Βάπται (Introduction)

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of individuals engaged in a particular urban trade, cf. Hermippus’ Artopdlides
and Phormophoroi, Theopompus’ Kapelides and Plato’s Xantai and (as more dis-
tant parallels) Pherecrates’ Metalles, on the one hand, and Cratinus’ Boukoloi,
Phrynichus’ Poastriai and Aristophanes’ Gedrgoi, on the other.
Content We have only two substantial bits of information about the action of
Baptai. The first (from test, i-ii) is that the play featured a group of transvestite
male devotees of the goddess Kotyto, who are generally taken to represent the
chorus;135 see above for attempts to integrate this thesis with the title of the
play. The second (from test, iii-vi) is that Alcibiades is supposed to have been
greatly offended by the action, which—whether true or not—suggests that he
was among its satirical targets.
Strabo 10.470 describes Kotyto as a Thracian goddess (cf. the Thracian
royal name Kotys at e. g. D. 23.118), and much of what is known of her wor-
ship in mainland Greece in this period comes from Baptai and A. fr. 57, from
Eddnoi (“Edonians”), which begins σεμνάς Κοτυτοΰς όργι’ έχοντες (“carry-
ing out the rites of sacred Kotyto”) and continues with what Strabo calls
a description of Dionysiac cult: ό μέν έν χερσίν / βόμβυκας έχων, τόρνου
κάματον, / δακτυλόδικτον πίμπλησι μέλος, / μανίας επαγωγόν όμοκλάν, / ό
δε χαλκοδέτοις κοτύλαις ότοβεϊ / ... / ψαλμός δ’ άλαλάζει· / ταυρόφθογγοι
δ’ ύπομυκώνταί / ποθεν έξ άφανοΰς φοβεροί μίμοι, / τυπάνου δ’ είκών, ώσθ’
ύπογαίου / βροντής, φέρεται βαρυταρβής (“one man, holding bass pipes in his
hands, the work of a lathe, makes full the song thrown forth by the fingers,136 a
summons that incites to madness, while another man produces an uproar with
bronze-bound cymbals ... string-music raises its voice; frightening imitations
of the bellowing of bulls137 low in response from out of nowhere; and a deeply
terrifying sound as of a hand-drum, like subterranean thunder, goes forth”).
This thus appears to be a typical exotic 5th-/4th-century “mystery cult” like
those of e. g. Bendis, Sabazios and Cybele/the Great Mother. But we also know
that a goddess named Kotyto was worshipped in Corinth (cf. fr. *93 with n.)
and Magna Graecia, seemingly in a more subdued manner, and what is unclear
is the connection between the two cults or—better put—the extent to which

135 Storey 2003. 95, 98 identifies the men who made up the chorus as Athenians, but
all we know is that Juvenal 2.92 (for what that evidence is worth) seems to set the
action of the play in Athens. For another comedy involving “immigrant gods”, cf.
Aristophanes’ Hdrai.
136 LSJ s.v. δακτυλόδικτος “thrown from the fingers, ... of the humming of a top” is
wrong, as was already noted by Jones 1928. 106. Montanari s. v. “launched with the
finger, of the hum of a spinning top” perpetuates the error.
137 Presumably a reference to the use of a bull-roarer (for which, see fr. 83 n.).