραῖον θεόν ...
b Soph. Antig 1119:

p. 361

f Plut. Aristid. 27
l Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 326 ... Arr. Anab. 2.16.3
n Strabo, p. 468

Foucart edit

1914, Les mystères d'Éleusis

  • Foucart, Paul François, Les mystères d'Éleusis, Paris, Picard, 1914. Internet Archive

p. 110–113

p. 110

Au temps des guerres médiques, il n'avait pas encore de personnalité, il désignait les chants et les acclamations poussées par le cortège des mystes, lorsqu'il se rendait d'Athènes a Éleusis. C'est le sens qu'il a très nettement dans le récit qu'Hérodote a fait du prodige qui annonça le désastre des Perses à Salamine. Dans la plaine déserte de Thria, un exilé athénien, au service du Grand Roi, aperçut un nuage de poussière, comme celui qu'aurait soulevé une troupe de trente mille hommes, et il entendit un grand bruit de cris qui lui semblèrent être le Iacchos mystique, xαί οἱ φαίνεσθαι τὴν φωνὴν εἶναι τὸν μυστιxὸν ἴαxχον. Et il l'expliqua de cette façon à l'ancien roi de Sparte, Démaratos, qui était mal au courant des mystères, encore peu célèbres, d'Éleusis: τὴν φωνὴν ῆς ἀxούεις ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ὁρτῇ ἰαxχάζουσιν.
At the time of the Medic wars, he had no personality yet, he pointed to the songs and acclamations pushed by the procession of mysteries when he went from Athens to Eleusis. This is the meaning which he has very clearly in Herodotus's account of the prodigy which proclaimed the disaster of the Persians at Salamis. In the deserted plain of Thrias, an Athenian exile, at the service of the Great King, saw a cloud of dust, like that of a troop of thirty thousand men, and he heard a loud noise of cries which seemed to him to be the Iacchos mystical, xαί οἱ φαίνεσθαι τὴν φωνὴν εἶναι τὸν μυστιxὸν ἴαxχον [The cry seemed to be the “Iacchus” of the mysteries]. And he explained it thus to the ancient king of Sparta, Demaratos, who was unacquainted with the mysteries, still not very famous, of Eleusis: τὴν φωνὴν ῆς ἀxούεις ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ὁρτῇ ἰαxχάζουσιν [The voice which you hear is the ‘Iacchus’ they cry at this festival”].

p. 111

On ignore à quel moment les Athéniens inventèrent un gėnie qui personnifia et le chant mystique et la procession tout entière.
It is not known at what moment the Athenians invented a genius which personified and the mystical song and the whole procession.

p. 113

Un décret athénien, décernant une récompense à deux épimélètes des mystères, énumère les actes de piété et de générosité qui ont signalé l'année de leur charge. ... . Le sens est fort clair: "ils se sont occupés de la rėception d'Iacchos à Éleusis". Lorsqu'un personnage divin quittait l'édifice où il habitat (dans le cas prėsent, c'était le temple de Déméter à Athènes, que Plutarque appelle Ὶαxχεῖον) pour rendre visite ὰ une autre divinitέ, il fallait bien lui assurer une demeure. S'il avait un temple ὰ lui dans la localitέ, it s'y rendait tout naturellement. Par example, losque les ἱερὰ d'Éleusis sortaient de leur sanctuaire pour aller à Athènes, ils logeaient dans l'Éleusinion, qui appartenait aux Éleusis le Dionysion pour y séjourner, Au contraire, il était nécessaire de lui assurer l'hospitalité, parce qu'il était un étranger dans la ville des Mystères et qu'il ėtait un etranger pas une demeure, un temple à lui.
An Athenian decree, awarding a reward to two epimelts of the mysteries, enumerates the acts of piety and generosity which have marked the year of their office. ... The meaning is very clear: "they took care of the reception of Iacchos to Eleusis" When a divine person left the building where he dwells (in this case, it was the temple of Demeter in Athens, which Plutarch calls Ὶαxῖεῖον) to visit another deity, it was necessary to assure him a dwelling. If he had a temple in the locality, he went there naturally. For example, when the ἱερὰ of Eleusis came out of their sanctuary to go to Athens, they lodged in the Eleusinion, which belonged to the Eleusis, the Dionysion, to stay there. On the contrary, it was necessary to assure him hospitality, because 'He was a stranger in the city of the Mysteries and that he was a stranger not a dwelling, a temple to him.

pp. 324ff.

CHAPITRE XII
19-20. Ἴακχος.


p. 329

Les hiéra sortaient de l'Éleusinion, toyrjours enfermés dans leurs corbeilles mystiques. Ils decendaient, au milieu des chants, à travers l'Agora et le Céramique1, jusqu'au Dipylon, où les attendait le gros de la procession. Dans le voisinage était un temple de Déméter et de Coré, dans lequel étaint les statue des Deux Déesses et celle de Iacchos, tenant une torche 2
The hieroglyphics of the Eleusinion were always confined in their mystical baskets. In the midst of the songs they descended through the Agora and Ceramics, to Dipylon, where the main part of the procession was awaiting them. In the neighborhood was a temple of Demeter and Core, which [housed] the statue of the Two Goddesses and that of Iacchos, holding a torch.

