Introduction to Bacchae

INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE

SI. TRADITION AND STRUCTURE

For the Didascaliai report that after Euripides' death his son of the same at and Bacchae at the City name produced the Iphigeneia Aulis, Alkmeon, was one of the last Dionysia' (in Athens). Presumably then Bacchae very plays from Athens to the court of Written by Euripides, perhaps after his departure to ancient he died (in King Archelaos in Macedonia, where, according tradition, 407-6 BC). Exactly when it was posthumously produced we do not know The play shows us Dionysos' arrival, disguised as a mortal and his rites accompanied by a thiasos (sacred band) of Lydian women, to establish Semele had died birth to at Thebes, where Kadmos' daughter giving him, blasted by the thunderbolt of his father Zeus. He has driven all the women of him there with Thebes in a frenzy from their homes to Mt. Kithairon to worship new and can be dance and song. The young king Pentheus resists the cult, dissuaded from this resistance neither by his grandfather Kadmos and Teiresias, who are joining the worship of the new god, nor by Dionysos himself, nor by the escape of the imprisoned Dionysos amid the miraculous collapse of the royal of the house, nor by a herdsman's description of the miraculous powers maenads on Kithairon. But Dionysos does persuade him to go, disguised as a maenad, to spy on the maenads on the mountainside. There he is revealed by Dionysos to the maenads, who tear him apart, with his mother Agaue playing the leading role. She returns triumphantly to the royal house holding Pentheus' head, which she thinks is an animal's, and is brought out of her delusion by her father Kadmos, who has gathered from the mountainside the rest of Pentheus' dismembered body. Dionysos appears as a god, and announces the establishment of his rites at Thebes (1329-30n.) and the exile of Kadmos and his wife and daughters. This is a drama of divine punishment, like e.g. the Hippolytus.3 The story

Schol.Ar.Frogs 67; the Didascaliai were theatrical records edited by Aristotle. 2 The frequency of resolutions in the iambic trimeters of Bacchae confirms its lateness in Eur.'s career: see most recently M.Cropp and G.Fick, Resolutions and Chronology in Euripides, BICS Suppl 43 (1985). The Testimonia for the life of Eur. are collected and translated by D.Kovacs, Euripidea (1994). 3 For a discussion of such dramas see Burnett. INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 27

Gods make.make myth. Gods visits in ilarities between Bacchae and the fragments of Aeschylus (or Naevius typical Greek disguise, patterns of as in the various e.g. myths of foundation of culcult, S )are mentioned in the Commentary on 100 (D. as bull), 118 (maenads combines the the household of PhilDemeter result in the called loose Hermes visiting mon and 221-5 women), 576-641 (the thiasos and this may and wool), (maenads of Zeus male c of a working Eleusis or of the offspring yal wting thunder and lightning, man-bull identification, etc.), 606-9 (epiphany). visiting the theme family also is and eststablishes himself ther Typical birthplace 833 Baucis. to his 678-9 (sun (maenadie returns Aga 21.-2and melting snow), 748 (maenads as birds), who Perseus, Theseus, etc). ere is oment oônprs, reaching to the feet). 912-76 (maenadic dress funerary), 918 (Dionysos) (Oedipus, Jason, violence transgression as with human is, 977 1020-3 as sometimes which mirror), (Lyssa), (maenads hunters). myth in speei acchae, 9 (Dionysos' aetiological foundation of cult.5 More of the for versions is of the a type ends with evidence disaster that or women Further other provided by vase-paintings king by he of these contemporary with Bacchae show the maenads punished by he is resisted by the Several roughly about Dionysos broken by punia rmvth.13 resistance inevitably is amed as a mae set of myths a ment Pentheus, who nad). This has a Ba. both'), aacking (and never disguised by even of kin 8 hints of familyó (in frenzied kiling (or eating) with the many imminent armed action in Bacchae king's consists of the been taken, together sometimes had been which and of Pentheus dramatised 50-2n.) and with Aesch.Eum.25-6 ('the god was general to (éotpatynoEv) resistance Lykourgos We know most The of little survives. aha for Pentheus a fate like that of a hare'), to indicate an from which very hakchai, contriving tragedies,° the few earlier resistance of Lykourgos, fragmentsof version with arms to dramatisation the earlier tragic in which Pentheus went out undisguised and of the fragments of the Roman This well be so, but it is to infer Aeschylus supplemented by attack the maenads. may illegitimate can be cautiously which been modelled on Aeschyus 10 of as (57-67) seems to have that Pentheus, just it is Lycurgus, which therefrom Euripides invented the transvestism Naevius' tragedy in the in several similarities with Bacchae, particular to infer from the fact that the vase-paintings the killer of treatment exhibits illegitimate Aeschylus' with for his effeminate named that was the of contempt Pentheus is never Agaue (and once Galenel3) Euripides capture and interrogation Dionys 0s, and miraculous escape of the maenads (443. first to have Pentheus killed by his mother.16 the imprisonment appearance,11 a bacchic Given the paucity of our evidence for Dionysos in tragedy (apart fromn the house as if it were in frenzy.12 Other 8n.), and the shaking of Bacchae), it is striking how many themes in Bacchae can be identified as probably traditional.17 Tragedy originated in the cult of Dionysos, and the very earliest themes were, it seems, Dionysiac,18 probably with the god playing the

