It’s a new term here in Oxford, and the fact that I’d only given 4 lectures out of my Faculty stint of 12 caught up with me this week – I have 4 to do on Euripides’ Bacchae, and 4 on Greek Literature of the 5th Century BC. This Monday saw me (despite a hideous computer virus that caused me to lose several hours’ worth of work) starting the Bacchae course with a lecture on Greek Maenads.
One of Euripides’ last plays, detailing the opposition of the Theban king Pentheus to Dionysus’ establishment of his rites in the city, the play is unmistakably ‘Dionysiac’, made more so by the meta-theatricality of its performance in the Theatre of Dionysus during the City Dionysia festival. But how far is it actually connected with, or does it reflect, the realities of his cult in the ancient world? Whether you follow Seaford in pinning your colours to the flag of initiatory ritual, or Dodds, Henrichs and Bremmer in trying to make sense of the play through the lens of (or even by reconstructing) Maenadic cult, the question remains: how far does the play inform our understanding of Dionysiac ritual, and vice-versa? How far is it “to do with Dionysus”, how far does it reflect general cultural concerns about women’s cults and place in society, and how far is it just good drama?
The first lecture focused on Maenadic ritual, reading the Bacchae against several Hellenistic inscriptions and documentary evidence in Plutarch, Pausanias and Diodorus Siculus. Where there were crossovers, a terminology of Maenadism could be established: their rites were called orgia and hiera, tended to be biannual, took place outside the city in the mountains, used ritual implements such as the thyrsus, and featured dancing and ritual invocations such as “Euoi!”, that celebrated the god as epiphanic and present in manic possession. Maenadic cult took place in many areas of the Greek world, including Magnesia, Miletus, and Attica/Delphi, but its spiritual home was Thebes where the daughters of Cadmus were held up as paradigmatic Maenads.
There were, however, fundamental differences. Our evidence points to a civic-sponsored ritual, to the existence of thiasoi (bands) that included men, and to the eating of raw flesh (omophagion) being a toned-down mimicry of the Maenadic sparagmos in the Bacchae. The myth exaggerates and explains the ritual: it gives a more extreme version of events – the dramatic and threatening aspects of which are then further highlighted by the playwright. It warns against the rejection by the city of a cult which, in ‘real time’, had become an accepted and beneficial part of the civic framework.
