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What is a Bacchante?
Niki Foster
Niki Foster
A Bacchante in Roman mythology is a female follower of Bacchus, god of wine and intoxication. In Greek mythology, they are called Maenads. Bacchantes are depicted as mad or wild women, running through the forest, tearing animals to pieces, and engaging in other acts of frenzied intoxication.
Bacchantes were the most important members of Bacchus' legendary retinue, the Thiasus. They were a popular subject in art dating from ancient Rome and Greece to the modern period. A Bacchante is often depicted semi-clothed in animal skins and vine leaves.
A Bacchante typically carries a thrysus, a staff made of giant fennel and topped with a pine cone, often wreathed in ivy. The thrysus was a sacred emblem of Bacchus, used in ceremonies and celebrations honoring the god. It symbolizes a union of forest: the pine cone, and farm: the fennel, and may also serve as a phallic symbol representing fertility.
The Bacchante is symbolic of both the ecstasy and the destructive power of the god she worships and his major attribute, wine. Though she sometimes appears in modern representations to be simply a free spirit, the Bacchante has a darker side. Bacchantes are possessed and act as if in a trance, completely abandoned to their physical natures. They are capable of ripping to shreds not only any animal that crosses their path, but humans as well, in a sacrificial rite known as sparagmos. Sometimes, the rite is followed by omophagia, in which Bacchantes eat the victim's remains.
Bacchantes appear in their more destructive guise in Euripides' play The Bacchae and in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Euripides' play, regular women become Bacchantes, forgetting their duties as wives, mothers, and community members in their ecstasy. At the play's conclusion, the Theban king Pentheus is mauled to death by his own mother and aunts. In the Metamorphoses, Orpheus meets his end in a similar manner.
In both literary treatments of the Bacchante described above, the victims of sparagmos reject Bacchus before they are murdered. Pentheus attempts to ban worship of the god in his domain and even imprisons Bacchus, though the god easily escapes. Orpheus also rejects either Bacchus himself or the sexual advances of the Bacchantes, depending on the telling, before becoming their sacrifice.
Niki Foster
In addition to her role as a LanguageHumanities editor, Niki enjoys educating herself about interesting and unusual topics in order to get ideas for her own articles. She is a graduate of UCLA, where she majored in Linguistics and Anthropology.
Learn more...
Niki Foster
In addition to her role as a LanguageHumanities editor, Niki enjoys educating herself about interesting and unusual topics in order to get ideas for her own articles. She is a graduate of UCLA, where she majored in Linguistics and Anthropology.
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Discussion Comments
@discograher-- There are similarities, like the intoxication and lack of inhibitions. There are stories about the Bacchante, that they used to eat the remains of animals (and sometimes people) that they rip apart in their wild frenzy.
The Aghoris do have a ritual where they eat a piece of human flesh but they don't actually kill anyone. They live in areas where the last rites of the dead are performed such as river banks. It is believed that they sometimes feed off of the dead. They do also consume cannabis and the like. But the Aghoris are men as far as I know.
The other commonality is that the Aghoris consider themselves part of nature. They may even remain in meditative states without moving for very long periods of time, even allowing insects and plants to stay on them. This aspect seems similar to the Bacchante as well who spent their time in forests and felt that they were in union with nature.
So perhaps, the Aghoris are the modern version of Bacchante. I usually don't take mythology seriously. But if such cults exists today, then they might have existed in Ancient Rome and Greece as well.
Does anyone think that there is some similarity between the mythological Roman bacchante (or Greek Maenads) and the Aghoris of India?
I was reading about bacchante and some of the activities seem very similar to the Aghoris, a religious group or cult known for their use of drugs and cannibalism.
I looked up images and paintings of bacchante, their depictions in Roman mythology. But to my surprise, they don't look ferocious or wild at all. There is a lot of nudity, but I guess that was a common characteristic of mythological depictions at the time. And like the article said, bacchante are shown in nature, forests and around animals. But they don't look like they're mad or dangerous like the stories suggest.
Hey,
I'm a collector myself. That's an interesting question. A lot of the coins you speak of depict different acts, but don't generally feature the thrysus mentioned in the article. However, if you take a look at bacchante cameos (dated much later) there are striking similarities. I think it may be open for debate as to who is depicted on the coins, as well as what they were used for. I have to admit, I'm inclined to think it was for prostitutes, although I'm open for a good debate on the issue!
I've just started collecting Roman coins and came across something very interesting, but I can't find a lot of information on it. There are many Roman coins depicting sex scenes and it's debated whether these were used to pay prostitutes. I'm interested in knowing if the women in the scenes are bacchantes? The article says they were the symbol of ecstasy and depicted as giving in to their physical desires. Any input?
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