Demeter and Ovid Metamorphoses 8.624-724. 4Most notably narrated in the Homeric Hymn to Burnett 24 n.8. also and the list compiled by Note Od.17.485-7, 13 Artemis in and at Brauron in Attica. See $IV. See March; LIMC s. Pentheus. Most of the are of the death of Eg. in foundation myths of the cults of Sparta Philippart; depictions myth 0 Lykourgos in Thrace, Pentheus, the three daughters of Minyas at Orchomenos, the three Pentheus. resistance to D. and his cult are listed 14 most recently by March (cf. 50-2n.). daughters of Proitos at Argos. The numerous myths of in Har. Theol.Rev. 71 77-8 (only Perseus escapes punishment). n.39, of about 520 BC. by P.McGinty (1978) 165 ARV 16.14 = LIMC s.Pentheus 7 At Ba.26-31 the three daughters of king Kadmos reject the story of D.'s divine birth after the Against March on this latter point see Seaford in Faraone and Carpenter 123 n.38. See also death of his mother, their sister Semele. Dodds (1960) xodii-xov. Even if (and it is not impossible) Eur. did make these innovations, Lykourgos (Aesch.Lykourgeia; etc.: Sutton); Minyads (Anton. Lib. 10; etc.); Argive women both kin-killing (see below) and transvestism (912-76n.) were traditional Dionysiac themes. (Apollod. 2.22); ete.: Seaford (1994a) 253-6, 291, 340, 348, 353, 357. In general modern critics tend to assume that the first appearance of a theme is the same as Thespis Pentheus (?); Polyphrasmon's trilogy on Lykourgos; Aeschylus' tetralogy Edonians, innovation, even though what survives may always represent no more than a tiny portion of Bassarai, Neaniskoi, Lykourgos, and his titles Semele or Hydrophoroi, Xantriai, Bakch, the versions that once existed 17 (written, visual, oral). Pentheus, Trophoi, which have been variously arranged into a tetralogy on the Pentheus Versnel (189-205) rightly points to various respects in which Dionysos in Bacchae is story; Bakchai especially like a Hellenistic deity (notably: claim to universal worship, deity proved by Sophokles (?), Hydrophoroi (?); Xenokles Bakchai, Bakchai or Semele lophon 10 Pentheus; Spintharos Keraunoumene; Bakchai miracles, 'henotheism', personal submission to deity, futile resistance to deity). But I suspect Dodds xoox-ooii. Kleophon (5th.cent.?). 11 (1960) that, had we a Dionysiac myth in detail earlier than Bacchae, we would see that these Acsch Edonians fr61, ef. 59, 60, 62; Ba.353n., respects were not Euripidean innovations. 453-508; Naevius fr43, 44, 48, 50-1. 18 2576-641n.(b); Acsch Edonians f.58; Naevius frr.52-4. Seaford (1994a) 268, 272 n.165, 276. INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 29 28 I other extant tragedy). in no ave argued at home Bacchae but (575-659, 912-76) are each hetwo humiliations of Pentheus role (as in divinely-inspireired self-destruct central of the tion of or D10nysos pOwer out there on Kithairon (660-777 the importance the entrality of this the narratives elsewhere that from cen Cllowed by derived in part theme to in tragedy one ofthe very latest 1043-52). royal family Bacchae, although of extant which the drama is shaped moves towards the so single conflict by myth.1° And extant tragedyabout Diony The that transcend Dionysiac as the only s0s, in a of the god throug several phases the formal nevertheless be, victory may genre.2020 It is also possible inevitai After we learn in the prologue of the tragedies, the that choral odes and episodes. to the beginnings of the into the closest and style21 division sense extent Aeschylean) language caused the crisis, the cult is presented in two of its contrasting to some style2l came as that has drama's archaic (and rejection archaic theme. first the Asiatic naenads of the chorus, whose dithyrambic associated with the SIII), by coha aspects (cf. rituals and of the and naturally Bacchae S for Euripides unusually presents the myths thiasos, structure of (parodos, 64-169) Moreover the r$Ong the of universal suited to and eo men of who stres importance seems especialy tragic form, ven to two old Thebes, action of the play the Indeed, the end of the Dionvsne then by theatre. When at the prologue in the cult (206-9). form of the participation of the new cult the physical 'around this house so of Pentheus (215) the presentation beat their drums royal that the the arrival thiasos chorus) to With the cult at his (the conflict of the with its enemy. First Teiresias praises the central drama, between but in antagonism see' this relates continues, polis may (60-1), to Pentheus' verbal attack on it. Accordingly the the to the physical arrangement which so in response cult and royal power, length (266-327) indeed in the three that follow Dionysiac a (370-431), and it it: the (Athenian) polis is watching dancing circle (the in their next song perfectly expresses chorus cult with those antagonistic to it. dance and in and values of Dionysiac a thiasos their Dionysiac song front of the practice orchestra) in which perform contrast learn more about the cult, this of their in the episode (434-518) we yet house that will be visited by two epiphanies god, first of the following (brief) the royal In (stichomythia), a traditional featureof in the second above it to order a dialogue which he will destroy it physically, appear the time in passage of line-by-line of suited to its content here, Pentheus' interrogation exile of its surviving members. The chorus are, as embodying the threatened tragedy that is especially central to the action, while the choral function his captive Dionysos. cult, unusually retaining typical of the in the stables Pentheus' subsequent confinement disguised god of providing moral and emotional comment on it. Even the characteristically With which is cause seems to reach its lowest ebb, Euripidean lyric idyll tends in Bacchae to avoid centrifugality by embodying of the house the Dionysiac the second choral ode (519-75), as the action moves either a desire to escape the persecution (402-15, 862-76) or speculation on the suddenly reversed, after miraculous of the god both third the demonstration of the powers whereabouts of the longed-for god. Another typical feature of tragedy that into its phase, of the and in the report of the activities seems especially at home in Bacchae is the polarity between the action on stage in the collapse of the palace subsequent introduced This new is by Dionysos and the events from maenads on the mountainside. phase (sometimes violent) reported elsewhere by a messenger: in latter with his exclamation ä (810), this marking Bacchae this polarity is (unusually) the and makes exclamation ió (576) and ends important throughout play, from the persistent sense as the and fundamental reversal impasse special expressing of cult to another sudden of an (politically significant) power Dionysiac docile (in a "light unite the town with its of Pentheus to the incipience of his agreement periphery.22 The leaders of the thiasos on the excited hostility have mountainside gone there from the house in the to dress as a maenad. theatre, as do Kadmos and frenzy) the miraculous Teiresias, and the thiasos in the both continues to demonstrate theatre sing of to This fourth phase (810-916) going the mountainside (135 and with its - now over the personality of Pentheus power of the god 924 with 502) while reversing 19 echoes the earlier stichomythia (cf. Seaford (1994a) chs.7-9. stichomythia control of the 20 the In the in that Pentheus is now under mysterious particular, dithyrambic parodos may a Its power relation, from the dithyramb: 64-169n. reproduce stage in the development of he then interrogated. described by Dodds tragedy captive contemptuously continues to exhibit (1960) xoxvi-xvii. Note also the remains Dionysos of remarks of In the contest' (975-6) that type and on Aristotle 'winning 22 parodos (64-169n.) trochaic tetramcters on the earliest Scaford (1994a) 235-51. (576-641 (n.) end). INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 31 30 consists The sequence that of (1064-83). Th discourse of the late twentieth maenad to ejection philosophical century25 The most miraculous power ire as the and departure Kithaird is in in is frenzy, place statement for in The stichomythia, Agauue the theprinciple by Nietzsche, whom, Birth from Kithairon of of of Dionysos, the arrival enzy, from fluential combines within himself and mildness reversed by Ka. Dionysos cruelty ($10), final scene stichomythia Kadmos, 1263-1300), fi (1872), (by Igedy men each with extracted in lly to unites with other, nature, and with a primal she is soberi now the Dionysiac which albeit in lerstanding (as the and rem characterised by contradiction, in which basic divisions are maenadism (1383-7) the power of Dionysos. of unity abandon for exile) of state a man feels himself as a depart various the animals speak, god ($1, $7). of the family represents the powers of ionysos confuse the action of these ideas 1s exemplified, over a century later, in To sum up, conflict, with The persistence and physical) phases of a single the and of the hidden the (verbal account of coincidence simultaneity god's throughout of sudden reversal that frame th Charles Segal's the two moments the central in which, in Bacchae, 'Dionysos operates as the assured by and of the ways of the god cal, each marked by a duality', and one psychologi arked by a differences." since Nietzsche in one physical divin that destroys Naturally, Dionysos has, section, principle and poststructuralist25 readings of Segal and others, discovered exclamation.This single conflict has many dimensions. It is between two kinds of Douwer, the structuralist differences to destroy, of which give here some A manymore I examples. different perceptions (to accept Dionysos is to see his is both Greek and also between two what but coming from Asia, Dionysos (and cult) but clear from the choral Theban born, and (1t 1s odes) betwea mortal and the maenads seems to otherwise cannot be seen, 923-4) His disguise as a presence among interrelated there is the harharian. heart of these oppositions astonishina between man and Himself female in appearance two ethics. At the the difference god. so much of its confuse of that gives the play dramatic Dower Pentheus to wear female dress, and turns the women of reversibility gender (353n.), he persuades should once he has become even more effeminata He also the Pentheus 'seeing what he see Thebes into warriors and hunters (733, 762-4, 1020-3n.). destroys the maenads on the mountainside acting like warriors human and animal, in the behaviour of the than his divine enemy, difference between especially in as a but deluded hunter. wild (733, 761, 1098), Agaue rushing triumphant maenads, driven from domestic space out to the periphery, 'running How much of all this is specifically Euripidean and how much traditional? hounds' (732), whose ritual of 'raw-eating' (139) and tearing apart of Pentheus we have seen indications of a considerable debt to inverts the ordered of the sacrifice Although tradition, because as if he were an animal (1108, etc) procedure that tradition is almost entirely lost the question cannot be answered. More (a mark of being human not animal) into the bestiality of the hunt (1024 profitable, given the centrality of Dionysos to Bacchae, is to explore further the 1152n.). Indeed, in appearing himself as an animal (100n.) as well as human and significance of the power of Dionysos both in the play and in what we know of god, Dionysos confuses the tripartite division, central to the Greeks' his cult. The play's poetry, emotional power, and dramatic form cannot be fully construction of their world, between god, human, and animal,26 appreciated without this exploration. We will for example see how the The abolition of differences in Bacchae is emphasised also, in a different transformation of Pentheus that is at the heart of the play reflects (or rather refracts) the pattern of initiation into the Dionysiac mysteries. 23 E.g. J.Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modemity (Cambridge 1987) 91-106, 131-6. 24 gal (1982) 234. A (crit al) account of the influence of Nietzsche is by Henrichs in Carpenter and Faraone, 13-43. 3 SI. THE BACCHAE Inevitably 'deconstruction' has (vainly) attempted, antithetically to the structuralist insistence AND THE DIONYSIAC on binary oppositions in Bacchae, to locate Dionysos somewhere beyond them. Dionysos 'does not so much destroy or confuse distinctions as configure the nondifferentiations out ot Dionysos is unusual Greek which such distinctions eventually arise... Rather than being structured by oppositions that among gods in that he has been as a symbol or principle of wide and adopted ne Simply overturns, he has no center and thus escapes the ultimately rational play of so persistent significance, much so as to hold a 'enables tenuous structure named by the terms 'ambiguity' and 'reversal', and Oppositional M.Gellrich in Insight into the character of the binarisms on which civilised life is based': Texas, 33-4, 26 B.Goff (ed.) History, Tragedy, Theory (Austin 1995), C. M.Detienne, Dionysos Slain (1979) 59-64, 88-9. INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 32 INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE for whom the 'collapse of the cultr 33 René Girard (1977), way, by the of an act Order is of some such abolition represents memory this approach interest, the consequent on theatricality of what happens in societies are afflicted by periodie event Althou nd I suspect, in earlier tragedies about According to Girard pre-modern sacrifi Dionysos: see $I violence can be ia of the cult whose above) which escalating reciprocal eliminated Bace mthe theatricality it crises', in aetiological myth dramatises, a unanimous violence the sacrifice by the whole cooits aris ch did after all give birth to theatre.u For transformation into - mmunit example, the change of victim whose death will not produce reprisals. Such crise in Dionysiac (and in of a single dentity inherent mystc iniuation important the genesis of lOss ot social distinctions and of tragedy) was probably expresSed in transvestism (912-76n.). Even if we marked, he argues, by the the distin between man and beast. The suspension of social hierarchies (sometime somehow knew that uripides was retlecting on tragedy, it would remain accompanied by conflict) that is characteristie of festivals commemorat. obscure (to me at least) what he wassaying (or even implying) about it. an is original sacrificial crisis, even though it is generally only the joyful outcome ietzschean also E.R.Dodds' emphasis on as an of Dionysos elemental the crisis that survives the evolutionary transtormation of the festival. force of