InGreek mythology,maenads (/ˈmiːnædz/;Ancient Greek:μαινάδες[maiˈnades]) were the female followers ofDionysus and the most significant members of his retinue, thethiasus.Their name, which comes fromμαίνομαι (maínomai, “to rave, to be mad; to rage, to be angry”),[1] literally translates as 'raving ones'. Maenads were known asBassarids,Bacchae/ˈbækiː/, orBacchantes/ˈbækənts,bəˈkænts,-ˈkɑːnts/ inRoman mythology after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god,Bacchus, to wear abassaris orfox skin.
Often the maenads were portrayed as inspired by Dionysus into a state ofecstatic frenzy through a combination of dancing andintoxication.[2] During these rites, the maenads would dress infawn skins and carry athyrsus, a long stick wrapped in ivy or vine leaves and tipped with apine 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.[3]
These women weremythologized as the "mad women" who were nurses of Dionysus inNysa.Lycurgus "chased the Nurses of the frenzied Dionysus through the holy hills of Nysa, and the sacred implements dropped to the ground from the hands of one and all, as the murderous Lycurgus struck them down with his ox-goad".[4] They went into the mountains at night and practised strange rites.[5]
According toPlutarch'sLife of Alexander, maenads were calledMimallones andKlodones inMacedon, epithets derived from the feminine art of spinning wool.[6] Nevertheless, these warlikeparthenoi ("virgins") from the hills, associated with aDionysios pseudanor ("fake male Dionysus"), routed an invading enemy.[7] In southern Greece they were described asBacchae,Bassarides,Thyiades,Potniades,[8][better source needed] and other epithets.[9]
The term maenad has come to be associated with a wide variety of women, supernatural, mythological, and historical,[10] associated with the god Dionysus and his worship.
InEuripides' playThe Bacchae, maenads ofThebes murderKing Pentheus after he bans the worship of Dionysus. Dionysus, Pentheus' cousin, himself lures Pentheus to the woods, where the maenads tear him apart. His corpse is mutilated by his own mother,Agave, who tears off his head, believing it to be that of a lion. A group of maenads also killOrpheus,[11] when he refuses to entertain them while mourning his dead wife.
Inceramic art, the frolicking of Maenads and Dionysus is often a theme depicted onkraters, used to mix water and wine. These scenes show the maenads in their frenzy running in the forests, often tearing to pieces any animal they happen to come across.[citation needed]
GermanphilologistWalter Friedrich Otto writes:
The Bacchae of Euripides gives us the most vital picture of the wonderful circumstance in which, asPlato says in theIon, the god-intoxicated celebrants draw milk and honey from the streams. They strike rocks with the thyrsus, and water gushes forth. They lower the thyrsus to the earth, and a spring of wine bubbles up. If they want milk, they scratch up the ground with their fingers and draw up the milky fluid. Honey trickles down from the thyrsus made of the wood of the ivy, they gird themselves with snakes and give suck to fawns and wolf cubs as if they were infants at the breast. Fire does not burn them. No weapon of iron can wound them, and the snakes harmlessly lick up the sweat from their heated cheeks. Fierce bulls fall to the ground, victims to numberless, tearing female hands, and sturdy trees are torn up by the roots with their combined efforts.[12]
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Cultist rites associated with the worship of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus (orBacchus in Roman mythology), were characterized by maniacal dancing to the sound of loud music and crashing cymbals, in which the revelers, called Bacchantes, whirled, screamed, became drunk and incited one another to greater and greater ecstasy. The goal was to achieve a state of enthusiasm in which the celebrants' souls were temporarily freed from their earthly bodies and were able to commune with Bacchus/Dionysus and gain a glimpse of and a preparation for what they would someday experience in eternity. The rite climaxed in a performance of frenzied feats of strength and madness, such as uprooting trees, tearing abull (the symbol of Dionysus) apart with their bare hands, an act calledsparagmos, and eating its flesh raw, an act calledomophagia. This latter rite was a sacrament akin to communion in which the participants assumed the strength and character of the god by symbolically eating the raw flesh and drinking the blood of his symbolic incarnation. Having symbolically eaten his body and drunk his blood, the celebrants became possessed by Dionysus.
