In antiquity, the word “thiasos” was frequently used to describe a group of worshippers of any divinity, who engaged in ecstatic activity. The word is found in inscriptions relating to cult associations in honour of Dionysus from the third century BCE until the fourth century CE, across the Mediterranean world. These inscriptions mention a number of activities, including meetings and dinner parties, as well as formal processions to the mountains. Also among the ancient writers there are mentions of thiasoi dedicated to Dionysus. These groups are often mentioned as being made up of women, as in the Bacchae, with some even going so far as to claim that only women were allowed to perform the secret rites.
It was the activity “on the mountain” that was the central part of the mysteries. References in the Bacchae give detail that the women carried fawn skins, wreaths of ivy and thyrsoi. The chorus also refers to goat meat eaten raw, a ritual which is further attested in inscriptions. All these activities – going out into the city to the uncultivated mountainside, staying in the open air, wearing animal skins and not cooking meat – form a pattern that can be understood as the opposites of civilization. One way of explaining what these worshippers of Dionysus do is that they transport themselves from civilization to wilderness, both in location and in behaviour.
This red-figured bell krater depicts an ecstatic scene where maenads and satyrs are dancing. They are dressed in animal skins, playing tambourines and holding thyrsoi. The krater, dated to the fourth century BCE, was purchased in 1783 by Gustav III during his stay in Naples. It belongs to the deposition from the National Museum of Fine Arts.
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