nature, on the unity of his worshippers with others and with nature, and The Bacchae, he argues, 'traces the festival back to its violent beginnings, back to on Dionysos as embodying contradiction.31 But the division between culture and its origins in reciprocal violence': the destruction of distinctions in Thebes ends aature that interests Dodds is internal. of the in especially Acceptance Dionysiac the mob violence (characteristic of the sacrificial crisis) by which Penthes experience represents the confusion of this division in a relatively controlled Is after which the restoration of the cultural order is way, whereas if the Dionysiac within oneself is repressed, then there occurs 'the killed, presided over ha deity to whom the community, concealing from itself the mechanism of the sudden collapse of the inward dykes when the elemental breaks through perforce and civilisation vanishes. Pentheus represses the demand for sacrificial crisis, attributes its own violence. And so Dionysos is 'the god of moh both within violence', Despite the implausibilities of Girard's overall theory, the Dionysiac experience himself and in others, thereby transforming it salutarv of He effect of unanimous violence, as directed against the into a power destruction. is 'the dark puritan whose passion is scapegoat, is compounded of horror and unconscious desire. The repressed, unconscious phenomenon of importance in Greek religion and tragedy27 - not least in Bacchae, in which the collective savage sacrifice of Pentheus occasions the Dionysiac longing within him is excited by the disguised god, and finally founding of a cult for the whole polis,28 released in a flood.32 the Remaining still with the productive notion of opp site confused by Despite major impulse given by a Greek tragedy (Sophokles' Oedipus to the Dionysos, we turn now to the opposition between reality and illusion. There is a Tyrannus) genesis of psychoanalysis, it will be objected that the of Dionysiac reality (or illusion?) that Pentheus initially fails to see (502), but after application psychoanalytic concepts such as unconscious desire and to Pentheus suffers from dressing as a maenad he is able to see it (924). The collapse of the palace repression the disadvantage that he has no existence beyond the drama. But the of the has the appearance of an illusion the excitement of the power representation of a character may Occurs, but generated by reside in its chorus (576-641n.). Dionysos, so adept at self-transformation (478n.), is the god precisely concentration on a coherent set of symptoms (as if the character had an unconscious of All this, taken together with the element of disguise (Dionysos) formed over time).33 Since Dodds,54 andthe theatre. up and the probable use of Pentheus' mask to representdressingg his severed (Pentheus) head, has inclined critics to detect in Bacchae, in line with kai Eusebeia 30 Philanthropia (Göttingen 1993). the interest of 829n., Seaford (1994a) 273, 285. postmodern criticism in a 31 literary self-reflexivity, metatragic Dodds dimension, in which 32 (1960) xii, x, xliv. Euripides reflects on tragedy's creation of illusion." Dodds 33 Parsons(1951) 11-14. 272-3, (1960) xlv, 97-8, 172. 34 am indebted to the discussion of projection, splitting, and narcissism in relation to Pentheus Seaford (1994a) 3$d, 4$e. oy 28 963n., rarsons (1988), although he ignores P.'s relationship to his mother. Other 1024-1152n.(b), 1295; Scaford (1994a) 8$d. readings include Devereux (1970) - see 1264-97n.; W.Sale in YCS 22 (1972)psychoanalytie 63-82; E.g. Segal (1982) 215-71; 205-58. A detailed on Foley (1985) attack the in Poetika 5 35-64 as reading of Bacchae is metatheatrica eidensticker (1972), (P. authoritarian personality); by w.Kullmann in A.M.Rittc, 02-4, and C.Segal (1982) G.Ww.Most, H.Petersmann, 185-9, 287, in his Interpreting Greek Tragedy (1986) 294-312; the first issue of INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 34 35 Pentheus have included applied to concepts denied ojection, the dingly contain explicit or implicit critique of the readings discussed in this psychoanalytic within accordingl else something denied oneself someone of interpretation of the behaviour attribution to and to Dionvsos (hena example, of must be fascination wth hostility s, nce For Pentheus informed by simultaneous anding of the way in which it embodies the ambivalent hostilitu Pentheus' of in associated process spsplitting, which pecially to as the the as well as the of the as well mystic initiand (SII(3)) anger tyrant ($TV). The his sexuality), from the aggressive aspect of its infant limitations the loving are exemplified by his comment on line 924: needs to keep separate to the loving feelings Dodds'ireading 'Pentheus' eyes and correspondingly split mother of ealed to 'see what he should see', because now the bull-nature, the the object") withi are unsealed ('splitting ones ('splitting the ego'). The destructive has broken loose in his own itself from the dangerous who nature, breast.' Here Dodds' cannot ambivalence: thinac Dionysia these opposites accept sychological model has produ« a strange misreading. In fact Pentheus has has failed to integrate gs tend to Pentheus ins1insisting on boundar or the other. begins by en transformed from wild aggression to extreme docility (if this is a 'bull- belong to one extreme 341-4), between male and e ature', it is a very tame bull). How can we explain this change? Not without between himself and the Dionysiac (e.g. He vehemently rejects what is alien ('other wareness of the experiences of the mystic initiand (912-76n.). Another example between inside and outside. ) to himself. In resisting the Dionysiac he isolates himself not only from others (cf. scene is the claim Parsons that with from the same by (8) Pentheus' seeing from that very combining of opposites his world becomes visible. This 75) and from nature, but also that double the 'split' in may contain some truth. hit the process of splitting. Such i in the context of the use of the mirror embodied by Dionysos but rejected by isolation must be evaluated mystic (918-9n.). akin to narcissism, which indeed clinically often goes with splitting.35 If DionySos represents a split-off aspect of Pentheus (notably his sexuality), then Pentheus fascination with Dionysos is fascination with himself. An aspect of Pentheus' regressive personality is his relation with his mother. He expresses quasi-infantile $III. THE BACCHAE AND CULT delight at the prospect of being held by her (966-7On.) and looks forward to seeing the maenads (among them his mother) making love (957-8; cf. 910, 1060, More than most Greek deities, Dionysos is imagined as present among his 221-5n.). But after his insistence on separation is reversed into embracing the worshippers, whether in the secret ritual of the thiasos or in the public festival Dionysiac and dressing as a female, so too the desired maternal tenderness procession.37 His presence at Thebes dramatised in Bacchae is the aetiology of turns into its extreme opposite when Agaue savagely tears her son apart.o his cult there. Aetiological myth often prefigures38 the ritual whose origin it Although structuralist, deconstructive, Girardian, metatheatrical, and narrates, and Bacchae is indeed pervaded by ritual. In prefiguring the cult, the psychoanalytic readings should not be ignored in interpreting Bacchae, drama prefigures its various (even contradictory) forms. An example of this evaluation of them must (asI have already indicated in the case of variety is the chorus singing on the one hand, in the their entry-song, of mystic metatheatricality) take full account of the of initiation and of the ecstasy of mountain-dancing (even of the ritual of raw- This practice Dionysiac cult in the practice I will briefly describe in the polis. next two sections, which will eating'), and on the other hand, in other choral odes, of the very different mood of the cheerful symposium (e.g. 375-85). Teiresias and Kadmos are equipped like the maenads (175-6), whom they will it seems join on Mt.Kithairon (1224) Nouvelle Revue (1988) was and the d'Ethnopsychiatrie devoted to the even though the maenads' dances there are 'secret' (1109). And the two old men Dionysiac see M.L.Bacumer in Dionysiac. On Freud himself W.Paulsen are the only male members of the polis to dance for Dionysos (195-6), even 35 Literaturwissenschaft (Heidelberg 1971) 80-114. (ed.) Psych in der According to Parsons 5 n.8. ol ogie 36 Teiresias insists that demands honour from all and Rather as the though Dionysos (206-9) excessive closeness ol his blinding himself with her broochesanother 1neban King to his (Soph.0T (Oedipus) mother ended in of the see 1268-70). On the noce significance brooches Devereux in JHS 93 self-blinding castration as (1973) 48-9, who analytic signifies does alco 115n. One reason on (some that the for his presence is to impose frenzy (32n.): Dionysiac tearing up the tall tree that has risen from maintain) Agaue gues ecstasy and (being bent to) the possession' see most recently Henriehs (1994). ground with 1 women 8 cg. the Eleusinian mysteries in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: n. 68 below. INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 37 36 was in a bacchie whole revel (1295). that the polis Although it is clear from all this that maenadismwas actually practised states with Kadmos eventually associated Dionysos. What and artists), it is difficult to know activity followsi is merely imagined by poets kinds a not precisely are the ofcult forms of this. i.e. (overlapping) activity that included. though Bacchae describes rather than Many three most this practice mythical account of the dramatised in Bacchao what brief various of the to the cultic variety macnads, details description may correspond actual understanding ctual for actua not know whethe this actual included exotic important 45 But we do practice practice, brief, as maenadism hac s of rawflesh that is mentioned at be especially as the eating (uo0ayia) briefly Here I will been such Maenadism. the Bacchae to maenads hristian writers,47 The male relation to play.39 and ttributed by (1) others in Ba.13846 discussed by describes three thiasoi of have endowed with savagery rituals from which males extensively and ination may easily women (56, 604), thiasos barbarian women are called both hon which were celebrated in wild spaces. Again, myth often of and the Theban xcluded and the kchai were Both Lydian extreme form extreme to be actually enacted in the women (680). all it seems equipped with fawns in an (too cf. 601n.); they are kins, merely expresses so that even if maenads did not tear and 'maenads' (though 696-704); and the Theban wome significance of ritual, (24-5, 64-169n., ritual) the ymbolic ivy-crowns, and thyrsoi and eat them raw, such mythical savagery might miracles (704-11) mentioned bv th. animals at Ba.735-47) and the (as maenadism.48 the mountain-dancing apart the lesser wildness of actual If so, perform frenzied movemens means of interpreting Women performing a valid turn 135, 142-3, 164). be from the ritual itself, which it may in Lydian chorus (115-9, sometimes of the myth emerges or 'maenads), on the the exoticism imitated the the cult of Dionysos ('bakchai' described Diodorus, we remember, in of material in The maenads by elsewhere in four kinds particular: influence. we meet the are to be found in the last-mentioned inscription mountainside, of myth. And so when (b) visual representations, notablv maenads the of raw meat'?), we should (a) literary texts pre-dating Bacchae: éupadeiu ('to throw in piece archaic and classical periods.,42 (c) later prose phrase uopáylov but the ritual Athenian of the full-blooded apart and raw-eating vase-paintings not necessarily tearing and Pausanias (10.4.3, 32.7) refer to suppose the of myth. authors: Plutarch (Mor.249e, 953d) meat that was symbolic of savagery and Diodoru Siculus (4.3) tells handling of raw maenadism on the mountainside (Parnassos),45 for bacchic bands establish his rites in the was a in his time (first century BC) has come to us that it general practice Festivals of Dionysos. Dionysos the Polis Teiresias insists to to with the maidens carrying thyrsos (2) Accordingly of women gather worship Dionysos, a whole (39-40, 48, 1329-30). of Thebes as 694, while the women sacrifice in and are polis 319-21, 421-3, 430-1, in divinely inspired revelry, groups should participate (208, cf. 35-7, 114, imitation of his that everybody little. Perhaps the major bacchants (BaxxeveLw) and hymn the presence of Dionysos in at Thebes we know very Of Dionysiac cult associated and later 1295). elsewhere in Boiotia was ancient companions the maenads; (d) inscriptions of the Hellenistic whose celebration festival was the Agrionia, the son of one periods, from which I select three prominent examples. One records the apart and eating maenadic daughters of Minyas tearing with the there was a Theban of three maenads from Thebes to the second the fifth century BC bringing Magnesia in Ionia in It is not unlikely that in of them.4 Other Theban cults that quarter of the third century BC; another (from Hellenistic Miletos) is the maenadism on Mt.Kithairon.50 Agrionia that included epitaph of a woman who led a group of bakchai 'to the mountain'; and a third (also from Hellenistic Miletos) requires any woman forming her own thiasos to pay a fee to the priestess who presided over the official thiasos.44 maenadism see Henrichs (1978). 270-82. 43 677-774n., Dodds (1951) of the Cretans. See c.g. is mentioned also at fr.472.10 at and 1242; it The 'saeramental 46 and perhaps implied 1184(n.) cf. Firm.Mat.Er.6.5. 39 with schol. ad loc.; by note Schol.Clem.Protr.12.119 but Since Dodds esp. Henrichs (1978), (1982), (p.92P) Dodds (1960) xvii, rejected (1984), (1994); 'Greck discussion J.M.Bremmer is is adopted by recent Maenadism 267-86; the god being eaten) Faraone. A Reconsidered', ZPE 5 (1984) Versnel 133-50. interpretation (that in Carpenter and 40 maenad' is confined to maenads: 234-5 and by Obbink largely mythical Henrichs (1994) 52. 5 Henrichs (1982) 159-60, 41 esD. Il.6.132-3,389, 22.460, Hcltj.l4 and 15 is Bonnechere 211-6. Seaford (1994a) ch.9. h.hom.Dem.s86 D-K; frequently in tragedyra by 48 Seaford (1994a) 293-6. 717a (Chaironeia) 42 Sec e.g. 101-3n., 112n., 221-5n., 696-7n., 755n. PlutMor.299ef (Orchomenos), S.v. Aypiúvua (Thebes); 43 PlutMor.249e, 953d; Pausan. 10.4,.3, 32.7. AS0 Hsch.Schachter 188. Cf. 1024-1152n.(a). 44 IMagn.215; ZPE 4 (1969) 223-41; LSAM n.48. On these and oth. her inscriptions abou INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE

