plunder had taken it into the hypostyle and were vying with each other in
extravagant travesties.

A burly wine-grower was elected to represent Dionysus and was seated with
nothing but some wreaths of flowers to cover his naked limbs, in a four-
wheeled sacrificial car of beaten brass. An alabaster wine-jar stood
between his fat knees, and his heavy body rolled with laughter as he was
drawn in triumph through the sacred arcades by a shouting rabble, as fast
as they could run. Numbers of the intoxicated crew, mad with excitement
and wine, had cast off their clothes which lay in heaps between the
pillars, soaking in puddles of spilt wine. In their wild dance the
girls' hair had fallen about their heated faces, tangled with withered
leaves and faded flowers, and the men, young and old alike, leaped and
waltzed like possessed creatures, flourishing thyrsus-staves and the
emblems of the lusty wine-god.

A small band of priests and philosophers ventured into the chaos in the
hope of quelling the riot, but a tipsy flute-player placed himself in
front of them and throwing back his head blew a furious blast to heaven
on his double pipe, shrill enough to wake the dead, while a girl seconded
him by flinging her tambourine in the face of the intruding pacificators.
It bounced against the shaft of a column, and then fell on the shaven
head of a priestling, who seized it and tossed it back. The game was
soon taken up, and before long, one tambourine after another was flying
over the heads of the frenzied crew. Every one was eager to have one,
and sprung to catch them, scuffling and struggling and making the
parchment sound on his neighbor's head.

Some of the women had jumped on to the processional biers and were being
carried round the hall by staggering youths, screaming with alarm and