Graf edit

2005, "Iacchus" [in folder "Iacchus"]

One of the deities of the Mysteries of -> Eleusis [I]. I. is the personification of the ecstatic cultic cry (‘’iakchos’’, onomatopoetic) by the participants in the Mysteries during their procession from Athens to the Eleusinian sanctuary where they underwent initiation into the mysteries (Hdt. 8.65; Aristoph. Frogs 316-353). His image was kept in a temple of Demeter, Kore and I. by the Pompeion at the Sacred Gate (Paus. 1.2.4, probably identical with the Iaccheion Plut. Aristides 27,4), was carried ahead of the procession by the iakchagōgós ('leader of I.'): The procession is therefore refered to as 'leading out I.' (e.g. Plut. Themistocles 15.1; Alcibiades 34.4), Attic inscriptions describe the escort, which the ephebes provide for the procession as the ‘escort of I.’(e.g. IG II 2 1028,10). His attribute is the torch in the light of which participants arrived at Eleusis (Aristoph. Ran. 340-353, cf. Paus. 1,2,4) and the ecstatic dance is his characteristic (Aristoph. Ran. 316-353; Str. 10,3,10). This reflects the ecstatic experiences of the participants in the Mysteries on their long march (24 km), which they completed on the last day of three fasting days. SInce Soph. Ant. 1152 and Eur. Ion 1074-1077 I. has been identified in literature with -> Dionysus (cf. Str. 10.3.10); identification with a cultic cry of the Eleusinian dadoûchos (scol. Aristoph. Ran. 479) occurred in a later period.
The iconography of I. is disputed because no labelled image is preserved. The Eleusinian images represent two young men in ependytes, Thracian boots and (often) with torches. One of them is often considered to be I., but he could also be Dionysus I. who is frequently depicted in an Eleusinian context.

1974 Eleusis

p. 44
24 ...
p. 49
Die eleusinische Priesterschaft brachte die Hiera, welche im Eleusinion unterhalb der Burg aufbewart worden waren41, über die Agora (δι' ἀγορᾶς42) bis zum Iakcheion in der Nähe des Heiligen Tores am Kerameikos43.
41 IG II2 1078, 14f. — ... Mylonas 246 f. (Bibl. 247 Anm. 114), Travlos 198 f.
The Eleusinian priesthood brought the Hiera, which had been lodged in the Eleusinion below the castle,41 over the Agora (δι' ἀγορᾶς42) to the Iakcheion near the Holy Gate at Kerameikos43.
41 IG II2 1078, 14f. — ... Mylonas 246 f. (Bibl. 247 Anm. 114), Travlos 198 f.
pp. 51–66
p. 56
p. 198
Und doch mag man mit Clemens und seinen philogischen Nachfolgern in derart deutlich eleusinischer Umgebung Iakchos, den Geleiter der Mysten, nicht gerne fernhalten. Vielmehr wird man an ein Spiel mit dem Dopplesinn von "IAKXOΣ denken müssen. Das Kind Iakchos, welches so ins Spiel kommt, dann wohl zusammenzustellen mit jenen wenigen Nachrichten, die einen kindlichen Iakchos-Dionysos mit Demeter verbinden.
And yet, with Clemens and his philosopher successors, Iakchos, the leader of the Mystics, would not like to keep away in such a clearly Eleusinian environment. Rather, one will have to think of a game with the double meaning of "IAKXOΣ. The child Iakchos, who comes into play in this way, can be summed up with those few messages which connect a childlike Iakchos-Dionysus with Demeter.
19 Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Inv. 1956-355. ...

Grimal edit

s.v. Iacchus

p. 224
The god who guided the initiated in the mysteries of Eleusis. 'Iacche' was the ritual cry uttered by the faithful; this cry simply became a name which was given to a god. Traditions vary as to his actual personality, but very broadly, Iacchus, whose name recalls Bacchus, one of Dionysus' names, may be considered to be a go-between of the goddesses of Eleusis and Dionysus. Sometimes he is said to have been Demeter's son, who accompanied his mother when she was looking for Persephone. It was he who, by his laughter at the action of the god Baubo, was said to have cheered her up. But Iacchus was more often regarded as the son of Persephone than Demeter, in which case he was the reborn Zagreus, Persephone's son by Zeus. Hera was jealous ....
Some stories made Iacchus Demeter's husband, others the son of Dionysus, born in Phrygia by the Nymph Aura. ... Sometimes Iacchus and Bacchus were said to be the same person but there is no explanation for their dual nature. Iacchus is depicted in art as a child scarcely adolescent carrying a torch and dancing, and leading the procession of Elusis.
p. 490
Iacchus Diod. Sic. 3.64.1ff.; Lucret. 4.1160; Arnobius, Adv. Nat. 3.10; 5.25; schol. on Aristophanes, Frogs 325 [should be 482??]; on Euripides, Tro. 1230; Tzetzes on Lyc. Alex. 355; Paus. 8.37.5; 1.37.4; Hesych. s.v. Σαβάζιος (Sabazios); Nonnus, Dion. 48,870ff.; 31.66ff.; Eustath. on Hom. pp. 629,30; 926,60; Strabo 10.3.10, p. 468; Homeric Hymn to Demeter (see index to Richardson's ed.); Serv. on Virgil, Georg. 1.166; Hdt. 8.65.