38 INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 39

are the those of on Bacchae Dionvsn. had some influence coexistence in may have paradoxical flected Bacchae) of the enclosed 'Around the Pillar (576-641-64 1n.(6)), and of Kadmos This (170-369n.), of Dionysos Dic (c) with general participat seems to have been characteristic of the last named exhibits the thiasos) The temple (the 1.54 There are indications that the Lenaia, which took its combinationLiberator' (Avoioç). of being (1) very close' to the theatre Pausan.9.16.6), (2 eresting rouphe Dionysiac festival.54 of included ritual.)) And the Anthesteria of Aúotot Teletai ('liberating mystic rituals', 497-8n.) and (3) said tothe site Anvai ('maenads'), mystic name from the a rituals performed on behalf of polis' by group of women S6 liberation have secre commemorate the some Theban prisoners. included been built to god's of have contained secret maenadic ritual (or something About Dionysiac festivals organised by the Athenian polis we both festivals may know Because impossible to choose between them with any certainty in more. The three main ones were the City Dionysia, the Lenaia, both of far similar), ithas been the maenadic ritual picted in a series of Athenian vase- the home for contained dramatic performances, and wine-festival called Anth.ieh findinga so-called Lenäenvasen'), in which women steria. classical period (the Three aspects of such festivals deserve mention in relation to Bacchae. paintingsof the 64-169n.), and sometimes in a various maenadic attributes (cf. (a) There was mass participation. The partieipants in the Anthester equippedwith rituals (as opposed to the mere frenzy so often what are clearly perform are as Aaiv of frenzy, in the of a described by Aristophanes öXAOç (throng peoples', in tront an image of Dionysos form Frogs 219, ef by vase-painters) of IT 960). Demosthenes quotes an oracle requiring the Athenians to imagined As for the City Dionysia, here there is perform mask set on a clothed pillar. for Bromios the streets broad for bearded the secret celebrations of the thanksgiving 'along dancing ritual: rather, it seems, (eupuxópouc evidence for mystic àyuias, as at no of outside Ba.85-8).... all mixed up together (Guuiya as into the public performance tragedy.38 Looking táVTaç)', just at thiasos developed Ba.35-8 the whole . . at the heart body (nav .) women are 'mixed evidence for secret female ritual performed of Theban up' we find further with the of Athens, mentioned above is of (&vaueueyuÉvau) daughters Kadmos, and Aristotle observes festival: for example, the Milesian epitaph (1) Kleisthenes that of a public strengthened Athenian the sacred objects in a procession democracy by reducing cults to a who carried the (presumably mystic) few ones and private a maenad public devising to ensure that with everything everybody is 'mixed the whole (Táons EPxOLLÉUT TPò TÓÀEUG). each other (avajueuxOdot TtÚUTEç up' before city much a aArdous, Pol.1319b25). is civic god.2 Dionysos very the no direct detailed description of The Mysteries. We have (b) Both the (3) Dionysiac revealed City Dionysia and the which were, after all, not to be Anthesteria contained, it a celebration of the Dionysiac mysteries, processional re-enactment seems, various times and of Dionysos' original arrival in Such evidence as we have comes from Dionysia from Athens at the to the uninitiated. Eleutherai near the border City basic seems over the with at the take various forms, sea33 Just as the ritual Boiotia, Anthesteria from places. Although the Dionysiac mysteries might lonia as escorting into centred around an extraordinary (sometimes Dionysos the was in to have been a rite of passage Katayúyia (85n.), so the chorus of city known the their Bacchae transition from outside to inside entry-song as AóvvGov describe themselves in death-like) experience that effected a KaTáyovoai, a transition Phrygian mountains to the 'bringing in' and from anxious ignorance to joyful knowledge, Greek streets Dionysos from the group (the thiasos) 813- broad to be ambivalent (cf. processional escort may be for in which the initial attitude of the initiand is likely a pertormed by a small dancing (85-8). The the thiasos of it with which accordingly satyrs, seems), but group (85n.; at the This IS a structure shared with other mysteries, the may involve the Anthesteria n.). associated with the accordingly, thiasos in Bacchae whole city interpenetrate: Dionysos is for example for tollow the (cf. 319-21n.): Dionysiac might calling general attention to their instruction of entry (68-70n.). Dionysos (61) in