Maenads are found in later references as priestesses of the Dionysian cult. In the third century BC, when the city ofMagnesia wanted to establish a maenadic cult in honour of Dionysus, theDelphic Oracle bade them, "Go to the holy plain of Thebes to fetch maenads from the race ofCadmeanIno. They will bring you maenadic rites and noble customs and will establish troops of Bacchus in your city."[13]
Dionysus came to his birthplace, Thebes, where neither Pentheus, his cousin who was now king, nor Pentheus' mother Agave, Dionysus' aunt (Semele's sister) acknowledged his divinity. Dionysus punished Agave by driving her insane, and in that condition, she killed her son and tore him to pieces. From Thebes, Dionysus went to Argos where all the women except the daughters of KingProetus joined in his worship. Dionysus punished them by driving them mad, and they killed the infants who were nursing at their breasts. He did the same to the daughters ofMinyas, King of Orchomenos in Boetia, and then turned them into bats.
According toOppian, Dionysus delighted, as a child, in tearing kids into pieces and bringing them back to life again. He is characterized as "the raging one" and "the mad one" and the nature of the maenads, from which they get their name, is, therefore, his nature.[14]
Once during a war in the middle of the third century BC, the entranced Thyiades (maenads) lost their way and arrived inAmphissa, a city near Delphi. There they sank down exhausted in the market place and were overpowered by a deep sleep. The women of Amphissa formed a protective ring around them and when they awoke arranged for them to return home unmolested.
On another occasion, the Thyiades were snowed in onParnassos and it was necessary to send a rescue party. The clothing of the men who took part in the rescue froze solid. It is unlikely that the Thyiades, even if they wore deerskins over their shoulders, were ever dressed more warmly than the men.[15]
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In the realm of thesupernatural is the category ofnymphs who nurse and care for the young Dionysus, and continue in his worship as he comes of age. The godHermes is said to have carried the young Dionysus to the nymphs of Nysa.
In another myth, when his mother, Semele, is killed, the care of young Dionysus falls into the hands of his sisters, Ino, Agave, andAutonoe, who later are depicted as participating in the rites and taking a leadership role among the other maenads.
The term "maenads" also refers to women in mythology who resisted the worship of Dionysus and were driven mad by him, forced against their will to participate in often horrific rites. The doubting women ofThebes, the prototypical maenads or "mad women", left their homes to live in the wilds of the nearby mountainCithaeron. When they discoveredPentheus spying on them, dressed as a maenad, they tore him limb from limb.[16]
This also occurs with the three daughters ofMinyas, who reject Dionysus and remain true to their household duties, becoming startled by invisible drums, flutes, cymbals, and seeing ivy hanging down from their looms. As punishment for their resistance, they become madwomen, choosing the child of one of their number by lot and tearing it to pieces, as the women on the mountain did to young animals. A similar story with a tragic end is told of the daughters ofProetus.
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Not all women were inclined to resist the call of Dionysus, however. Maenads, possessed by the spirit of Dionysus, traveled with him from Thrace to mainland Greece in his quest for the recognition of his divinity. Dionysus was said to have danced down from Parnassos accompanied by Delphic virgins, and it is known that even as young girls the women in Boeotia practiced not only the closed rites but also the bearing of the thyrsus and the dances.
