important place dedicated to the Dionysian
cult, which consisted of
sexual orgies and sacrifices. But Orpheus,
who according to legend had been a disciple of Dionysus, argued
against these practices
in the name of Apollo,
the god of reason.
According to ancient
legend, this act of defiance resulted in his conviction and murder at
the hands of the mae-
cult proclaimed asceticism, was against sacrifice and taught the
transmigration of souls
Some
archaeolo- and mankind’s capacgists maintain that the ity to experience the
Thracians’
musician divine, although they
god could have been had to be initiated in
a real character who order to learn to break
resided in the Bulgarian free and rise in a state
Rhodope
Mountains of “happy immortality”.
and would had been Without being initiated,
a Dionysian priest who one could not experihad access to hidden ence happiness in the
knowledge of Egyptian afterlife.
and oriental sages. His
nads, the female followers of Dionysus.
22
Photo credit:By Renaud71 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The ruins of the ancient city of Perperikon, Eastern Rhodopes