51 For detail see Seaford (1994a) 260-75. S54 Pickard-Cambridge 1-101, esp. Seaford 262-3. cite at 206-9n. 9, 10, 59, 61-2; cf. the (1994a) Athenian Seaford 263. 32 See e.g. Jaccottet 154-5. and S Dem. Neair.73-8; (1994a) evidence for Athenian 57 Le Dieu-Masque. Other 53 non-Athenian material I Fickard-Cambridge 30-4; F.Frontisi-Ducroux, 12-3; Pausan. 10.4.3 (on Pickard-Cambridge E.Simon, Festivals macnadism is Ar.Lys.1-3 and (much later) Parnassos) of Attica 93-4, Seaford 58 (1994a1 240 Seaford (1994a) 7$e. 240, 2 S9Seaford (1994a) 8$a. INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 40 INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE

the Eleusinian mystic deity mysteries of Eleusis, and conversely Persephone she initiated group may include both secret Pelinna has the ritu. initiatory ritual but also a text of the Dionysiac mysteries (the leaf diseuds ritual from which the been found in itiatory uninitiated are excluded.63 And so e.g. in below).60 non-ine thiasos of Lydian maenads mystiC initiation Most of our evidence for the Dionysiac mysteries is post-classical, and praises (72-4), Bacch no doubt whereas af Theban maenads, though imagined as some of it spectacular - such as the Villa of the Mysteries frieze in Pompeii initiatedthe tna members (34, cf. 469n.), celebrate secret rituals which docomposed not seem ofto Livy's account (39.8-19) of the Roman suppression ot the mysteries in 186 Bc initiation (e.g. 1109). involve Although to describe this later evidence falls outside my scope, I do refer to it lcl Inscriptions written on thin gold plates ('gold leaves', lamellae) have sometimes in the Commentary when arguing that a particular passage alludes to n found in tombs from various periods and in various parts of the Greek the mysteries. This means that, given the general conservatism of ritual and the texts display enough overlap to be manifestations of world.64 The (mainly verse) demonstrable conservatism of the Dionysiac mysteries in certain respects (e.g I confine myselt nere of the most the same cult. to wO recently discovered (for See the use of the mirror, 918-9n.), I adopt the hypothesis that similarities between a third, not yet widely known, 1157n.). Firstly, a text from Hipponion in the derive from some trom B, gives instructions to the and Bacchae and much later evidence of mysteries continuity southern Italy, dating c.400 dead, refers in the of the where other 'other (mystic initiates) and bakchoi',65 Secondly, two practice mysteries (and occasionally, mysteries are to a road trod by mysta concerned, interpenetration), a hypothesis confirmed by the accumulation and late fourth-century BC amellae in the shape of ivy-leaves from a tomb at coherence of such similarities. Pelinna in Thessaly66 display an almost identical text, which opens 'Now you The most now have come into thrice blessed one, on this important evidence for Dionysiac mystic initiation in the have died and you being, day. Bakchios himself has set and ends 'And below classical period (and so roughly contemporary with Bacchae) is as follows. Tell Persephone that you free', same rites as for the other blessed (a) Herodotus (4.79) refers to the Dionysiac initiation of the Scythian king the earth there await you the (? téAea) ones. Skyles (éieGúunoe Aovúoy Baxxeúy teAed©rval). Just as he is about to be These texts are in my vieW almost certainly formulae from the Dionysiac ritual involved a rehearsal of death, of the passage initiated his large and luxurious house is (like Pentheus') burnt to the ground by mysteries: because the mystic a it was sensible to the formulae in the thunderbolt sent by the god. Subsequently we see him frenzied (by the god') to the joys of the next world, only place in a thiasos. So too into leaves cohere with other evidence from the in showing that presumably entry the maenadic (in the strict sense, i.e. tomb. The period all-female)61 thiasos would involve initiation. the mysteries were open to both sexes. The later Dionysiac groups Dionysiac a tomb at Derveni near Thessaloniki, and not combine both sexes, but the maenadic thiasos had been the (d) A papyrus discovered in perhaps prototype, in which was then imitated or on contains a probably first written encroached by males such as a yet properly published,b/ prose commentary, Skyles, process 'Derveni discernible perhaps in Teiresias, Kadmos, and (the frenzied, the early fourth century BC, on verses by 'Orpheus'. This text, the 851-2) Pentheus referred to going dressed like maenads to the mountainside,62 Papyrus', contains material bearing on the mysteries, and is (b) The chorus of (Eleusinian) initiates in occasionally in my Commentary (on 274-85, 286-97, 480, 812, 860-1). Aristophanes' Frogs delivers a uses the of the kind delivered before ritual. It Mention should also be made of Plato, who frequently proclamation mystic excludes 'whoever has (e) no experience of such words or is not pure in not mind, or has seen the mystic rites of the Muses nor danced them, nor been (öpya) initiated into the rites of Bacchic of the tongue bull-eating Kratinos,.. (355-7, cf. and Scaford 283-4. . 368). This implies 77n., (1994a) trealment (and tha C. Faraone 239-58. A comprehensive cCmost recently Graf in Carpenter and before the most recent discoveries is Zuntz 297-393. text) and bakchos OCcus The association between mystes 60 See further Graf 40-78; Versnel 153-5. S.G.Cole in GRBS 21 (1980) 223-38. also at Hcltfr.14 D-K and Eurfr.472. Hellenika S5 Versnel 119 from Thessaly, Henrichs (1982) 147-8; n.94 6 'Two Gold Lamellae 62 Santsanoglou and G. Parassoglou, The process was facilitated perhaps by ritual transvestis m, andand may have been the genesis of tragedy: Seaford (1994a) 272-4. been (1987) 3-17. in West in 67 47 See general -il important Aprovisional text is printed following p.300 of ZPE (1982). 42 INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 43

knowing 73 worth Rather, the negative emotions of language and imagery of the mysteries (Riedweg), and at Phdr.265b3 though worth knowing. secret,et. though dr.265b3 ascribes are onto Pentheus, of uavia TEAeoTKh (i.e. the madness of mystic initiation) to Dionysos. mysteries form, in their projection resista take the the initiand death: i.e. the than merely initiatory) negative I have elsewhere in detail (1981) that just as the (rather argued Homeric Hym actual theme (characteristic of aetiological punished by combine with the Demeter reflects at various points the ritual of ininitiand undoubtedly the Eleusin ofthe the also with a historical memory of actual emotions to cult, perhaps mysteries that is established towards the end of the narrative by the visi resistance well suited to contain allusions to the of about Pentheus is deity after her so Bacchae retlects at iting myth) drama abandoning disguise,o8 various A as such like that was points ths resistance. enactnent (and ritual) of a myth established towards the end of the is an Dionysiac mysteries drama by the in that it In evoking mystic ritual Euripides visitine mysteries, the mysteries.74. after his and that seems, by deity abandoning disguise (1329-30n.), the only other it the ritual by the initiated extant itself shaped, emotieotions once felt during drama on a powerful Dionysiac theme, Euripides' Cyclops, displays a set of the Both and Sophokles detailed evokes ot the audience. Aeschylus similarities with t00 the majority) Bacchae because it embodies the pattern of Dionysiac members (perhaps initiation. from this same,75 Only perspective is it possible to understand the the combine. The initiand strange do much initiation that opposites behaviour and of Pentheus and his ambivalent all in mystic '6 death is experiences attitude to the is above dead and and (if the cult It death is alive, Laters it occurred to me that the thus to be an imagined both characteristic of the rite among experiences understood was the undergoing and animal. In reversals (how could I have missed his famous both human " and female. Made it?) double vision sacrificial) is at once male (918-22). My transvestism, (S)he much of notably Commentary recapitulates the argument of these two earlier passage, and immortal (or even divine).78 papers, of is at once mortal and adds numerous further points that confirm it.70 the ritual, (s)he bone is inscribed immortal by A BC plate modern construct. tifth-century This does not mean of course a concern that Pentheus, or Demeter in the This is not just death The with Homeric Orphic) and "life life'. 80 is initiated. The ritual of words Dionysos' (and Hymn, actually mystic initiation was secret, and anyway with the aetiological myth describes the events that may thereafter be re-enacted by the the maenads on the ritual founded at the end of the In this that the idyllic scenes of myth. description it out 902-5n. I also suspect evoked for typically spells 72 616-37n., 72-4n., 1048-57), would have what cannot be fuly enacted in the ritual the 'death' of and singingg (680-71, 723-7, (e.g. the And mountainside, including dancing included and singing initiand). which in the mysteries dancing so Pentheus does not the to the of the next world, leaves undergo mystic post-mortem salvation the initiated joys Mor.1105b, PlRep.560de, gold transition 344, 374, Plut.fr.178, be that is a feature of the meadows 156-7, 326, ritual may Dionysiac although this salvation is hinted at in (Ar Frogs Seaford (1994b) 280). Mystic mysteries, and from Pherai (1157n.), xii. In the elsewhere in the As out A4 (Zuntz 329) 293, Seaford (1994a) play.2 Dionysos points the benefits of the the next world: Burkert (1985) (474), as in this world and imagined performed the division between could be described as dissolving terms of $Il above, this but 68 he next. initiand's initial The Homeric to Demeter contributed to the ignorant 273-4, 476-82; NJ.Richardson, Hymn (1974) 12-30, 101-2. may have ot the 209-17, 231-6, Merkelbach Secrecy for secrets etc. Ci. was prosecuted reve aling interested A tradition that Aeschylus 69 37 76-8. I had also been to discover that anxiety. CO (1987) reass ured Clement of mentioned Aristotle (EN 111la9). thne Alexandria, who Eleusinian mysteries is first by was told during had been initiated into the mysteries, took a similar view: §V. even the myth arrival at Eleusis). Perhaps 70 "(like the myth of Demeter's See notes on 24-5, 24, 40, 64-169, 724, 73, 74, 77 139, 199-203, 214, 274-85, 283, 284, 286-97 cf.Seaford (1981) 253. R.Schlesier in Eder 370, ceremony: Seaford (1994b); 389-91, 466, 469, 470, 474. 480, 486, 497-8, 576-641,606-9,607, 608, 616-37, 621-2.625. The Oresteia of Aeschylus (Prague 1966); 628, 630-1, 641, 647, 699-702, 725, 790, 86, 810-0, 814, 854-5, G.Thomson, 815-3, 8L4, 853, 860-1, 862-911 389-415. were born 877-81, 902-11, 902-5, 912-76, 912-7, 918-9, 920-2, 924, 935-8, 939, 961-70, 965, 969 97 died and now you on this 6 formula 'now you 1343. the Pelinna gold leaf contains the Pha. p.38.131. 1152(6), 1047, 1157, 1171, 1185-7, 1232, 1268, Eg. death' at Olympiodorus in 'steward life and 71 This is clear from the gold leaves (see above). Other early indications are LSS 1 Dionysos is called of 5th.cent. inscription from Kymae forbidding burial in the place a Norvin. into on the gold to bull milk such formulae as 'a you jumped - the Olbian not Note also BepoxxeUJUÉVOG i.e. uninitiated); Hdt.2.81 (912-76n.); mirror (918 yone rd(994a) 8$a. of symbolism found in a tomb; the frequency Dionysiac themes in funerary especiall ) leaves. leavcs. man', etc., on the gold late fourth PlRep.63a, and, from have become a instead a Italian vases of the century BC. CI. also the i$Outhern gYou god of Henrichs 160. PlutMor.611d. See further (1982) material, Henrichs (1982) 158-9, 233-4. 80 West (1983)17-9. NTRODUCON O84CCHAE INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE

