Bacchante, followers of Bacchus in Roman mythology, are depicted as mad women engaging in acts of frantic intoxication. They carry a thrysus, a staff made of giant fennel and topped with a pine cone, and are often half-dressed in animal skins and vine leaves. Bacchae appear in their most destructive guise in Euripides’ Bacchae and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Victims of sparagmos reject Bacchus before being killed.
A bacchante in Roman mythology is a follower of Bacchus, god of wine and intoxication. In Greek mythology they are called Maenads. Bacchae are depicted as mad or savage women, running through the forest, tearing animals apart, and engaging in other acts of frantic intoxication.
The Bacchae were the most prominent members of Bacchus’ legendary retinue, the Thiasus. They were a popular subject in art dating back to ancient Rome and Greece through to the modern period. A bacchante is often depicted half-dressed 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 wrapped in ivy. The thrysus was a sacred emblem of Bacchus, used in ceremonies and celebrations in honor of the god. It symbolizes a union of forest: the pine cone, and farm: the fennel, and can also serve as a phallic symbol representing fertility.
The bacchante is symbolic of both the ecstasy and destructive power of the god she worships and of her chief attribute, wine. Though she sometimes appears in modern portrayals as simply a free spirit, the Bacchante has a darker side. The bacchae are possessed and act as if in a trance, completely abandoned to their physical nature. They are capable of tearing apart not only any animal that crosses their path, but also humans, in a sacrificial rite known as a sparagmos. Sometimes, the rite is followed by homophagy, in which the bacchae eat the remains of the victim.
Bacchae appear in their most destructive guise in Euripides’ Bacchae and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In Euripides’ drama, ordinary women become Bacchae, forgetting their duties as wives, mothers and community members in their ecstasy. At the end of the play, the Theban king Pentheus is mauled to death by his mother and aunts. In the Metamorphoses, Orpheus meets his end in a similar way.
In both of the literary treatments of the bacchante described above, the victims of sparagmos reject Bacchus before being killed. Pentheus tries to ban the worship of the god in his domain and even imprisons Bacchus, although the god easily escapes. Orpheus also rejects Bacchus himself or the sexual advances of the Bacchantes, depending on the account, before becoming their sacrifice.
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