Guía edit

[in folder "Iacchus"]

p. 100

1 Introduction
The Lenaia in Athens are the festivals of Dionysus that have prompted most controversy, not only in relation to the famous 'Lenaia vases,' but also because of the presence of Iacchos

p. 103

The references we have [for the Lenaia] mention a procession and ἀγών held 'by torchlight,' where the Δᾳδοῦχος (an Eleusinian official, but one originating in Athens, as we shall see later) invoked or called on the god and the chorus responded 'Iacchos, son of Semele, Πλουτοδότης.' The ἀγών, like the procession, was led by the archon-king and some Eleusinian officials, the Epimeletes and the Dadouchos.

p. 109

In this sense, the reference of the scholiast to Aristophanes' Frogs is consistent in saying that the god was called or invoked at the Lenaia with shouts of 'Iacchos, son of Semele, Πλουτοδότης ('giver of riches').' The passage in Aristophanes' work, glossed by the scholiast, probably makes a veiled allusion, in the first place, as Lada-Richards has pointed out, to the dismemberment (Frogs, 464-478), then to the invocation (of Δᾳδοῦχος: Frogs, 479) and finally to 'arising' (Frogs, 480), a sequence that we could find in the Lenaia (σπαραγμός, invocation and awakening of the god), festivals with which the scholiast explains this invocation.39
6 Iacchos in the Lenaia and in the Thyiads' Celebration: Similarities between the festivals at Athens and Delphi
The god is invoked in Aristophanes' Frogs by adressing him as Iacchos, who appears leading the chorus of μῦσται — men and women — to Eleusis.40 However [cont.]
39 Aiakos,the judge of the dead,threatens Dionysos (disguised as Heracles) with σπαραγμός: Ar. Ra. 464–478 (‘...and the circling hounds of Cocytus and Echidna with her hundred heads shall tear your entrails; you lungs will be attacked by the Tartesian eel, your kidneys bleeding with your very entrails the Tithrasian Gorgons will rip apart. To them I will direct my hasty foot.:’ translation by Dillon); in verse 479 the invocation of the god is mentioned (glossed with the explanation of the call of the god in the Lenaia) and in verse 480 an allusion is made to the god getting up (‘Quick, get up – ἀναστήσει-, before some stranger sees you!’); cf. Lada-Richards 1999, 94, 192–193.
40 ...When Iacchos is 'personified' he takes the form of the infant Dionysos and also that of the Δᾳδοῦχος, who is not only associated with the mysteries but also with other festivals such as the Lenaia, possibly from an early date. See the reference in Strabo mentioned above in note 7. Ricciardelli 200, 401.

p. 110

this Iacchos is not only related with the mysteries of Eleusis,41 but is also the protagonist of the Lenaia — according to the scholiast of Aristophanes — and of the Thyiads' ritual in Delphi, at least in Attic tragedy. in Antigone, Sophocles mentions the nocturnal rites on Mount Parnassos to celebrate the epiphany of the infant Dionysos (παῖς), called Iacchos, encircled by the Thyiads who dance around him.42 The ceremony is held, as in Athens, by torchlight.43 Iacchos is also a 'giver or dispenser of riches' (ταμίας) in this text, as in the Lenaia (Πλουτοδότης). Sophocles introduces the 'Attic Dionysus,' Iachhos, into Delphic ritual, possibly on the basis of the similarities between the ritual and the figure of Dionysus in Delphi and the Attic rites of Iacchos, not only in the mysteries, as is generally thought,44 but also particularily in the Lenaia, which are specifically dedicated to the god with similar characteristics to those of Dionysus in Delphi. And what kind of god is the Dionysos commemorated by Thyiads in Delphi?
In Delphi, the god manifests himself in the form of an infant (Dionysos Λικνίτης),45 according to Sophocles. Possibly in Athens, at the Lenaia, Iacchos is personified as a child, 'The son of Semele,' as well as being a young man, a torchbearer like the Dadouchos.46 Iacchos is, moreover, in later [cont.]
41 Iacchos in relation to Eleusis: Graf 1974, 51-58.
42 'Hail, leader of the dance breathing fire, master of voices heard by night, son of Zeus, appear, king, with your attendant Thyiads, who in their frenzy dance all night in honour of their lord Iacchus!" ... S. Ant. 1140-1152. Also in Sophocles' Antigone: 'they saw you above the twin peaks through the smokey blaze of torches, where the Corycian nymphs, bacchants, advance' S. Ant. 1125-1128.
45 Λικνίτης, 'he who is in the cradle:' Otto 1997, 65; Hsch. s.v. Λικνίτης ... Orph. H. 46 invokes Dionysus Λικνίτης, the infant Dionysos, cf. Dietrich 1958, 244-248; Ricciardelli 2000, 125, 413-417; Morand 2001, 19, 246-247. For the importance ...
46 Iacchos is also defined as a ritual cry or hymn: see note 53. In either case (as a ritual cry or hymn) also associated with the infant Dionysos, for example in Euripides, Palamedes (fr. 586 Kannicht = Str. 10.3.13) where the cult of the Phryrigian Mother goddess alludes to the dry of Iacchos made to the sound of the cymbals that delight the infant Dionysos, who is there with his mother. Clement of Alexander (Clem. Al. Prot. 2.21.1), describes Iacchos as a child that fondles Baubo's breast; he also appears as a child, associated in this case with Demeter, in Lucretius (4.1168). The Suda Lexicon (Suda s.v. Ἴακχος) identifies him with Dionysus 'in the womb' (it also says it is a [cont.]

