RITUALS OF DIONYSUS: GREAT DIONYSIA
PRINCETON
SITE ON GREEK GODS: DIONYSUS
Among the Greek festivals for Dionysos four types may be distinguished:
1) the Great Dionysia, introduced in Athens in the sixth century BCE.
2) the Anthesteria, concerned with wine-drinking;
3) the Agrionia, which included mimicking a women's uprising, madness,
and canibalistic fantasies; and
4) the rustic Dionysia with goat sacrifices and a phallus procession.
I describe in this handout only 1) which was the annual Athenian dramatic
festival. Yet, because misconceptions based on outdated notions abound,
I append a clarification on evidence of "maenadic" rites and on the Roman
Bacchanalia.
GREAT or CITY DIONYSIA
This important festival took place in late March/April. It was organized,
administered, and paid for by the city. Peisistratos introduced it in the
sixth century BCE. The area of the theatre, on the slope of the Acropolis,
included the temple of Dionysos and an orchestra (circular area for dancing).
In the fifth century BCE Pericles had the temple rebuilt and all the parts
of the theatre were further developed. A tragic writer normally wrote three
tragedies and one satyr play for one presentation. They competed against
each other.
The official primarily responsible for the organization of the Great
Dionysia was the archon, a magistrate chosen annualy by lot, and whose
name was given to the year. Prospective playwrights applied for a chorus,
namely for official acceptance as one of the three tragedians, or three
or five comic writers, whose works were to be performed in the following
spring. Private citizens, selected as producers for each playwright had
to pay (as a city service or "liturgy") the bulk of the expenses. The introduction
of a public subsidy for poorer citizens to attend the performances is attributed
to the Athenian politician Pericles. Their place of honor in the amphitheatre
and their functions in the ceremonies speak about this occasion as an initiation
of the city's ephebes.
PRELIMINARY PROCESSION
Before the festival the statue of Dionysos Eleuthereus was taken to a temple
on the road to Eleutherai, a sacrifice was offered, and then the statue
was escorted by the city's ephebes back to the temple. The myth associated
with this procession told the story of the arrival of Dionysos at Eleutherai,
where either the king or his daughters rejected in some way the god. Dionysos
punished all the men in the town with satyrism (a pathological condition
of permanent arousal), and when they in despair consulted the oracle of
Apollo they were told that they would be cured if they took the statue
of Dionysos to Athens in a procession. Once in Athens, the statue was taken
in a great procession leading up to the sacrifice in the sacred precinct
of Dionysos. A trumpeter at the head, and maidens with sacrificial implements
led the bull to be sacrificed in the sacred precinct. In the second century
this sacrifice was conducted by the ephebes. A celebratory revel perhaps
followed.
OPENING CEREMONIES
The most influential and important representatives of the state were involved
in the opening religious ceremonies. For example, before the performance
of the tragedies, the tribute of the cities of the Athenian empire was
brought into the theatre. At the same time they led in upon the stage the
sons of those who had lost their lives in the war; they were paraded in
military uniform, which had been provided by the city. There was also a
Proagon, an introduction of the whole personnel active in the contests
(poets, choregoi (citizens responsible for expenses), actors, musicians,
chorus members). A contest of ten dithyrambs (choruses in honor of Dionysos)
was carried out on the first day of the festival. Each chorus of men or
boys represented a "tribe" (religious and civic district in Attica).
DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES
Five comedies were presented, then three tetralogies one each day. A tetralogy
consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. A final assembly was held,
at which prizes and awards were distributed. At least once the ten generals
were made the prize-awarding tribunal (for Sophocles). Normally the members
of this tribunal were chosen by lot.
CLARIFICATION ON "MAENADS" and ORGIES
Ritual wine-drinking in the name of Dionysos was the privilege of Greek
males, while ritual maenadism was practised exclusively by women. Public
festivals in honor of Dionysos included both sexes. The prevailing stereotype
of the Greek maenad is almost exclusively determined by maenadic myth,
especially as it is enacted in Euripides' Bacchant Women. This stereotype
is a romantic vision of wild ecstasy and blood-thirsty violence, according
to which women went to the woods and turned into a destructive mob who
at the height of their frenzy climbed mountains, tore apart animals or
even human beings, and devoured the raw flesh of their victims.
Evidence of maenadic cult does not support any element of the preceding
description. Women belonged to local congregations of maenads; unlike the
mythical maenads of Euripides, they suffered from exhaustion, were stuck
in snowstorms, and were respectable enough to be honored by their cities
after their death. Ritual maenadism proper was apparently not practised
in Attica: Athenian women went to Delphi to celebrate maenadic rites on
Mount Parnassus. Descriptions of the rituals of the Delphic maenads (known
as Thyads) tell us that married women and girls participated, that they
conducted initiations, went to the mountain and perhaps handled raw meat
from the (ceremonial) sacrifices. There is no reference to their "madness,"
and they were called "maenads" because they mimicked the behavior of the
mythical maenads. Once they came down from their mountain, they resumed
their normal lives, and waited for the return of the ritual two years later.
In the Hellenistic and Roman period, worshippers of Greek and
foreign gods were commonly organized in local cult-associations of private
character. The distinction bewteen maenadism and other less restricted
forms of Dionysiac worship became occasionally blurred. Despite the phallic
obscenity connected with Dionysiac festivals, sexual acts in the cult of
Dionysos were apparently more symbolic and mythical than real. Aphrodite
is occasionally found in cultic association with Dionysos. The Roman historian
Livy describes outrageous actions connected with Bacchic orgies in Rome,
the Bacchanalia. In 186 BCE the Roman Senate decreed the destruction of
most Bacchic shrines and the strict control of all Bacchic worship in Italy.