E. R. Dodds, in his article “Maenadism in the Bacchae,” notes a number of parallels in other cults to the Dionysiac practices mentioned in Euripides' Bacchae. His list of parallels, while long, is by no means intended to be exhaustive; and it is proposed here to point out still another — the dancing and ecstasy characteristic of that unique movement in modern Jewry known as Hasidism.

In 1924 Herzfeld discovered the largest (in size) Middle Persian inscription extant, near the village of Sar Mashhad in the province of Fārs. It was never published, and in the summer of 1948 when in Iran I made a trip to the site. The literary remains of Herzfeld, with which I had been occupied, gave scant detail about the location and condition of the inscription, but with the aid of local people, especially Muhammad Hani of the village of Balādeh, I was able to find and copy the inscription.