A possible foundation myth is the ancient festival calledAgrionia. According to Greek authors likePlutarch, female followers of Dionysios went in search of him and when they could not find him prepared a feast. As Plutarch records this festival, a priest would chase a group of virgins down with a sword. These women were supposed to be descendants of the women who sacrificed their son in the name of Dionysios. The priest would catch one of the women and execute her. This human sacrifice was later omitted from the festival. Eventually the women would be freed from the intense ecstatic experience of the festival and return to their usual lives. The Agrionia was celebrated in several Greek cities, but especially in Boeotia. Each Boeotian city had its own distinct foundation myth for it, but the pattern was much the same: the arrival of Dionysus, resistance to him, flight of the women to a mountain, the killing of Dionysus' persecutor, and eventual reconciliation with the god.
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The names of the maenads according to various vase paintings were: Anthe ("Flower"),Bacche,Kale ("Beauty"),Kalyke ("Bud"),Choiros ("Pig"),Choro ("Dance"),Chrysis ("Gold"),Kisso ("Ivy"),Klyto,Komodia ("Comedy"),Dorkis,Doro,Eudia ("Calm"),Eudaimonia ("Happiness"),Euthymia ("Good Cheer"),Erophyllis,Galene ("Calm"),Hebe ("Youth"), lo,Kraipale,Lilaia,Mainas,Makaria ("Blessed"),Molpe ("Song"),Myro,Naia,Nymphaia,Nymphe,Opora ("Harvest"),Oinanthe,Oreias ("Mountain-Nymph"),Paidia,Pannychis ("All-night Revel"),Periklymene ("Renowned"),Phanope,Philomela,Polyerate ("Well-beloved"),Rodo ("Rose"),Sime ("Snub-nose"),Terpsikome,Thaleia,Tragoedia ("Tragedy") andXantho ("Fair-hair").[40][41]
Eighteen maenads are named in Dionysiaca of Nonnus of Panopolis:
§ 14.219 Stronger than these then came the nurses of Dionysos, troops of Bassarids well skilled in their art: Aigle and Callichore, Eupetale and Ione, laughing Calyce, Bryusa companion of the Seasons, Seilene and Rhode, Ocynoe and Ereutho, Acrete and Methe, rosy Oinanthe with Harpe and silverfoot Lycaste, Stesichore and Prothoe; last of all came ready for the fray Trygie too, that grinning old gammer, heavy with wine.
Maenads have been depicted in art as erratic and frenzied women enveloped in a drunken rapture, as inEuripides' playThe Bacchae. In Euripides' play and other art forms and works, the frenzied dances of the god are direct manifestations of euphoric possession, and these worshippers, sometimes by eating the flesh of a man or animal who has temporarily incarnated the god, come to partake of his divinity.
Depictions of maenads are often found on bothred andblack-figure Greek pottery, statues, and jewelry. Also, fragments of reliefs of female worshipers of Dionysus have been discovered atCorinth.[43] Mark W. Edwards in his paper "Representation of Maenads on Archaic Red-Figure Vases" traces the evolution of maenad depictions on red figure vases. Edwards distinguishes between "nymphs," which appear earlier on Greek pottery, and "maenads," which are identified by their characteristic fawnskin ornebris and often carry snakes in their hands. However, Edwards does not consider the actions of the figures on the pottery to be a distinguishing characteristic for differentiation between maenads and nymphs. Rather, the differences or similarities in their actions are more striking when comparing black figure and red figure pottery, as opposed to maenads and nymphs.[44]
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A maenad appears inPercy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ode to the West Wind".
Maenads, along withBacchus andSilenus, appear inC. S. Lewis'Prince Caspian. They are portrayed as wild, fierce girls who dance and perform somersaults.
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The Bassarids (composed 1964–65, premiered 1966), to a libretto byW. H. Auden andChester Kallman, is the most famous opera composed byHans Werner Henze.
Maenads are the adopted symbol ofTetovo inNorth Macedonia, depicted prominently of the city'scoat of arms. The inclusion of maenad imagery dates to 1932 when a small statuette of a maenad, dating to the 6th century BC, was found in the city. The "Tetovo Maenad" was featured on the reverse of a Macedonian 5000denar banknote issued in 1996.[45]
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