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Maenad
In Greek mythology, maenads (; ) were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of his retinue, the '' thiasus''. Their name, which comes from μαίνομαι (''maínomai'', “to rave, to be mad; to rage, to be angry”), literally translates as 'raving ones'. Maenads were known as Bassarids, Bacchae , or Bacchantes in Roman mythology after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a bassaris or fox skin. Often the maenads were portrayed as inspired by Dionysus into a state of ecstatic frenzy through a combination of dancing and intoxication. During these rites, the maenads would dress in fawn skins and carry a thyrsus, a long stick wrapped in ivy or vine leaves and tipped with a pine cone. They would weave ivy-wreaths around their heads or wear a bull helmet in honor of their god, and often handle or wear snakes. These women were mythologized as the "mad women" who were nurses of Dionysus in Nysa. Lycurgus "chased the Nurs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bacchae
''The Bacchae'' (; , ''Bakkhai''; also known as ''The Bacchantes'' ) is an ancient Greek tragedy, written by the Athenian playwright Euripides during his final years in Macedonia, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included '' Iphigeneia at Aulis'' and ''Alcmaeon in Corinth'', and which Euripides' son or nephew is assumed to have directed. It won first prize in the City Dionysia festival competition. The tragedy recounts the Greek myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, who were punished by the god Dionysus (who is Pentheus's cousin) for rejecting his cult. The play opens with Dionysus proclaiming that he has arrived in Thebes with his votaries to avenge the slander, repeated by his aunts, that he is not the son of Zeus. Disguised as a foreign holy man, the god intends to introduce Dionysian rites into the city, but the Thebans reject his divinity and king Pen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Ancient Rome, Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called ''baccheia''. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His ''thyrsus'', a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his Cult of Dionysus, cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thrace, Thracian, others as Greek. In O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bacchus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called ''baccheia''. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His ''thyrsus'', a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In Orphism, he was variously a son of Zeus and Perseph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orpheus
In Greek mythology, Orpheus (; , classical pronunciation: ) was a Thracians, Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned Ancient Greek poetry, poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, and descended into the Greek underworld, underworld to recover his lost wife, Eurydice. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music (the usual scene in Orpheus mosaics), his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his death at the hands of the maenads of Dionysus, who got tired of his mourning for his late wife Eurydice. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the classical reception studies, reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or allusion, alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agave (Theban Princess)
In Greek mythology, Agave (; or 'high-born'), was the daughter of Cadmus and a princess of Thebes. She is most well known for her role in the myths surrounding her nephew, Dionysus, god of wine. Family Agave was the eldest daughter of Cadmus, a legendary hero, king, and founder of the city of Thebes, and of the goddess Harmonia, goddess of harmony. She had three sisters: Autonoë, Ino and Semele, and a brother, Polydorus.Apollodorus3.4.2/ref> Agave married Echion, one of the five Spartoi, and was the mother of Pentheus, a king of Thebes, and Epirus. Mythology In Euripides' play ''The Bacchae'', Semele, while pregnant with Dionysus, was tricked by Hera into witnessing the true form of Zeus, and was destroyed by the sight. Agave, Ino, and Autonoë began to spread a rumor that Semele had only been pretending that Zeus was the father of her child in order to conceal the fact that she was pregnant out of wedlock with the child of a mortal man, and that her death was a punishm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thyrsus
In Ancient Greece a ''thyrsus'' () or ''thyrsos'' (; ) was a wand or staff of giant fennel ('' Ferula communis'') covered with ivy vines and leaves, sometimes wound with '' taeniae'' and topped with a pine cone, artichoke, fennel, or by a bunch of vine-leaves and grapes or ivy-leaves and berries, carried during Hellenic festivals and religious ceremonies. The ''thyrsus'' is typically associated with the Greek god Dionysus (and his subsequent Roman equivalent Bacchus) as a symbol of prosperity, fertility, and hedonism. Religious and ceremonial use In Greek religion, the staff was carried by the devotees of Dionysus. Euripides wrote that honey dripped from the ''thyrsos'' staves that the Bacchic maenads carried. The ''thyrsus'' was a sacred instrument at religious rituals and fêtes. The fabulous history of Bacchus relates that he converted the ''thyrsi'' carried by himself and his followers into dangerous weapons, by concealing an iron point in the head of leaves. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycurgus Of Thrace
