[16]
Also resembling these rites are the Cotytian and the Bendideian rites practiced among the Thracians, among whom the Orphic rites had their beginning. Now the Cotys who is worshipped among the Edonians, and also the instruments used in her rites, are mentioned by Aeschylus; for he says,“O adorable Cotys among the Edonians, and ye who hold mountain-ranging1 instruments;
”and he mentions immediately afterwards the attendants of Dionysus:“one, holding in his hands the bombyces,2 toilsome work of the turner's chisel, fills full the fingered melody, the call that brings on frenzy, while another causes to resound the bronze-bound cotylae3
”and again,“stringed instruments raise their shrill cry, and frightful mimickers from some place unseen bellow like bulls, and the semblance4 of drums, as of subterranean thunder, rolls along, a terrifying sound;
”for these rites resemble the Phrygian rites, and it is at least not unlikely that, just as the Phrygians themselves were colonists from Thrace, so also their sacred rites were borrowed from there. Also when they identify Dionysus and the Edonian Lycurgus, they hint at the homogeneity of their sacred rites.
1 The instruments, like those who play them (cp. sections 19 and 23 following), are boldly referred to as "mountain-ranging."
2 A kind of reed-flute.
3 Literally "cups"; hence, a kind of cymbal.
4 In connection with this bold use of "semblance" (εἰκών) by Aeschylus, note Strabo's studied use of "resembles" (ἔοικε, twice in this paragraph) and "unlikely" (ἀπεικός). Others either translate εἰκών "echo," or omit the thought.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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