p. 111

sources, the victim of the σπαραγμός,47 and it is also possibly commemorated at the Delphi festival, as Plutarch says (and at the Lenaia according to the scholium to Celemet).48
[46 cont.] hymn in honour of this god). Strabo (Str. 10.3.10) says that the name Iacchos is given both to Dionysos and to the archegetes of the mysteries. In Aristophanes' Frogs Iacchos is Dionysos himself and the leader of the μῦσται, star of light (324). See note 61 below. Iacchos associated with the 'mystic winnowing-fan' or λικνον in Serv. Georg. 1.166. Semele in Delphi as model for the Thyiads linked in that place to the infant Dionysos: Jewanmaire 1978, 196. Cf. also Villanueva Puig 1986, 45.

p. 112

As we have asserted elsewhere, the figure of Iacchos probably originated in Athens as a ritual song or cry,53 not initially in relation to the mysteries and the Eleusinian festival, but in the context of the agricultural festivals of Dionysos, and was identified with that divinity (as he was in Eleusis, even if his personality was also defined independently or autonomously as ἀρχηγέτης) who is reborn, and therefore, in a special way, with the infant Dionysos invoked by torchlight. This song of Iacchos was possibly introduced in Eleusis at the time when the Δᾳδοῦχος – and the Κήρυκες in general – who came from Athens, became part of the Eleusian priesthood, possibly at the beginning of the sixth century, at the time of Solon’s reorganisation and the full incorporation of the mysteries into the city, with the ἱερά being taken to Athens (and then taken back to Eleusis).54

Guthrie edit

  • Guthrie, W. K. C., The Greeks and Their Gods, Beacon Press, 1950. ISBN 9780807057933.

p. 287

Not only new rites, but a new god, arose from the connection of the mysteries with Athens. This was Iacchos. To cover the dis- [cont.]

p. 288

tance from Athens to Eleusis a procession was formed and passed along what came to be known as the Sacred Way between the two towns with dancing, singing and joyful shouts of "Iache, iache!" From this, by personification which came so readily to the Greek mind, arose the idea of a god of the joyful cry, and who was likely to be but Dionysos, himself the patron of wild dancing and already known as "Euios" from the ecstatic cry "Euoi" that was uttered by his impassioned worshippers? The cry was now regarded as an invocation to Iacchos, and Iacchos identified with Dionysos, with whose dress and attributes his image was adorned. This image, as well as the sacred emblems from the Eleusinion, was borne from the temple to the gathering-point of the procession of the procession in the market-place, and thence carried the whole way to Eleusis, like the saint and relics of many a Mediterranean procession to-day.

Hard edit

p. 134

Of some importance for cult, though almost none for mythology, is IAKCHOS, a minor god who was associated with Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis. He seems to have originated as the personification of a refrain in much the same way as Hymenaios (see p. 223), in this case of the ritual cry of Iakch' o Iakche that was chanted by initiates as they passed in procession from Athens to Eleusis. Although he was often equated with Dionysos, apparently for no better reason than that his name sounds like Bakchos, he was also described as a son of Dionysos, or of Demeter or Persephone (or indeed as the husband of Demeter).179

p. 223

HYMENAIOS was the deity who presided over weddings. His name was derived from the traditional wedding-cry of Hymen of Hymenaie (or the like), which could be interpreted as an invocation to a deity called Hymenaios (or Hymen).

p. 619

179 D.S. 3.64.1, schol. Arist., vol. 3 p.648 Dindorf, Suidas s.v. iacchos.

Harrison edit

p. 413

Dionysus is a god of many names; he is Bacchos, Baccheus, Iacchos, Bassareus, Bromios, Euios, Sabazios, Zagreus, Thyoneus, Lenaios, Eleuthereus, and the list by no means exhausts his titles. A large number of these names are like Lenaios, 'He of the Wine-Press,' only descriptive titles; they never crystallize to the dignity of proper names. Some like Iacchos and probably Bacchos itself, though they ultimately became proper names, were originally only cries. Iacchos was a song even down to the time of Aristophones, and was probably, to begin with a ritual shout or cry kept up long after its meaning was forgotten.
...Iacchos Athenian ...

p. 540

a. Iacchus at Eleusis
Dionysus at Eleusis is known by the title of Iacchos. The locus classicus for Iacchos of the mysteries is of cource the chorus of the Mystae in the Frogs of Aristopjhanes1:

p. 541


p. 543

But Suidas is quite precise; he notes that Iacchos means 'a certain day,' ...

