It is difficult to appreciate the importance and the variety of forms that the cult of Dionysus took in the ancient Greek world. He was one of the god of music – with Apollo, Pan, the Muses – and is depicted as early as the 6th century BC in pottery surrounded by his mythological entourage: nymphs, satyrs, other hybrids and animals, etc.
The thiasos – private gatherings of Dionysus’ followers initiated in the god’s mysteries – always included dancing in their rituals. Dancing was the best medium to reach a distinctive mental state and was considered a sign religious faith and devotion. While dancing, the believers thought to acquire healing properties through sacred fury, lawlessness and abolition of their moral inhibitions. These orgiastic dances favoured the experience of becoming one with the god by reaching a state of ecstasy and mental release. [1]
Maenads – frantic or mad women – were the usual companions of Dionysos, whose unbridled dancing is portrayed in a wide range of artistic media. According to Athenaeus, Dionysian dances were similar to war dances– pyrrhic -, in the sense that speed was required, as well as violent and sudden movements, such as leaping, jumping and dodging. However, dancers have thyrsoi instead of spears, throw fennel-stalks at each other and carry torches while dancing the story of Dionysus and India. [2] The re-telling of the myth – the return of Dionysus from India – and the divine knowledge that the god acquired there could be somehow codified in these performances. The annual festival of Agrionia included 3 groups of dancing women who would go to the mountains to stay all night there to join in ecstasy their god, Dionysus.
As mentioned before, the iconography of Dionysus and his entourage is widely present in Greek art, but it is not easy to separate the depictions that belong to the mythical sphere from those that are actually documenting a specific ritual. The presence of satyrs and other hybrids would arguably situate the audience in the first one, while the absence of them would possibly allude to a religious festival or procession.[3]
[1] Ieranò 2021:38.
[2] Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 630b-631c.
[3] Ieranò 2021:39.