Euripides, Cretans 472 suggests that in the worship of Zeus on Mount Ida the figure of Zagreus Nuktipolos "the night-prowler" brought to initiates a spiritual purification. The chorus-leader tells how he, personally, has received spiritual purity ever since he (9-15)
"became a mustes of Zeus of Ida, when I celebrated the thunder-bolts of Zagreus the Night-prowler and his raw-meat feasts; that was when I lifted high torches to the Mother of the Mount, was purified, and was set apart among the Kouretes with the title of bacchos Clothed in pure white garments, I eschew sexual intercourse and flee from places of death; I have protected myself against the ingestion of foodstuffs that harbor souls."

On the passage, M.L. West observes:
"Here Zagreus is a god of nocturnal mystery-rites, associated with a sacramental feast of raw flesh (and thus with the dismemberment of an animal victim) and at the same time with the Cretan Kouros and Kouretes and the Mountain Mother. It would be unsafe to infer from this passage that Zagreus played a part in Cretan cult; the inference should be rather that he played a part in mysteries which claimed a Creatan origin. ... In any case Euripides' Zagreus invites equation with Dionysus, and in Callimachus it is 'Dionysus Zagreus' that Persephone bears to Zeus." (153-54)

Euripides Kretes, 472

     Φοινικογενοῦς [παῖ τῆς Τυρίας] τέκνον Εὐρώπης
καὶ τοῦ μεγάλου Ζηνός, ἀνάσσων
Κρήτης ἑκατομπτολιέθρου·
ἥκω ζαθέους ναοὺς προλιπών,
οὓς αὐθιγενὴς τμηθεῖσα δοκὸς (5)
στεγανοὺς παρέχει Χαλύβῳ πελέκει
καὶ ταυροδέτῳ κόλλῃ κραθεῖσ’
ἀτρεκεῖς ἁρμοὺς κυπαρίσσου.
ἁγνὸν δὲ βίον τείνων ἐξ οὗ
Διὸς Ἰδαίου μύστης γενόμην, (10)
καὶ νυκτιπόλου Ζαγρέως βροντὰς
τοὺς ὠμοφάγους δαίτας τελέσας
μητρί τ’ ὀρείῳ δᾷδας ἀνασχὼν
καὶ κουρήτων
βάκχος ἐκλήθην ὁσιωθείς. (15)
πάλλευκα δ’ ἔχων εἵματα φεύγω
γένεσίν τε βροτῶν καὶ νεκροθήκης
οὐ χριμπτόμενος τήν τ’ ἐμψύχων
βρῶσιν ἐδεστῶν πεφύλαγμαι.


     — translation RTMacfarlane


     West, M.L. 1983. The Orphic Poems Oxford: Clarendon Press.
     Casadio, G. 1990. "I Cretesi di Euripide e l'ascesi orfica" in V.F. Cicerone, ed. Didattica del Classico 278-310.
     A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta, Leipzig: Teubner, 1889 (repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1964).— Retrieved from: http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/Iris/Cite?0006:020:58948