Kerényi edit

1951 The Gods of the Greeks

p. xiii
Dionysus with his alter ego, the child Iakchos
Red-figured vase; from S. Aurigemna "Museo di Spina", Ferrara 1936, pl. 85.
p. 242
In the Rharian Fields,788 1 [OR. 52] between Athens and Eleusis, Demeter encountered mortals who had sprrung from the earth: the woman Baubo, the man Dysaules, and their sons Triptolemos, Eumolpos and Eubouleu. ...
p. 243
The consolation of Demeter was also described as follows:791 [OR. 52] Baubo received the goddess ...
p. 244
...there was the child Iakchos laughing in Baubo's womb. ... Iakchos was the name for the devine child of the Eleusinian Mysteries, that son of Persephone ...
p. 274
A special epiphany of the god was expressed in the name Iakchos: it was both a name and a shout of invocation, with which the divine child was hailed at the eleusinian Mysteries, and which had a more than accidental resemblance to Bakchos, the second name of Dionysos. He was the son of Persephone, and both the lover of Demeter, mentioned in the Orphic stories, and the mysterious child, laughing in Baubo's womb.
PLATE XVI, facing p. 257
a Dionysus with his alter ego, the child Iakchos

1967 Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter [in folder]

pp. 7–9
p. 54
11. The purification of Herakles, on the sarcophagus from Torre Nova. Rome, Pallazzo Spagna
a sarcophagus of Ephesian origin, found at Torre Nova near Rome [11]. Here we see the purifying flames of torches borne by a priestess, and tow additrional divine persons, a goddess on one side, Iakchos on the other.
p. 62
Then came the 19th of Böedromion,55 the first day of the festival which was called Mysteria, The Mysteries, ...
p. 64
Iakchos was an alter ego of Dionysos, going to Eleusis as though in quest of his mother Semele.
pp. 156–158
p. 198
55 IG II2 1078.11

Lewis and Short edit

A Latin Dictionary

s.v. Ĭacchus
Ĭacchus , i, m., = Ἴακχος.
I. A poetic and mystical appellation of Bacchus, Verg. E. 7, 61; id. G. 1, 166; Cic. Leg. 2, 14, 34; Cat. 64, 251; Ov. M. 4, 15.
II. Poet. transf., like Bacchus, wine: “(Silenum) Inflatum hesterno venas, ut semper, Iaccho,” Verg. E. 6, 15: multo madefactus, Col. poët. 10, 309

Liddell & Scott edit

A Greek–English Lexicon

s.v. Ἴακχος
2. song in his honour, ὁ μυστικὸς ἴ. Hdt.8.65, cf. Athenio ap.Posidon.36 J., Anon. ap. Suid.; ᾁδειν τὸν Ἴ. Hsch. s.v. Διαγόρας: as Adj., “ἴακχος ᾠδά” E.Cyc.69 (lyr.).

Marcovich edit

p. 23

For Demeter as the mother of Iacchus-Dionysus, compare the Oxford vase-fragment (IV century B.C.) showing a seated Demeter with the small boy Dionysus in her lap.9 As for literary evidence, compare Lucretius 4.1168: ... (Arnobius alludes to this verse in Adv. nat. 3.10); Diodor. 3.64.1; Schol. ad Aristid. 46, 213 (p. 648 Dindorf); Suda and Photius, s.v. Ἴακχος' Διόνυσος ἐπὶ τῷ μαστῷ.10 As for Baubo as a probable nurse of Iacchus, compare Hesychius, s.v. Βαυβώ ...
9 Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Inv. 1956-355. M.P. Nilsson, ...
10 See e.g., O. Kern in RE IX (1914) 621 f. (s.v. Iakchos); Graf, o.c., 198 et alibi.

Mylonas 1961 edit

p. 238
Iacchos is a divine personality associated with, but not forming a part of, the cult. He was the personification of the shouting and enthusiasm which characterized the procession from Athens to Eleusis. In later years he was confused with Dionysos who was never one of the Gods worshipped in the Mysteries.71
p. 252
Fifth Day: Boedromion 19 (Pompe). This day, known as Iacchos or pompe, marked the culmination of the rites and festvities in Athens.
p. 253
p. 254
Meanwhile, the crowd of the initiates with their sponsors, and a good many Athenians, who would escort the Hiera for a short distance beyond the gates, were collected and made ready to start at the Pompeion of Athens situated between the Diplyon Gate and the Eridanos or the small Sacred Gate.141 The procession was ready to start possibly after a last inspection. Iacchos and his priest were at the head; then came the priests and the panageis, the all holy, priestesses of Demeter bearing the Hiera in the kistai, perhaps in a manner illustrated by the Caryatid of the Lesser Propylaea.
p. 255
The role of Iacchos became more important after the Persian invasion of Xerxes, since it was believed that the youythful Goid helped the Greeks against the barbarians in the battle of Salamis.
p. 318
Iacchos: The personification of the enthusiasm and shouting of the pompe. He was pictured to be the leader of the pompe or procession of initiates from Athens to Eleusis. In Roman times he was confused with Bacchus and Dionysus.
p. 395 fig. 88 The Niinnion tablet

Olender edit

p. 83
ASPECTS OF BAUBO:
ANCIENT TEXTS AND CONTEXTS
Maurice Olender
p. 85
What then, did happen to make Demeter, though mourning her lost daughter, burst into laughter, ...
p. 88