shwn ierakeitus and by Sonh. tend to as a form of a ss by the women. adopt, protest, cult in Neeaese and especially dy mySTIS dONtrine.Si Even okles Aja eavt uenNw the tamoes amoral spirits from hostile neighbouring arepossesed by ave sui es (enigmaticall they in the course of time become which that may peripheral possesion fusion of oppositee op mmunities, acceptance of the 'outsider can se the Dionysiac nalised. The polis' supposed god Herr we ntraly institutiona s pnnipie (as in Nietzsche: S with arbarian ritual practices that may have r apsal her perhaps al quas once its of Dionysos, also signify (or have signified) integration to him, may rued then (former?) wNTIEn to the 'outsider god may express mvthical resistance The and the necessity of resolving the tension tension within the polis female to a in which offence AND THE POUS it also belongs mythical pattern STV THE 54CUHAE the But septing god. crisiS that ends with the foundation followed by an aetiologIcal is it is a sainst dein seems to do various thingsFirstly. above). This pattern I essential) cult is t (c what happens if the (socially int Hes rng:o (Dodés\ But is i: T tale. indicating adetie d i utionan of normal practice. especially in cult often involves reversal Seondly. humans with ted of omen *ith men. or him a fooonote ot oPpOSites (eg more as form of contusion saW In $Il(c). or generaly ot as we whether in a nte passage. ls festival time: and the aetiological or exceptionality of the liminalit enresing (originally in an extreme reversal of normahty as imposed me hre i of i uTVE Ho ahraed owe at his ciear m gas nay least s explain crisis prefigures nav with the result that the aetioloical mch ir The an offended deiy. 1 iu iiramea of Diozysos' aia form) by whether in ritual or myth. serve by ) such confusion may. om beraed DI deTVE Dr so =ch iron an ritual Thirdly. the ($i onginal actual the reinforce) Fourthly. myh eventually to normality. coarast to clanify (and confusions more the ritual - telling of he the of by hrvgh mgnei i out significance modei for e o poweriul outsider. This mzy bring serves 2s the unity a riual or of a real death that merewer requre he than can occur in svmbaie oporion od elenents as divine agal IMLeais compiete that explained oniy hes shouz thet i vErios TEiionzl imagined death. events can be societies those wbo are (ritual) Bacchae (or at least politically functions are al performed by punishnent These perhaps the aetiological crisis is it dramatises). And whereas by the nyth Pen1beus it is both or reversal of norms, for characteristically an epidemic Seairi (B4) ani i ES 9 1420 Noe Hais (29) es D-K on (353n) confusion of (Seziri (28AE Hetf 1S Dionysas and cult and myth, and the s nd ii mmras nrak that Dionysiac This the ogenmg at s (E) norzs - - - All this suggests the a maduin n he innartzk the ordered cobesion of polis. ws pizy. in ths z n served to affrm hegviy niueni Ew Rahäe s ocher respecas that they embody, MVeris Fche (114 opposites nd 1Cetwnci Docum.ers in Engrns 19255 (190) e írhe kucenueer Greck (2nd Burie (198) 62 ed 1973) 127: Dodas He sI mey, DT ourso, e2 Is and Thrace (i Robdr a s, *A 5, 127-8, 140, 159, 234) ti the n be mzy from and (Ba.13-24, íestvai vid Farz thereiore seem to wD perhaps Phrygia Lydia ns un wz bring cult introduced (from Egypt). oursóer n a crated zs 253-81). Hd (249) calls Dionysaic 'DcwBy at the Cty 6evs) brngng imagined founded by metis in tbe great procession 29942) As I E outsóer E an of women and of 1-23. tumutuous icome )eaty- Daonysos the participation he ceme wrh o ior Aisymneaes (Seaford Note eg spei peaz s FresdEm Cimo n iar lesnE EL proposais) beng sad to bzve Ireland (tbougb Dionysia gey 212-4, 219-20. 1024 c inaezsed SSeaford (1995) confict: Seaford (19942) Ecric Reipon ad ed He hopes there associated with social (1989). maks some epidemic was dosely ieeting mentions f The mythical Dioaysiac cu 312-8 INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE INTRODUCTION T0 BACCHAE 47 46

