Euripides, Bacchae

THE CULT OF DIONYSOS IN ASIA MINOR
IN THE ROMAN IMPERIAL AGE

Making his presence, which can be traced long before the Archaic Age, deeply felt mainly in Hellas, Asia Minor and then in Rome throughout the ancient world, Dionysos, depending on the place and time, appears before us sometimes as a god of grape-wine, sometimes as a god of theatre and acting arts and sometimes as a religious power shaped according to the local needs, however, he has generally been a god of nature representing the fertility and abundance. According to the inscriptions, Dionysos was mentioned with many epithetons in Asia Minor of the Roman Imperial Age, and that he was a god of nature bringing abundance-fertility and his many other features can be observed by these epithetons. Depending on the long stated customs, the cult of Dionysos in Asia Minor survived throughout the Roman Imperial Age (especially in the II-III. Century A.D. with festivals, cult associations and structuring, artists (musicians, players, dancers) that served his cult. According to the written records, festivals such as Dionysia, Lēnaia, Anthestēria, Trietēris organized in the name of Dionysos were celebrated. Dance, music and play competitions were made in these festivals maintained by the rich citizens or directors and not commonly known cult rituals were performed. Besides the associations of synodos artists called by different names in different times in the large cities of the west, cult associations broad in scope such as thiasos, speira or cult member groups with large audience in various names were active both in worshipping and these festivals. In order to achieve this, undoubtedly, both artist associations and cult associations had to have a well organized governing structure. Names were given to the cult members according to the task taken. These members also had to pay a membership fee in order to be a member or to continue to be one. Actually, these fees were as important as the epimeletes in the mainta-nance of these associations. In addition, they were supported both mate-rially and spiritually by the Roman emperors or provincial governors. Although the paganic religious activities in the lands of Asia Minor under the control of Rome were left to the free will of the cities, they would not be strong without the respect shown for the cults of the emperors, emperor and the Roman goddess (Dea Roma). The worshipping of Dionysos could only develop with the close relations with the emperors and the Roman Empire. Correspondingly, supporting a paganic cult significant for the people, the Roman Empire gained the sympathy of the people and also kept them loyal to Rome. The deification of the Roman emperors began with General Marcus Antonius, who was wellcomed as “New Dionysos” on his arrival to Ephesos, and continued in the Roman Imperial Age. During this period the associations in Anazarbos, Ankyra, Ephesos, Teōs, Aphrodisias and Sardeis characterised Emperor Hadrianus, Commodus and Caracalla by this epitheton. Thus, they deified them by considering them equal with Dionysos. Dionysos also had common worship with imperial or Dea Roma cult besides the common paganic worship of Zeus and Dēmētēr. Like all other paganic religions, the cult of Dionysos broke down with the strengthening Christianity with which it had opposite doctrines and finally with the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion of the state. However, many features of the Dionysos cult continued to exist in Asia Minor both in Christian features and local cultures and traditions. Today it still continues this effect.