Parker edit

Online

p. 358

'Demeter suckling Iacchus' (whom she must have born) was a proverbial concept in the ancient world, perhaps already hinted at on an extraordinary sherd of a bell krater from Al Mina, which shows a young Iacchus or Dionysus seated on the goddess's lap.139 ... Persephone, however, is also said to be Iacchus' mother,140 and herewith the position becomes complicated, because, on the one hand, Iacchus was often assimilated to Dionysus, and on the other Persephone was mother of that alternative Dionysus who in Orphic myth was a key eschatological figure. We duly find it said in some texts that 'Dionysus son of Persephone' is honoured at Eleusis;141 ...
139 Lucr. 4.1168 (where 'Ceres ab Iacchis' is a lover's euphemism for a girl with swollen breasts), whence Arnob. 3.10; Suda ι 16 Ἴακχος: Διόνυσος ἐπὶ τῷ μαστῷ ['Dionysos at the breast']; Σ Aristid. p. 648.15-16, Ἴακχο 21-3 Dindorf (where Demeter is explicitly identified as mother); ... The sherd ... LIMC s.v. Iachos, no. 8; cf. Clinton, Myth and Cult, 91. n. 164; ...
140 Σ Eur. Or. 964 and Tro. 1230; Σ vet. Ar. Ran. 323b ('Dionysus': but the verse commented on speaks of Iacchus); O. Kern in RE s.v. Iakchos, 621-2. This DIonysus/Iacchus had intercourse with Demeter, according to Σ Ar. Ran. loc. cit.
141 'Just as the Athenians reverence Dionysus the son of Zeus and Kore, a different Dionysus this one, and it is for this Dionysus, not the Theban, that the mystic Iacchus is sung' (Arr. Anab. 2.16.3); cf. Σ Pind. Isth. 7.3a, κατὰ ...

Peck edit

"Eleusinia"

Persson edit

p. 151

It is interesting to note that a seventh figure was added,—for example on an Attic relief found in Mondragone near Sinuessa, Italy,—namely, Iacchos, a personification of the cry which was heard in the great procession from Athens to Eleusis at the festival of the mysteries. This is incidentally, an excellent example of how a deity comes into existence and takes a positive form.

Richardson edit

Iacchus

Roscher edit

"Iakchos"

1. Bd., 1. Abt. Aba-Evan. 1884-1886 -- 1. Bd., 2. Abt. Euxistratos-Hysiris. 1886-1890 -- 2. Bd., 1. Abt. Iache-Kyzikos. 1890-1894 -- 2. Bd., 2. Abt. Laas-Myton. 1894-1897 -- 3. Bd. N-P / nebst Schluss von Palladion und Phoinix / Mit 647 Abbildungen im Text. 1897-1909 -- 4. Bd. Qu-S / Mit 416 Abbildungen im Text. 1909-1915 -- 5. Bd. T / Mit 248 Abbildungen im Text. 1916-1924 -- 6. Bd. U-Z und Nachträge unter Redaktion / von K. Ziegler ; Mit 78 Abbildungen im Text

Farnell, 148

c 'Iacchos' in Roscher's Lexicon, 2, p. 9, is misleading.

Rose edit

Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. Iacchus

(Ἴακχος) A minor deity (τῆς Δήμητρος δαίμονα, Strabo 10.3.10) associated with Eleusinian deities and probably in origin a personification of the ritual cry Ἴακχ᾽ ὦ Ἴακχε (Ar. Frogs 316); cf. Hymenaeus (q.v.). The deity, the song of which these words formed the refrain, and the day (Boedromion 19) on which his image was fethched to Athens from Eleusis with other holy things all called by the same name, Ar. op. cit. 320, Hesychius, s.v. Ἴακχος; cf. MYSTERIES PROCESSION. Iacchus was variously said to be the son of Demeter, of Persephone, and of Dionysus, or the consort of Demeter (refs in Höfer, see below); in art he is seen torch in hand (cf. Ar. op. cit. 340 ff.) conducting the mystics, Deubner plate 5. I (pinax of Ninnion). But owing to the resemblance between his name and Βάκχος, the title of Dionysus, he is often identified with the latter, not only in literature (e.g. Eur. Cyc. 69, Verg. G. i. 166, Strabo, loc. cit.) but to some slight extent in cult; at the Lenaea, when the daduchus said 'Invoke the god' the congregation answered Σεμελήϊ ἼαΚχε πλουτοδότα (Schol. on Ar. op. cit. 479) In Italy he was on occasion identified with Liber (q.v.), as in the temple of Ceres on the Aventine, where Ceres Liber and Libera are Demeter Iacchus and Kore.
L. Deubner, Attische Feste (1932), 73 f.; Höfer in Roscher's Lexicon, s.v. 'Iakchos'; Nilsson, GGR i. 599 ff.

