William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown

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In this section and § 260 we have a lively comic description, highly caricatured, of some Asiatic ceremonies of initiation, in which the mother of Aeschines is said to have taken part. This was some form of Bacchic worship, with perhaps a mixture of Orphic mysteries. It seems there was a written service (τὰς βίβλους), which Aeschines read like a clerk while his mother officiated as priestess. The initiation of Strepsiades into the Socratic mysteries (Ar. Nub. 255—262) probably caricatures some similar worship.

1. τῇ μητρὶ τελούσῃ: see XIX. 281, Γλαυκοθέας τῆς τοὺς θιάσους συναγούσης, ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἑτέρα τέθνηκεν ἱέρεια, and cf. 249. In XIX. 199 we have τὰς βίβλους ἀναγιγνώσκοντά σε τῇ μητρὶ τελούσῃ, καὶ παῖδ᾽ ὄντ̓ ἐν θιάσοις καὶ μεθύουσιν ἀνθρώποις καλινδούμενον.

2. τἄλλα συνεσκευωροῦ, you helped to conduct the rest of the ceremony: σκευωροῦμαι is properly look after σκεύη (of any kind), and generally manage, direct, devise, concoct (often in a bad sense): cf. IX. 17 τὰ ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ σκευωρούμενον (of Philip).

3. νεβρίζων and κρατηρίζων are probably transitive and govern τοὺς τελουμένους, like καθαίρων, ἀπομάττων, and ἀνιστάς, i.e. dressing them in fawnskins and drenching them with wine. See Eur. Bacch. 24, νεβρίδ᾽ ἐξάψας χροός, and Sandys' note. They are sometimes taken as neuter, meaning dressing yourself in a fawnskin and pouring out wine.

4. ἀπομάττων...πιτύροις, i.e. plastering them over with clay and then rubbing them clean with bran.

5. ἀνιστὰς: the victim is sup- posed to be sitting during the operation, like Strepsiades (Nub. 256).— καθαρμοῦ: the process was a purification and also a charm.

6. κελεύων, subordinate to ἀνιστὰς: i.e. making him get up as he bids him say, etc.—ἔφυγον κακὸν, εὗρον ἄμεινον: this formula was borrowed from initiations and other ceremonies of a higher character, meaning that a new life was opened as the result of the ceremony just ended. Suidas gives (under ἔφυγον...ἄμεινον): τάττεται ἐπὶ τῶν ἀπὸ κακοῦ εἰς κρεῖττον ἐλθόντων. The saying originally referred to the change from the acorns and thistles of primitive life to the more civilized bread, and was used at weddings and other ceremonies. The words form a paroemiac, and probably belonged to some metrical formula.

7. ὀλολύξαι, used especially of cries or shouts in religious worship or prayers: see Od. IV. 767, ὡς εἰποῦσ᾽ ὀλόλυξε (after a prayer): Aeschyl. Eum. 1043, ὀλολύξατε νῦν ἐπὶ μολπαῖς: Eur. Bacch. 689, ὠλόλυξεν ἐν μέσαις σταθεῖσα Βάκχαις.

8. φθέγγεσθαι μέγα: the strong voice of Aeschines is often mentioned by Demosthenes; see below, §§ 280, 285.6, 291.6, 313.7, and especially XIX. 206—208, 216, 337—340; in XIX. 216 he says, μηδέ γε εἰ καλὸν καὶ μέγα οὗτος φθέγξεται, μηδ᾽ εἰ φαῦλον ἐγώ, alluding to his own weakness of voice.