Arkaik Çağ’dan çok daha eskilere götürebildiğimiz varlığını, coğrafi olarak başta Hellas, Küçükasya ve sonraları Roma olmak üzere tüm Antik Çağ coğrafyasında etkin bir şekilde hissettiren Dionysos, yer ve zaman farkına bağlı olarak, bazı yerlerde üzüm-şarap tanrısı, bazılarında tiyatro ve sahne sanatlarının tanrısı, bazılarında ise yerel ihtiyaçlar doğrultusunda şekillendirilmiş dinsel bir güç olarak karşımıza çıkmıştır. Ama genel olarak bereket ve bolluğu temsil eden bir doğa tanrısı kimliğine sahip olmuştur. Yazıtlardan anlaşıldığına göre Roma İmparatorluk Çağı Küçükasyası’ nda birçok epitheton ile anılan Dionysos’un, bolluk-bereket getiren bir doğa tanrısı olduğu ve diğer başka özellikleri gene bu epitheton’larından anlaşılmaktadır. Küçükasya’daki Dionysos kültü Roma İmparatorluk Çağı boyunca (bilhassa M.S. II-III. yüzyılarda), öncesinden gelen bir geleneğe bağlı olarak şenlikleri, kült dernekleri ve yapılanması, kültüne hizmet eden sanatçıları (müzisyenler, oyuncular, dansçılar) ile varlığını sürdürmüştür. Yazılı belgelerden bu dönemde büyük ve zengin kentlerde hâlâ Dionysia, Lēnaia, Anthestēria, Trietēris gibi Dionysos adına tertiplenen şenliklerin kutlandığını; masrafları, epimeletes olarak bildiğimiz kentin zengin vatandaşları ya da yöneticileri tarafından karşılanan bu şenliklerde külte ilişkin dans, müzik ve oyun yarışmaların yapıldığını ve herkesçe bilinmeyen kült ritüellerinin uygulandığını öğrenmekteyiz. Bilhassa batı kesimlerdeki büyük kentlerdeki, farklı dönemlerde farklı isimlerle anılan synodos sanatçı derneklerinin yanında thiasos, speira gibi daha geniş kapsamlı kült dernekleri ya da en yaygını mystai olan çeşitli adlar altında toplanan geniş kitleli kült üye grupları hem tapınımda, hem de bu şenliklerde aktif olmuşlardır. Şüphesiz ki bunu gerçekleştirebilmek adına gerek sanatçı dernekleri gerekse kült dernekleri, iyi organize olmuş bir idari yapılanmaya sahip olmak durumundaydı. Bu derneklerde üstlendikleri görevlere göre adlandırılan kült üyelerinin, üye olabilmeleri veya üyeliklerini sürdü-rebilmeleri için ödemek zorunda oldukları aidatlar da vardı. Esasen bu derneklerin finansmanının karşılanmasında bu aidatlar, en az epimeletes’ ler kadar önemliydi. Ayrıca Roma imparatorlarının ya da eyalet yöneticilerinin hem manevi hem de maddi desteğini alıyorlardı. Zira bu dönemde Roma egemenliği altında bulunan Küçükasya topraklarındaki pagan dinsel yaşam her ne kadar kentlerin özgür iradesine bırakılmışsa da, imparatorlara, imparator ve Roma Tanrıçası (Dea Roma) kültüne gösterilen saygı olmaksızın güçlü kalamazdı. Küçükasya Dionysos tapınımı da, tamamıyla imparatorlar ve Roma İmparatorluğu ile kurulan güçlü bağlar sayesinde gelişebilmiştir. Bununla paralel olarak da Roma İmparatorluğu, halk için önemli olan pagan bir kültü destekleyerek, hem halkın sempatisini kazanmakta, hem de böylece onların Roma’ya olan bağlılığını sürdürmek amacını gütmekteydi. General Marcus Antonius’un Ephesos’a gelişinde “Yeni Dionysos” olarak karşılanmasıyla başlayan Romalı devlet adamlarını tanrılaştırma geleneği, Roma İmparatorluk Çağı’nda da sürmüş; bu dönemde özellikle Anazarbos, Ankyra, Ephesos, Teōs, Aphrodisias ve Sardeis’teki dernekler, İmparator Hadrianus, Commodus ve Caracalla’yı bu sıfatla nitelendirmişler, böylece onları Dionysos ile bir tutarak tanrılaştırmışlardır. İmparatorluk veya Dea Roma kültü ile ortak tapınımı da görülen Dionysos’un Zeus ve Dēmētēr gibi pagan tanrı-tanrıçalarla da ortak tapınımı söz konusudur. Diğer pagan dinler gibi Dionysos kültünün yıkımı da, öğretilerinin birbirine tamamen ters düştüğü Hıristiyanlık dininin güçlenmesiyle ve nihayetinde M.S. 391’de imparatorluğun resmî dini olmasıyla gerçekleşmiştir. Ancak Dionysos kültünün birçok unsuru, Küçükasya topraklarında, gerek Hıristiyanlık unsurlarında gerekse halk kültür ve geleneklerinde yaşamaya devam etmiştir. Bugün de bu etkisini göstermeye devam etmektedir."

SEG 60-1998. Religion. Dionysos: his cult in Asia Minor, Imperial period:
On the basis of archaeological, numismatic, and (mainly) epigraphic attestations, B.Öztürk,Roma imparatorluk çağı Küçükasaysı’nda Dionysos kültü (Istanbul 2010), studies the cult ofΔιόνυσος in Roman Asia Minor. After general remarks about the god, he presents a geographically arranged catalogue of the relevant inscriptions with brief comments (ph. of some texts). On 196-209, Ö. provides a register with explanations of the most important terms found in the inscriptions, and on 210/211 a list of epithets.