Smith edit

s.v. Iacchus

(*)/Iakxos), the solemn name of the mystic Bacchus at Athens and Eleusis. The Phrygian Bacchus was looked upon in the Eleusinian mysteries as a child, and as such he is described as the son of Demeter (Deo or Calligeneia) and Zeus, and as the brother of Cora, that is, the male Cora or Corus. (Aristoph. Frogs 338; Soph. Antig. 1121, &c.; Orph. Hymn. 51, 11.) His name was derived from the boisterous festive song which is likewise called Iacchus. (Aristoph. Frogs 321, 400; Hdt. 8.65; Arrian, Arr. Anab. 2.16.) From these statements (comp. Schol. ad Aristoph. Ran. 326), it is clear that the ancients distinguished Iacchus, the son of Zeus and Demeter, from the Theban Bacchus (Dionysus), the son of Zeus and Semele, nay, in some traditions Iacchus is called a son of Bacchus, but in others the two are confounded and identified. (Soph. Antig. 1115, &c., 1154; Strab. x. p.468; Verg. Ecl. 6.15; Ov. Met. 4.15.) He is also identified with the infernal Zagreus, the son of Zeus and Persephone. (Schol. ad Pind. Isthm. 7.3, ad Eurip. Orest. 952, ad Aristoph. Ran. 401, 479; Arrian, l.c.) At Athens a statue of Iacchus, bearing a torch in his hand, was seen by the side of those of Demeter and Cora. (Paus. 1.2.4, 37.3.) At the celebration of the great Eleusinian mysteries in honour of Demeter, Persephone, and Iacchus, the statue of the last divinity, carrying a torch and adorned with a myrtle wreath, was carried on the sixth day of the festival (the 20th of Boedromion) from the temple of Demeter across the Thriasian plain to Eleusis, accom panied by a numerous and riotous procession of the initiated, who sang the Iacchus, carried mystic baskets, and danced amid the sounds of cymbals and trumpets. (Schol. ad Pind. Isthm. 7.3; Plut. Themist. 15, Camill. 19; Hdt. 8.65; Athen. 5.213; Verg. G. 1.166.) In some traditions Iacchus is described as the companion of Baubo or Babo, at the time when she endeavoured to cheer the mourning Demeter by lascivious gestures; and it is perhaps in reference to this Iacchus that Suidas and Hesychius call Iacchus ἥρως τις ["And a certain hero"].

Tripp edit

s.v. Iacchus p. 313

An obscure deity honored at the Eleusinian mysteries together with Demeter and Persephone. Iacchus is sometimes called Demeter's son, sometimes her husband, sometimes a son of Persephone identical with Zagreus. He was often identified with Dionysus (perhaps only because of the resemblance of the names Iacchus and Bacchus), but was occasionally said to be Dionysus' son. A youth or a child, Iacchus may have been a minor agricultural diety who was absorbed into the cult of Dionysus, especially at Eleusis. Some scholars believe, however, that the "god" came into being as a personification of the cry "Iacche!" uttered during certain Eleusian processions.

Versnel edit

[in folder "Iacchus"]

p. 23

The oldest testimony is the famous passage in Herod. 8, 65, describing the battle of Salamis. ... No mention is made of a god Ἴαxχος in this passage, nor is there any allusion to a statue. Not even the famous procession is mentioned explicitly, though the κονιορτός [LSJ: "dust raised"] may be taken as referring to it. Only a φωνή [LSJ: "sound"] or a φθεγγόμενον [LSJ: "utter a sound" "part sg pres mp"] and an activity ἰακχάζειν [LSJ: "shout", "verb pres inf act attic epic contr"] are mentioned. In later times a scholion on Aristides III (p. 648 Dind.) still emphasizes these very elements:
...
In the chronologically next testimony Iacchus figures clearly as the name of a god, though not of an independent one. It is used as an epithet of Dionysus in his function of leader of the maenads.. The source is Sophocles, Antigone 1146 ff, dating from shortly [cont.]

p. 24

before 440 B.C.: ...
In vers 1119 f. the chorus had addressed Dionysos: μέδεις δὲ παγxοίνοις, Ἐλευσινίας Δῃοῦς ἐν xόλποις This has induced Jebb 1 to suppose that Iacchos in verse 1152 is used specifically to denote the Eleusinian Dionysos.

p. 25

As regards the plastic art, we must admit that the numerous attempts to recognize Iacchos particularly in pictures of the Eleusinian circle have not yielded sure and trustworthy results. Already in 1899 E. Pottier remarked:6 "Pourant si ..."

p. 26

It must be added that the one picture in which Nilsson, Deubner, Mylonas and others with a fair degree of probability recognize Iacchos, viz the Niinnionpinax,1 is dated about 400 B.C. at the earliest, whereas the majority of scholars prefer a date betwwen 400 and 350 B.C.2 The representations found more recently which apparently promised a way out of the impasse, will be discussed in a later paragraph. First, the theories based on the evidence produced so far demand our attention.
II. The theories
On the subject of the birth-process of the god Iacchos the specialists agree in almost eschatological unanimity. Nobody doubts that the god is the personification of the iacchos-cry.3 Concerning the meaning of the cry slight differences of opinion appear: "the joyful cry" (Guthrie, 288); "a shout of invocation" (Kerényi, 241 [= 1951 p. 274]); "höchste Ausdruck der Freude" [Google translate:"highest expression of joy"] (Kern, 614). Elsewhere4 I have ...
3 J. E. Harrison (I) Themis, 48; (II) Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 1921, 413; W.K.C. Guthrie, The Greeks and their Gods, 288; A. W. Persson, The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times, Sather lect. 1942, 151; M. P. Nilsson, GGR, I2, 664; L. Deubner, Attische Feste2, 1932, 73; ...