than that. (100 view Pentheus sees himself as is more complex H.S.Versnel the general that defending course the matter snel does, But of as nowhere in the text is Pentheus, various respects in which Pentheus h has share, But as a matter drawn attention to the of the polis'. of fact recently order order or the interests of the Athenian to the aSsoCiated with the cult resembles h0stility (and somesl to the new cult, the new foreign his hostility remarks on Pentheus' lone in the classical period, those of etimes or is significant. ionysos new cults exception that persecution of) foreign Adonis polis. The only the but what he means is Cybele, Bendis, Kotys, Sabazios, and Isodaites. 'Drunkenness, ion of on behalf of polís (963), (or suffering) will benefit the polis! toiling death it a scapegoat, 963n.) (with profit-making as an imminent (as citizen' women, ecstatic license, magical practices aggravati Pentheus' and is, it is implied, a "bad "excessive kingliness' (671), Athenians as well as Pentheus to new an are attributed by the by foreia has to Dionysos after the extra Pentheus Thebans persists in his hostility cult. And the case of Socrates shows that at the time of Bacchae a person Could among the He alone irrational has a political as (271). The apparently anger be convicted for asebeia (impiety) for introducing new deity. But of course the miraculous power. lack displays of suspicion (221-5, 255-7, etc.), significance. Pentheus cruel cult rejected by Pentheus is for the Athenians an ancient civic cult, which there as a psychological lawlessness (331n.), and well 670-1), hybris (375n.), is no evidence for any Athenian opposition to (other than in myth). And so self-control (214, the Greeks as of 511-3, 781-6) are all regarded by 346-51, is associated with Pentheus' attitude may simultaneously resemble the Athenian audience's violence (241-2, it is the Dionysiac that of the tyrant,l where as encomium (1302-26) for suspicion of new foreign cults and seem to them impious in its rejection of a characteristics Kadmos' funerary Crucially, defender of the royal central civic cult. Bacchae is therefore 'the of two the law (891-6n.). civic role but as tragedy conflicting positions not for any him Pentheus is which, though both right in principle, make themselves both guilty of asebeia. Pentheus praises To be sure, king 'terror to the polis (1310). and as such a imagined And this is a truly tragic paradox. This perspective, Versnel claims, allows him household But autocrats are not always in Bacchae a polis'.2 admirable Thebes, which is communities. As the to make sense of some puzling features of Bacchae, notably the following. He of wel-being of their for the order and Women, regards the strong association of Dionysos with Kybele (79, 128-34) as designed as working herald in Euripides' Suppliant the Theban Theseus says to In Bacchae to the ambivalence of Athenian than a (túpavvoç). emphasise for her cult was first to a tyrant' Dionysiac religion, more hostile polis the the Athenians but there is nothing 'free words to tupavvos rejected by then the of means speaking through power her miracles accepted to Pentheus freedom of the (see below); and he regards Teiresias' apparent statement that Dionysos' cult is Dionysos associated with the praising a civic deity Dionysos is conflict between an ancient ancestral tradition cf. 803n.). (199-203n.), even in (775-6; communality. A supposed though fact Dionysos has just as well as its read into arrived at Thebes, as "the state (497-8n.(b)) has been erroneously only to state (Pentheus) possible way grant both the and the seems to be the necesary of protagonists.. (Dionysos) and the state degree credibility religion conflict between religion which because the in The material adduced Versnel is Bacchae, firstly in Sophokles' Antigone, by notably later clearly important for elsewhere in Greek tragedy, despite Bacchae. But we cannot allow him to understanding concern state (178-91) a devotion to the ascribe unresolvable paradox to the his to its ruler have elsewhere the play. the Kreon proclaims the belongs argued against widely held tyrant view that polis on of (Nietzsche an) view that at objectionable disorder attendant heart the Dionysiac and of there the proclaiming the clearly that the tragedy is natural to suppose there are unresolvable because it is because Tragic paradox' or "the should contradiction. secondly and thirdly Dionysiac not be (738); order of the state; metaphysical (ot regarded as quasi- threatens the principles inexplicabie genesis) to which Dionysiac ecstasy contradiction can conveniently be ascribea. lt apparently insoluble rather Pronmetheus Bound are G.Thomson, f the of the as I they seen in nractices the context PLRep.566d-76d; other polis, Hdt.3.80, that dramalne suggested (91), then lon 625-8, he resembles is earlier the Supp.429-55, respects (ike solvability Versnel of esp. of these combines monstrosity diminishes. locate appearance ee In many who ngnt to xlii. ndex tragic Dodds (1960) Eur.Cyclops, 52-3 and but the is resolved 1n favour paradox' in 952) 6-9; Polyphemos in s paradox Bacchae, thiasos, Seaford (1984) of the communalitv ren. of the Dionysiac ideology: god, in benefit for the polis. The paradox anti-democratic will represented by the nemy with seem 537-44n.) with the only cntheus: Pentheus polis). it i 4 unresolvable if we Pentheus. does not identify and m odern) (certainly some (ancient 92 and 61 But on 50-1 realised) city. a E (not a single count as pots. 363-7 and see g. state with not Seaford (1994a) (1995) (on Nietzsche that it is a monarchy, 204-6). sense absolute nc it would, as an POical notions of a polis INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 48 INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 49 between the state and ecstatio instances of conflict throng stands at the gates, and the polis magnifies the name of Pentheus. He ancient historical ow¢poaúvn cult, But in Bacchae (self-contro including Dionysiac cult,93 self-contr (Dionysos) too, I think, takes pleasure in being honoured. The power of the belong, it is repeatedly emphasised to moderation) and houxia (calm) absolute ruler attracts the acclamation accorded to deity in a polis festival, as 621-2n., 647n., 790, 1002n., 1150-3n.) (370-433n., 389-91n., when the Mark on Dionysiac cult cult is for example conqueror Antony his entry into Ephesos and in which Dionysiac antithetical to indeed constitute one of the respects Athens was acclaimed en masse as Dionysos.% For fifth-century Athens it is of such as Pentheus. Dionvsi the excited excesses of its opponents cOurse politically essential that the collective emotion of the festival focus on a on those, such as Pentheus disastrous when imposed nd Pentheus cannot co0-exist with as transformation is only deity not a mortal. Dionysos the focus of of moderation and calm are associated Agaue, who0 reject the god. The qualities festival emotion. In bringing women from every Theban household to the The ethics propounded by with the mysteries (389-91n., 621-2n., 641n, 647n.). Dionysos disrupts every household for the sake of communal the and mountainside, one hand in mysteries, on the and so is So the chorus are, I believe, on the grounded cult. Only the royal household resists, destroyed. far from Dionysos is one of of the this the ways the conflict in Bacchae is between on the other hand important for the cohesion city-state:* being antithetical to the polis, political drama coheres with its political dimension. that is vital to the in which the mystic pattern of the one hand the communality (represented by Dionysos) If Pentheus is not to be taken as representing the state, does his conflict cohesion of the polis, and on the other hand the autonomy of the household, in with Dionysos have any political meaning? Characteristic of the Dionysiac particular of the introverted ruling household, with which a polis in the political festival is that everybody participates 'all mixed up together,) a requirement sense cannot coexist.9 stressed both by Teiresias in Bacchae (206-9) and, in historical times, by the The conflict is resolved in favour of Dionysos, just as so often in tragedy ends with the foundation of cult for the Delphic oracle, with which Teiresias is in Bacchae associated (170-369n.). In the self-destruction of a royal family is to be as hencefortha giving wine equally to rich and poor (421-3) Dionysos is, according to Versnel whole polis. This does not mean that Thebes imagined tradition of an incestuous, self-destructive (167), 'the democratic god par excellence'6 I suspect that it was in part democracy. It is rather, with its ruling which the conflict can be safely projected,100 And Dionysos' ancient association with the communality of the wine-festival97 that, family, a place onto terrifying in this his complete 101 elimination of the powerful with the development of the polis, qualified him for a political role. The chorus yet Dionysos' victory conflict, and could be seen by an Athenian express their remarkable (421-3n.) preference for the beliefs and practices of ruling household by death exile, hardly honour to by an ordinary people. You rejoice, says Teiresias to Pentheus (319-21), 'when a audience in isolation from the politically salutary paid Dionysos nevertheless, at the end of the Athens ruled law but threatened especially by individuals,102 at the hands of powerful fifth century, by disintegration 3 citcd above. herc is Sce Versncl Especially important the persecution of the Roman authorities in 186 BC: Livy 39.8-19. Dionysiac cult by 94 Note 877-81n., and for 98 319-21n.; cf. 192n. also esp. furtiher the the significance of Dionysos delail (ncluding also political importance of the 99 Seaford ch.8. This view of political collective emotion of the mysteries) see Seaford (1994a) For detail see (1994a) in Greece. As an 226-8, 401.5 absence from Homer, despite his early presence Sec Whether or in accounts for his relative he $III 2(a) above. we this with development of the polis, not 1ollowW Girard seceing abolition of wine-festival who took on a new role as a mark of the sacrificial crisis (S1), it clearly involves the expresicon df t distinctions ancient god of the with its celebration Demeter was to Homeric ideology sense of more welcome than unstructured community required, at least would not be any values of the emerging polis: ('communitas ) periodirall. household and hostility to the the cohesion of socictics in which hierarchical structure is also ineitk 0 maintain of the autonomy of the heroic 130-67. Ritual Process (1969). Seaford (1994a). Winkler and Zeitlin see Zeitlin in Elsewhere however Versnel argucs that in the ilth century 'it turns ou 100 Thebes in tragedy as antitheticalto Athens if not impossible, to find any clear-cut connections between democMremelyto be e hard, and 101 44n., 1024n., 1305n., 1313n. against Tyranny religjon' (in Edcr 368-87). In a narrow sense of democracy this is so h 1deology and 'The Athenian Legislation 102 M.Ostwald, at Athens, CI. 331n., 576-641n.(5); was first there have the potcntial to reinforce the sense of community that mavssustain esivalsdemocral1 may Bacchae produced TAPA 86 103-28. Although at the Subversion', (1955) have written the play court o sustains the of Eur. ruthless institutions and certainly cohcsio the (democratic or that may had been possibility, given a who in olig intriguing before king used 7 421-3n., 771-4n.; Thuc.2.15.4. s the intended it to be produced which he Archelaos ($1), that he ef. Dodds ad loc.), at PILGorg471: least to Polus cquiring power (at according INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 51 50

