[16] The rites called Cotytia, and Bendideia,1 celebrated among the Thracians, resemble these. The Orphic ceremonies had their origin among these people. Æschylus mentions the goddess Cotys, and the instruments used in her worship among the Edoni.2 For after saying, “ O divine Cotys, goddess of the Edoni,
With the instruments of the mountain worship;"
immediately introduces the followers of Dionysus,
” “‘one holding the bombyces, the admirable work of the turner, with the fingers makes the loud notes resound, exciting frenzy; another makes the brass-bound cotylæ to re-echo.’” And in another passage; “‘The song of victory is poured forth; invisible mimes low and bellow from time to time like bulls, inspiring fear, and the echo of the drum rolls along like the noise of subterranean thunder;’3” for these are like the Phrygian ceremonies, nor is it at all improbable that, as the Phrygians themselves are a colony of Thracians, so they brought from Thrace their sacred ceremonies, and by joining together Dionysus and the Edonian Lycurgus they intimate a similarity in the mode of the worship of both.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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