p. 27

I interpreted the cry as an advocatio meant to summon the deity to appear, as it is still visible in the adhoration of the dadouchos mentioned above, xαλεῖτε Θεόν ["call on the god"], followed by the shout Σεμελήι' Ἴαxχε πλουτοδότα [Semele's son Iacchus the Giver"]. The latter exclamation I consider to be an amplification of the more primitive Ἴαxχ' ὦ Ἴαxχε. Next to this the cry ἴαxχε was an ecstatic shout of joy, accompanying the epiphany of the god. These facts logically lead to the following hypothesis: the starting-point must have been the form ἴαxχε— probably an expressive enlargement of ἰά.1— which at one time must have been interpreted as the vocative-form of a name. While inviting a god to appear with the cry ἴαxχε, people started thinking that the god's name was Ἴαxχος. This, I take it, is the origin of many epiclese of Dionysos, who is the appearing god par excellence. Moreover the idea that Iacchos was born out of a cry has been repeatedly expressed in ancient lexicography.2
We may regard as variants of this general view the opinions of those scholars who, though conceding that the cry iacche/iacchos was the basis of the genisis of the god, nevertheless describe the god as: "l'âme collective ... de la foule en marche" [Google: The collective soul ... of the marching crowd]. (Jeanmaire, 437); "un génie qui personnifia et le chant mystique et la procession tout entière" [Google: A genius who personified and the mystical song and the entire procession] (Foucart, 111); "Personifikation des Iakchoszuges" (Nilsson, 599).
1Afterwards I saw that Nilsson had already suggested Ἴαxχος [from] ἰά in: Opusc. III, 237 n. 18.

p. 29

Kerényi even tries to prove the great age of the god by suggesting that I-wa-ko and I-wa-ka on linear-B tablest should be read as Iacchos and Iacchas respectively, though he concedes that the former is the name of a smith and that the latter denotes an owner of slaves. ... The reason for mentioning these not very promising hypotheses, ...

p. 32

IV. An upublished lekythos in Villa Giulia
The black-figured lekythos no. 42884 in the Museum of the Villa Giulia has neither ...

Iconography edit

Vases edit

Berlin, Antikensammlung, Berlin, Pergamonmuseum, F1961 edit

Beazley Archive 302354

Versnel [in folder], pp. 32 ff.

Haspels (with Versnel Post Script) [in folder]

Rome, Mus. Naz. Etrusco di Villa Giulia, 42884 edit

Beazley Archive 9017720

Versnel, pp. 32 ff.

Haspels (with Versnel Post Script) [in folder]

Ferrara (T. 128) red-figure krater from the necropolis of Spina edit

Beazley Archive 213655

Versnel, pp.29–31

p. 30
Consequently, there is no reason any [p. 31] more to identify the sitting god with Iacchos.

Ferrara (T. 311) bell-krater edit

Beasley Archive 206865

Versnel, pp.31–32

p. According to [Fuhrmann] the child is not Iacchos but Oinopion, in mythology a child of Ariadne and Dionysos, by virtue of his attribures clearly defined as the personification of wine and viniculture. This interpretation has been generally adopted since8 and defended especially by Arias, who adds a reference to other pictures of boys and youths serving Dionysos and pouring wine. This interpretation seems much more attractive than Kerenyi's, although, this time. his theory has not been refuted with scientific certainty.. At any rate the identification of Iacchos is too hypothetical by far to build theories of an "alter-ego" on it.

Kerényi 1951 The Gods of the Greeks

p. xiii
Dionysus with his alter ego, the child Iakchos
Red-figured vase; from S. Aurigemna "Museo di Spina", Ferrara 1936, pl. 85.
PLATE XVI, facing p. 257
a Dionysus with his alter ego, the child Iakchos

Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1956.355 edit

Beasley Archive 13368

Parker, p. 358

'Demeter suckling Iacchus' (whom she must have born) was a proverbial concept in the ancient world, perhaps already hinted at on an extraordinary sherd of a bell krater from Al Mina, which shows a young Iacchus or Dionysus seated on the goddess's lap.139
139 ... The sherd (Oxford 1956,355): ... LIMC s.v. Iachos, no. 8; cf. Clinton, Myth and Cult, 91. n. 164; ...

Marcovich, p. 23

For Demeter as the mother of Iacchus-Dionysus, compare the Oxford vase-fragment (IV century B.C.) showing a seated Demeter with the small boy Dionysus in her lap.9
9 Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Inv. 1956-355. M.P. Nilsson, ...

Lada-Richards, p. 50 Amazon with image

2.1. Infant Dionysus on Demeter's lap.
fragment of rf. Attic krater: Oxford, Ashmodean Museum, 1956. 355

Sculpture edit

Lovatelli urn edit

Kerényi 1967 Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter [in folder]

p. 54
A simpler representation appears on a marble cinerarium found in Rome [12a-12d] and known as the Urna Lovatelli after Princess Ersilia Caetani Lovatelli, who published the discovery.

Torre Nova sarcophagus edit

Kerényi 1967 Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter [in folder]

p. 54
a sarcophagus of Ephesian origin, found at Torre Nova near Rome [11]. Here we see the purifying flames of torches borne by a priestess, and two additional divine persons, a goddess on one side, Iakchos on the other.

Mylonas

p. 207
The Lovatelli urn is compared with reason to the representation of the long side of the sarcophagas of Torre-Nova (Fig. 84). In that monument also we have three scenes...In the third scene we have Demeter sitting on a sacred kiste looking towards a youthful Iacchos standing before an altar laden with fruit. The figure of Iacchos corresponds to the youth of the third scene of the Lovatelli urn who thus should also be identified as Iacchos.
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