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[1]
But when things had to turn out badly for him, they did so for this reason: he conceived a desire to be initiated into the rites of the Bacchic Dionysus; and when he was about to begin the sacred mysteries, he saw the greatest vision.
But when things had to turn out badly for him, they did so for this reason: he conceived a desire to be initiated into the rites of the Bacchic Dionysus; and when he was about to begin the sacred mysteries, he saw the greatest vision.
[2] He had in the city of the
Borysthenites a spacious house, grand and costly (the same house I just mentioned), all surrounded by sphinxes and griffins worked in white marble; this house was struck by a thunderbolt. And though the house burnt to the ground,
Scyles none the less performed the rite to the end.
[3] Now the
Scythians reproach the
Greeks for this Bacchic revelling, saying that it is not reasonable to set up a god who leads men to madness.
[4] So when
Scyles had been initiated into the Bacchic rite, some one of the
Borysthenites scoffed at the
Scythians: “You laugh at us,
Scythians, because we play the Bacchant and the god possesses us; but now this deity has possessed your own king, so that he plays the Bacchant and is maddened by the god. If you will not believe me, follow me now and I will show him to you.”
[5] The leading men among the
Scythians followed him, and the
Borysthenite brought them up secretly onto a tower; from which, when
Scyles passed by with his company of worshippers, they saw him playing the Bacchant; thinking it a great misfortune, they left the city and told the whole army what they had seen.
Histories. Herodotus. ed. A.D. Godley. Cambridge. 1920-1925.
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