In Greek mythology, Lycurgus (/laɪˈkɜːrɡəs/; Ancient Greek: Λυκοῦργος ''Lykoûrgos'', Ancient Greek: ykôrɡos also Lykurgos, Lykourgos) was the king of the Edoni in Thrace, son of Dryas, the "oak", and father of a son whose name was also Dryas. Mythology Lycurgus banned the cult of Dionysus. When Lycurgus heard that Dionysus was in his kingdom, he imprisoned Dionysus's followers, the Maenads, or "chased the through the holy hills of Nysa, and the sacred implements dropped to the ground from the hands of one and all, as estruck them down with his ox-goad". The compiler of '' Bibliotheke'' (3.5.1) says that as punishment, especially for his treatment for Ambrosia, Dionysus' nursemaid; the god drove Lycurgus insane. In his madness, Lycurgus mistook his son for a mature trunk of ivy, which is holy to Dionysus, and killed him, pruning away his nose and ears, fingers and toes. Consequently, the land of Thrace dried up in horror. Dionysus decreed that the land ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient Greek religion's view of the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, nature of the world; the lives and activities of List of Greek deities, deities, Greek hero cult, heroes, and List of Greek mythological creatures, mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult (religious practice), cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of mythmaking itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral tradition, oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan civilization, Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thiasus
In Greek mythology and religion, the ''thiasus'' was the ecstatic retinue of Dionysus, often pictured as inebriated revelers. Many of the myths of Dionysus are connected with his arrival in the form of a procession. The grandest such version was his triumphant return from "India", which influenced symbolic conceptions of the Roman triumph and was narrated in rapturous detail in Nonnus's ''Dionysiaca''. In this procession, Dionysus rides a chariot, often drawn by big cats such as tigers, leopards, or lions, or alternatively elephants or centaurs. The ''thiasos'' of the sea god Poseidon is depicted as a triumphal wedding procession with Amphitrite, attended by figures such as sea nymphs and hippocamps. In historical Greek society, ''thiasoi'' (: ) were religious organizations whose existence was protected by law. Dionysian ''thiasos'' The most significant members of the ''thiasus'' were the human female devotees, the maenads, who gradually replaced immortal nymphs. In Greek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bassaris
A bassaris (βασσαρίς) is a fox skin worn as clothing in ancient times. The Greek god Dionysus was associated with the bassaris, and his followers (the Maenads) were said to wear it. As a result, they were known as the "Bassarids." Dionysus was said to have worn the bassaris, although this detail was only to be found in Thrace. See also * Skinning Skinning is the act of skin removal. The process is done by humans to animals, mainly as a means to prepare the meat beneath for cooking and consumption, or to harvest the skin for making fur clothing or tanning it to make leather. The sk ... References {{reflist Foxes in literature Mythology of Dionysus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dancing Maenad Python BM VaseF253
Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements or by its History of dance, historical period or List of ethnic, regional, and folk dances by origin, place of origin. Dance is typically performed with Music, musical accompaniment, and sometimes with the dancer simultaneously using a musical instrument themselves. Two common types of group dance are Concert dance, theatrical and Participation dance, participatory dance. Both types of dance may have special functions, whether social, ceremonial, Competitive dance, competitive, Erotic dance, erotic, War dance, martial, Sacred dance, sacred or Liturgical dance, liturgical. Dance is not solely restricted to performance, as dance is used as a form of exercise and occasionally training for other sports and activities. Dance perf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thyia (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Thyia (; , derived from the verb ) is the name two figures: * Thyia, daughter of Deucalion and mother of Magnes and Makednos by Zeus.Hesiod, ''Catalogue of Women'fr. 7 Most, pp. 48, 49 fr. 7 Merkelbach-West = Constantine Porphyrogenitus, ''De Thematibus'', 2 (Pertusi, pp. 86–7)]. *Thyia (naiad), Thyia, a naiad who consorted with Apollo.Herodotus7.178.1 Notes References * Herodotus, '' The Histories'' with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920Online version at the Topos Text Project * Hesiod, ''Catalogue of Women'', in ''Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments'', edited and translated by Glenn W. Most, Loeb Classical Library No. 503, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2007, 2018. Online version at Harvard University Press * Merkelbach, R., and M. L. West, ''Fragmenta Hesiodea'', Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