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  Ο Διόνυσος, υιός του θεού Δία και της θνητής Σεμέλης —θεός κι ο ίδιος απ' τη σύλληψη και τη γέννησή του— καταφθάνει στην πόλη των Θηβών απ' την Ασία, συνοδευόμενος από τις «Βάκχες», τις ακολούθους του. Αυτές, ενδεδυμένες με δέρματα ελαφιών («νεβρίδες») και κρατώντας στα χέρια τους θύρσο (κοντάρι τυλιγμένο με κισσό, σύμβολο και φορέα της θεϊκής δύναμης του Διονύσου), βιώνουν την έκσταση που τους προκαλεί η μέθεξη στα ιερά μυστήρια του θεού, ενόσω βρίσκονται σε κατάσταση ένθεης μανίας —έχοντας απελευθερώσει τον νου τους απ' τα δεσμά και τους κανόνες των εγκοσμίων, και έχοντας συνενωθεί σ' ένα σώμα και σε μια ψυχή, η οποία πάλλεται στον ρυθμό των τυμπάνων και δονείται απ' το γλυκό κελάηδημα των φρυγικών αυλών. Σκοπός του θεού είναι να μυήσει τη Θήβα, πόλη της καταγωγής του, πρώτη ανάμεσα σ' όλη την Ελλάδα στη νέα αυτή ελευθεριάζουσα λατρεία.

  Με το τελευταίο του έργο, τις «Βάκχες», ο Ευριπίδης εισάγει «καινά δαιμόνια» στη γνωσιολογία της αττικής Τραγωδίας αλλά και στη δομή της θεατρικής της πράξης, προσπαθώντας ταυτοχρόνως να τα εισαγάγει και στον τρόπο αντίληψης και σκέψης των θεατών· περισσότερο, ίσως, για να τους προειδοποιήσει, παρά για να τους μεταρρυθμίσει γνωσιολογικώς. Οι «Βάκχες» αποτελούν ίσως περισσότερο μια πολιτισμική κραυγή αγωνίας και μια ποιητική διαμαρτυρία απέναντι στο διαφαινόμενο τέλος της ίδιας της αττικής Τραγωδίας, της αθηναϊκής δημοκρατίας και του κλασικού ελληνισμού, και λιγότερο ένα αμιγώς διδακτικό περιεχόμενο με σκοπό τη νοητική αυτοβελτίωση εκάστου εκ των θεατών. Ο Ευριπίδης νεωτερίζει, ανασκευάζοντας τους μηχανισμούς προσληψιμότητας (και, εν μέρει, και αισθητικής) της αρχαίας αττικής Τραγωδίας· την «καταργεί» ως διακριτό είδος ποιητικής και θεατρικής δημιουργίας και την «ενταφιάζει» (ίσως προσδοκώντας μια πιθανή επαναγέννεσή της στο μέλλον, με τρόπο παρόμοιο με τη διπλή γένεση του Διονύσου, του δημιουργού του θεάτρου), λίγο μόλις καιρό πριν κι ο ίδιος πεθάνει με τρόπο παρόμοιο με αυτόν του πρωταγωνιστή του δράματος.

  Tο βιβλίο περιλαμβάνει το αρχικό (μερικώς ανακατασκευασμένο) αρχαίο κείμενο των "Βακχών", σε έμμετρη μετάφραση στα νέα ελληνικά. Η μετάφραση συνοδεύεται από τον σχολιασμό ενός επιλεγμένου αριθμού στίχων και από έναν εκτενή Πρόλογο —στον οποίο αναλύονται οι «Βάκχες» και το περιεχόμενό τους, συμπεριλαμβανομένης μιας σύνθετης ερμηνευτικής θέωρησης της τραγωδίας.

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  The god Dionysus —son of Zeus and of the mortal woman Semele— arrives in the city of Thebes from Asia, impersonating a mortal and accompanied by the "Bacchae", his female followers. The latter, clad in deer skins and holding in their hands the "thyrsus" (a wooden staff wrapped in ivy, the symbol and the carrier of the divine power of Dionysus), experience the ecstasy by participating in the sacred mysteries of the god Dionysus, while being at the same time in a state of divine madness —after having freed their mind from the worldly bonds and rules, united in one body and one soul; their body pulsating in the rhythm of the drums, and vibrating to the sweet warbling of the Phrygian flutes. The purpose of Dionysus is to initiate Thebes, his natal city, first among all of Greece, in his new liberating cult.

