Bacchanalia
Encyclopedia
The bacchanalia were wild and mystic festivals of the Greco-Roman god Bacchus
(or Dionysus
), the wine god. The term has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry.
.
The rites spread to Rome from the Greek colonies in Southern Italy; here they were secret and only attended by women. The festivals occurred in the grove of Simila near the Aventine Hill
on March 16 and March 17. Later, admission to the rites was extended to men, and celebrations took place five times a month. According to Livy
, the extension happened in an era when the leader of the Bacchus cult was Paculla Annia
— though it is now believed that some men had participated before that.
Livy informs us that the rapid spread of the cult, which he claims indulged in all kinds of crimes and political conspiracies at its nocturnal meetings, led in 186 BC to a decree of the Senate
— the so-called Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus
, inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered in Apulia
in Southern Italy (1640), now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum
in Vienna
— by which the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout all Italy except in certain special cases which must be approved specifically by the Senate. In spite of the severe punishment inflicted on those found in violation of this decree (Livy claims there were more executions than imprisonment), the Bacchanalia survived in Southern Italy long past the repression.
Livy, reporting the evidence given by a woman who had been involved in the rites to a Roman
investigative consul
, writes:
Suggestions by Livy that the Romans banned the rites because women occupied leadership positions in the cult have been dismissed by Celia Schultz, thus:
Also, Erich Gruen writes:
He suggests that the prohibition was a display of the Senate's supreme power to the Italian allies as well as competitors within the Roman political system, such as individual victorious generals whose popularity made them a threat to the Senate's collective authority.
, Charles Dickens
uses the phrase "the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities."
Also in A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens uses the phrase "No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs."
In John Steinbeck
's novel East of Eden
, the atmosphere of Jenny's whorehouse is described as "tavern bacchanalianism".
In Philip Roth's novella, "Goodbye Columbus", Roth uses "bacchanalian paraphernalia" to describe Mr. Patimkin's stocked bar.
In Donna Tartt
's novel The Secret History
, four of the central characters hold a bacchanal, which leads to two murders.
Martin Amis
's 2004 novel "Dead Babies" centres around a group of bacchanalia-bent bon vivants whose weekend bender turns foul.
In the second season of the HBO show True Blood
the town falls under the spell of a Maenad, who holds regular Bacchanalia with the possessed townspeople.
The 2011 revival of The Wizard of Oz
contains a musical number entitled "Bacchanalia", which is a dance number in act two at The Witch's Castle.
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
(or Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
), the wine god. The term has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry.
History
The bacchanalia were rites originally held in ancient Greece as the DionysiaDionysia
The Dionysia[p] was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia...
.
The most famous of the Greek Dionysia were in AtticaAtticaAttica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
and included ... a festal procession ... a drinking feast [and] dramatic performances in the theatre of DionysusTheatre of DionysusThe Theatre of Dionysus is a major open-air theatre and one of the earliest preserved in Athens. It was used for festivals in honor of the god Dionysus...
.
The rites spread to Rome from the Greek colonies in Southern Italy; here they were secret and only attended by women. The festivals occurred in the grove of Simila near the Aventine Hill
Aventine Hill
The Aventine Hill is one of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa, the twelfth rione, or ward, of Rome.-Location and boundaries:The Aventine hill is the southernmost of Rome's seven hills...
on March 16 and March 17. Later, admission to the rites was extended to men, and celebrations took place five times a month. According to Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
, the extension happened in an era when the leader of the Bacchus cult was Paculla Annia
Paculla Annia
Paculla Annia was a priestess from the southern Italian region of Campania. According to Livy, she largely changed the rules of Bacchanalias so that regarding nothing as impious or forbidden became the very sum of Bacchus' cult...
— though it is now believed that some men had participated before that.
Livy informs us that the rapid spread of the cult, which he claims indulged in all kinds of crimes and political conspiracies at its nocturnal meetings, led in 186 BC to a decree of the Senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
— the so-called Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus
Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus
The senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus is a notable Old Latin inscription dating to AUC 568, or 186 BC. It was discovered in 1640 at Tiriolo, southern Italy...
, inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered in Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
in Southern Italy (1640), now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
— by which the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout all Italy except in certain special cases which must be approved specifically by the Senate. In spite of the severe punishment inflicted on those found in violation of this decree (Livy claims there were more executions than imprisonment), the Bacchanalia survived in Southern Italy long past the repression.
