They have been imitators, and imitators at a disadvantage.
Euripides and Catullus believed in Bacchus and Cybele as little as we do.

But they lived among men who did.

Their imaginations, if not their opinions, took the colour of the age.

Hence the glorious inspiration of the Bacchae and the Atys.

Our minds are formed by circumstances: and I do not believe that it would be in the power of the greatest modern poet to lash himself up to a degree of enthusiasm adequate to the production of such works.
Dante, alone among the poets of later times, has been, in this respect, neither an allegorist nor an imitator; and, consequently, he alone has introduced the ancient fictions with effect.