aas:. relief comparison with the Euripides wae thrown into by constant poSSibility, not least when is the is a This politicisation the of polis Eleuthereus, godgod of the logical dicintegration its Citizens with death or Small of Dionysos City and threatens all slavery. of the Attic cult writing Bacchae,acchae, myth from Eleutherai (on the borders of Boonysia. intlcted on mortals the deities thev the punishment by was brought Athens that His image to receive him with honour ander then Athenians did not excessive (1346). But the seem one may Pegasos. with a disease of the dishonour Versnel out, make the hostility of by males were inflicted genitale does Euripides, as points result that the Athenian that But why then the foundation of cult. 103 to new toreign cults? The rejection (causing an oracle, Hera Athenian hostility on the advice of by so like was ended, demonstration of divine n e Pentheus in terms familiar to Euripides' time, is the people, and the wer i crisis) of deity iS imagined rejection of Dionysos by aetiological themselves. But it is their mind and institute the those terms most readily suggest crisis makes them change cult. In because the aetiological nartly perhaps and resolves tensions the self-destructive the pattern expresses contrast, what matters is iedeemably rejectios in tragedy aetiologi cal Bacchae, by alca hecause we have the powerful all of not only between (as seen) the Of the women of Thebes, whom he has of the polis, of the god by royal family. characteristic least in between the and have offended him communality but also (at Ba.) rejection forced into his cult, only those the royal family (26-36). household and of When taced with the practice of cult within are Teiresias and cult. foreign is true that the males the worship (196) Kadmos. acceptance of foreign only to join of Athens would feel contradictory emotions. On the the former associated with the Delphic oracle, the latter with Dionysos' cult at their borders the citizens be fear deity, and desire for good relations Thebes (170-369n.). But for the remaining males the only evidence for their hand there might of offending one - for in of origin, or with worshippers within the polis attude is as follows. Pentheus' servant dissociates himself from the arrest of with the deity's place 1 time social cohesion was served presumably not just by the stranger and is impressed by the miraculous escape of the maenads (441. the Athens of Euripides' who comes from outside (see above) as by general 51). A group of countrymen is persuaded by a clever speaker to 'gratify the king universal focus on a deity cult as a means of integrating its likely adherents, namely by attacking the maenads on the mountain, but their spokesman is then tolerance of foreign or low-status (especially women).105 On the other persuaded by the maenads' miraculous powers to urge Pentheus to accept the those of non-Athenian origin dislike of extravagant ritual practices or of the kinds of god (721, 769-70). The king however is impervious to the displays of miraculous hand there might be and desire to preserve the identity of the polis based power and remains intent on using force to eliminate the cult (780-5). This people performing them, where the cult was to be private, or isolation culminates in words to him as especially thought Dionysos' he goes to his death: 'Alone on ancestral practice, 106 or - i.e. disintegrative. areyou toiling (or suffering), alone.. The resolution directed against existing cult, using magic socially (963n.). of the indeed to crisis in the foundation of cult as harmful to other people and aetiological cult acquires a political dimension in the Plato regarded private potentially self-destruction of the The 107 In the Hellenistic there is evidence from Miletos and ruling family. polis receives in the the whole polis', age of cult (1329-30n.). only benefit, form makes the of state control of private Dionysiac cult, 108 and Livy (39.15) How Egypt does all this enable us to answer the old with question (often some justice, as the to regarded, wrong question ask) whether our meant to be with Dionysos or with Pentheus? sympathies are 104 With Thrace in thc casc of Bendis: Versnel 111 Certainly any 0 Versnel 114-5, 121-2. A nice example of integrative thinking is from Acsch.Eum.: in being pity and fear for Pentheus, and audience will feel Agaue, Kadmos. But the female Furies are an attack, as some have play is not in cscorted to their new shrine in Athens Acschylus' politically dangerous on any way al the supposed, Dionysiac cult. That - the meties in the processions continue to the citizens of called 'metics' (Eum.1011), and wear purple like perform collective cult (in this case the Athens tragedy was collective cult Panathenaia and the City Dionysia. is essential for the in which and her mysteries were said performed) cohesion of Eg. Ninos (priestess of Sabazios) was said to have used magic, the polis. The in Eupolis' Baptai the to be an arrogant mockery of the real mysteries (schol. Dem.19.281); aristocrat Alcibiades and associates; of Kotys were performed by the dangerous iles surely influenced the charge Socrales' personal (and so private) daimonion (divine power) cffcctively in Macedonia T.C.Brickhouse and N.D.Smith, j03 Schol.ArAcham.243.devcloping (and was a fricnd of him of introducing 'new daimonia' (divine powers): Athens). Cf. 40)-1ln. against 5.6bn. Socrates on Tral (Oxford 1989) 35-6; Versnel 126. 0Laws 910b-e; see further Versncl 122. decree of Piolemy The inscription (LSAM n.48) mentioned above ($I(1)), and the INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE 52 INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE

Roman consul in 186 BC call the Bacchic gatherings a 'conspiracv' critic, as do the surviving scraps of ancient of of by the textual papyri Bacchae on the other hand it is repeatedly emphasised (39, 61, 114, 208 Schoolchildren third reciting 'my locks are whole 109 etc.) alay, We glimpse century BC seen and by the polis. of a mask ot that the cult will be adopted in the presence tragic D1onysos (Callim.Epigr.48), The aetiological sequence of rejection, crisis, acceptance mavy tnc 494) with the head of Crassus at the Parthian court in 53 BC for have erforming Athenian a model the Nero the (or more extracts provided for the polis mythical resolution of th and the emperor Singing play likely and the need to it. 1109-71n.), tension between dislike of new cult accept The Atheni kithara.114 to the enians from it) were said to have killed an outsider who was initiating women into the mysteries that ensured the wide currency of Bacchae? Apart from its What was it of the Great Mother (Kybele, who was closely associated with Dionysos: 79n. a probably the widespread importance theatrical and literary power, ractor was nis producing the normal sequence of crisis (plague) followed by (on the advice of of Dionysos, mysteries, throughout antiquity. This an oracle) the institution of polis cult. It has been shown that this traditi of the cult inCluaing nartance made Dionysos a rival to Christ, a rivalry no less intense for the though found only in late sources, preserves a kernel of historical truth from the influenced the ties between the two figures. Bacchae New Testament to fifth century BC.110 But whatever actually happened, it is easy to see how extent than has For Alexandria the opposition to the goddess might be assimilated by the Athenian imagination reater been realised.1) Clement of Dionvsiac mysteries are to be rejected in favour of initiation into the true (before or after her installation) to the mythical pattern, in order either to he and contrasts these sacred mysteries of Christianity: compares truly mysteries overcome this opposition or to accommodate and contain its dangers. In (rayàyiwv às iane@s vOTnptv) with what happens in Bacchae, and Bacchae the same tension is resolved in the imagination of the audience by the addresses Pentheus thus: I will show you... the mysteries of the word, setting projection of their own hostility to foreign cult onto a Theban tyrant whose rigid them out in detail according to your own image. Having been initiated into the protection of the boundaries of self and city is overwhelmed by a foreign deity which after his conversion to he pagan mysteries, Christianity felt free to reveal whom they universally acknowledge to embody the communality of the polis. (ct. Protr.2.22.4), Clement clearly recognises (as modern critics have not) the mystic content of Bacchae. A third example of the influence of Bacchae (as well as of other plays of Euripides) on a Christian text is the Christus Patiens, which bears the name of Gregory of Nazianzus (329-89 AD) but should perhaps be $V. THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BACCHAE attributed to a Byzantine of the eleventh or twelth century AD.116 This is a cento of verses, from various sources, describing the Passion. Although there Bacchae was in antiquity, as it is today, one of the most popular of Greek has been considerable adaptation of verses to the theme, the text is useful for tragedies. As well as being studied and performed, and influencing Roman the light it sheds on the lost part of the play (1329-30n., the relevant verses are drama,111 it was represented in visual artl12 and frequently cited in both printed here at the end of the text of the play), and should sometimes be taken Christian and non-Christian literature. 113 The citations have to be taken into account in the textual criticism of what has survived.117 Some plays of Euripides survived from antiquity in a selection (like those of and Aeschylus Sophokles), others in a section fortunately preserved from a complete edition arranged by alphabetical order of title. Bacchae is unique in Philopator (Burkert (1987) 33). that 0It is true that the female dances are secret (1109), but mystic ritual was performed on behal although it seems to have survived by belonging to the selection, it is the Athenian polis in the Dionysiac festival: see $III 2(c) above. 0 of The most detailed source is Suda s.v. untpayúptns and ópcpov. See further Versnel 105 7. if it is Euripides that is meant by 'Bakchai' at Dio Cassius 61.20 (cf. 63.9). Cf. 1064-74n. 115 but also comedy (eg. Z.Stewart in TAPA 89 (1958) 348-73 on See notes on 45, 284, 434-518, 439-40, 447-8, 451, 502, 506, 576-641, 606-9, 630-1, 795, 1082-3. Notably Accius' Bacchae, Recent Plautus Amphitnuo). scholarship includes I.Giudice Rizzo in Sicul.Gymn. 30 (1977) 1-63 and G.Swart in 112 LIMC s.Pentheus. Act.Class. 33 (1990) 53-64. 113 See the A good account with bibliography is by Roux 72-7. Apparatus Criticus on 20, 46, 655, 694, 1048, 1083-7, 1111, 1147, 1152, 1162, 1213.