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
investigative consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
, writes:
there was no crime, no deed of shame, wanting. More uncleanness was committed by men with men than with women. Whoever would not submit to defilement, or shrank from violating others, was sacrificed as a victim. To regard nothing as impious or criminal was the sum total of their religion. The men, as though seized with madness and with frenzied distortions of their bodies, shrieked out prophecies; the matrons, dressed as Bacchae, their hair disheveled, rushed down to the Tiber River with burning torches, plunged them into the water, and drew them out again, the flame undiminished because they were made of sulfur mixed with lime. Men were fastened to a machine and hurried off to hidden caves, and they were said to have been taken away by the gods. These were the men who refused to join their conspiracy or take part in their crimes or submit to their pollution.
Suggestions by Livy that the Romans banned the rites because women occupied leadership positions in the cult have been dismissed by Celia Schultz, thus:
In light of [this] view of female religious activity ... and despite the claims of Livy's narrative, it is unlikely that the gender of worshippers involved was the primary motivation behind the Senate's [banning] action.
Also, Erich Gruen writes:
All the leaders singled out by Livy are male. ... The severity of Rome's crack-down needs explanation beyond any menace posed by women.
He suggests that the prohibition was a display of the Senate's supreme power to the Italian allies as well as competitors within the Roman political system, such as individual victorious generals whose popularity made them a threat to the Senate's collective authority.
Modern usage
The term bacchanalia has since been extended to refer to any drunken revelry. In A Tale of Two CitiesA Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....
, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
uses the phrase "the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities."
Also in A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens uses the phrase "No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs."
In John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
's novel East of Eden
East of Eden
East of Eden is a novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, published in September 1952.Often described as Steinbeck's most ambitious novel, East of Eden brings to life the intricate details of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories. The novel was originally...
, the atmosphere of Jenny's whorehouse is described as "tavern bacchanalianism".
In Philip Roth's novella, "Goodbye Columbus", Roth uses "bacchanalian paraphernalia" to describe Mr. Patimkin's stocked bar.
In Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt is an American writer and author of the novels The Secret History and The Little Friend . She won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend in 2003.-Early life:...
's novel The Secret History
The Secret History
The Secret History, the first novel by Mississippi-born writer Donna Tartt, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. A 75,000 print order was made for the first edition , and the book became a bestseller.Set in New England, The Secret History tells the story of a closely knit group of six classics...
, four of the central characters hold a bacchanal, which leads to two murders.
Martin Amis
Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
's 2004 novel "Dead Babies" centres around a group of bacchanalia-bent bon vivants whose weekend bender turns foul.
In the second season of the HBO show True Blood
True Blood
True Blood is an American television series created and produced by Alan Ball. It is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, detailing the co-existence of vampires and humans in Bon Temps, a fictional, small town in the state of Louisiana...
the town falls under the spell of a Maenad, who holds regular Bacchanalia with the possessed townspeople.
The 2011 revival of The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (2011 musical)
The Wizard of Oz is a musical based on the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The adaptation is by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jeremy Sams. The musical uses all of the Harold Arlen and E. Y...
contains a musical number entitled "Bacchanalia", which is a dance number in act two at The Witch's Castle.
See also
- AnthesteriaAnthesteriaAnthesteria, one of the four Athenian festivals in honour of Dionysus , was held annually for three days, the eleventh to thirteenth of the month of Anthesterion ; it was preceded by the Lenaia...
- DionysiaDionysiaThe Dionysia[p] was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia...
, ancient Greek precursor to the Bacchanalia and spread to Rome as the Bacchanalia - Dionysian MysteriesDionysian MysteriesThe Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. It also provided some liberation for those marginalized by Greek...
- GanachakraGanachakraA gaṇacakra is also known as tsog, gaṇapuja, cakrapuja or gaṇacakrapuja. It is a generic term for various tantric assemblies or feasts, in which practitioners meet to chant mantra, enact mudra, make votive offerings and practice various tantric rituals as part of a sadhana, or spiritual practice...
- MaenadMaenadIn Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus , the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones"...
s, female worshippers of Dionysus - SaturnaliaSaturnaliaSaturnalia is an Ancient Roman festival/ celebration held in honour of Saturn , the youngest of the Titans, father of the major gods of the Greeks and Romans, and son of Uranus and Gaia...
, a Roman festivity - ThriambusThriambusA thriambus is a hymn to Dionysus, sung in processions in his honour, and at the same time an epithet of the god himself, according to Diodorus :...
, a hymn sung in processions in honour of Dionysus
External links
- Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus in Latin at The Latin LibraryThe Latin LibraryThe Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. The texts have been drawn from different sources. Many were originally scanned and formatted from texts in the Public Domain. Others have been downloaded from various sites on the Internet . Most of the recent texts have been...
- Senatus Consultum de Bacchaniabus in English and Latin at forumromanum.org
- Description of the Bacchanalia and the Senate's ruling from Fordham
- Depiction of Bacchanal rites