  In his last work, the "Bacchae", Euripides introduces novelties in the epistemology of the Attic Tragedy as well as in the structure of its theatrical representation; at the same time, he tries to introduce these novelties in the way of perception and thinking of the spectators (perhaps, more in an effort to warn them, rather than to reform their mindset). The "Bacchae" can be considered more as a cultural cry of agony as well as a poetic protest against the looming end of the Attic Tragedy itself, the end of the Athenian democracy and the end of the classical Hellenism, and less as a purely didactic content which aims at the intellectual self-improvement of the spectators. Euripides brutally modernizes and reconstructs the mechanisms of the theatrical receptivity (and, in part, of the aesthetics) of the ancient Attic Tragedy; he "abolishes" it as a distinct kind of poetic and theatrical creation, and "buries" it (perhaps anticipating its possible rebirth in the future, in a manner similar to the double birth of Dionysus, the creator of the theater), shortly before he himself dies, in a manner similar to that of the protagonist of the drama.

  This book includes the original (partially reconstructed) ancient text of the "Bacchae", translated side-by-side in modern greek, in verse. The translation is accompanied by commentary on a selected number of verses, and by an extensive Prologue (both in modern greek) —in which the "Bacchae" and its contents are analyzed, including a composite interpretive view of the tragedy.

El texto es un espacio de encuentro donde lectores, discursos y formaciones simbólicas confluyen en la producción de sentidos. Desde este punto de vista, toda lectura o escritura puede ser entendida como traducción. Considerar la inserción de un determinado motivo en un cuerpo poético no sólo plantea problemas en el nivel de las prioridades, de las fuentes y de la originalidad, sino que abre un espacio donde las coincidencias formales se resignifican y pueden ser interpretadas, no ya como influencias subsidiarias o proyecciones, sino como un diálogo intercultural propiciado por la crítica. En este trabajo, se analizan las prácticas rituales y la imaginería del motivo de la danza frenética de la montaña en Bacantes de Eurípides y en “Las súplicas de la doncella” de Yasunari Kawabata, a partir de los presupuestos teórico-metodológicos de la Transtextualidad y de la Literatura Comparada. Dentro de esta propuesta, la noción operativa de traducción sirve como herramienta que dota de inteligibilidad al abordaje, y permite superar el mero recuento de semejanzas y diferencias propio de los análisis descriptivos y distribucionales.

The close affinities between Lord of the flies and the Bacchae have been the subject of scholarly discussion. This paper revisits the relationship between the two works and contends that Golding’s intertextual engagement with the Bacchae can be construed through the lens of the concept of sparagmos (dismemberment). The novel includes many kinds of sparagmos: physical, material, psychological, social, character, and textual. The English novelist ‘dismembers’ the Bacchae and then performs a compositio membrorum by reassembling a new textual ‘body’ from the dispersed ‘limbs’ of the Euripidean play. This study also suggests a new classical source for the Lord of the Flies which has so far entirely escaped scholarly attention. The novelist conflates his tragic model with Ovid’s epic version of the Pentheus myth in the Metamorphoses (3.511–733), which is itself modelled after the Euripidean play, thereby functioning as a mediating intertext between the two works.

Los maravillosos relatos que integran este segundo tomo de los Cuentos de la mitología griega nos hablan de la aparición del hombre sobre la Tierra, de las aventuras de los héroes, de las ciudades y estirpes que ellos fundaron, de los dioses adversos y benefactores...Amplía así la visión que del mundo griego nos ofrecieron las autoras en el primer tomo. Después de deleitarnos con la creación del nacimiento del pueblo heleno, disfrutaremos con las fantásticas historias de Tebas, de Atenas y de Argos; historias que nos sitúan a dioses y hombres en distintas ciudades, con sus diversas gentes de rasgos bien diferenciados entre sí, pero al mismo tiempo con un espíritu común: espíritu de héroes formados mitad de tierra, mitad de esencia divina.

Crises--such as COVID-19, the Great Recession, and 9/11--are often triggered by low-probability, high-consequence events. Tragedy can help us model the impact of the highly improbable because tragedy is the art form that dramatizes low-probability, high-consequence events. In this book chapter, I demonstrate how tragedy dramatizes the highly improbable in Aeschylus' SEVEN AGAINST THEBES, Sophocles' OEDIPUS REX, and Euripides' BACCHAE. By looking at theatre from the perspective of chance and uncertainty, we may increase our awareness of how risk works in both art and in life, and, in so doing, protect ourselves by becoming antifragile.

Niniejsza praca poświęcona jest analizie dramatu Eurypidesa Bachantki pod kątem doświadczenia religijnego epifanii boga Dionizosa przez postaci dramatu. W analizie wykorzystana zostaje kategoria Numinosum Rudolfa Otto określająca doświadczenie bóstwa jako tajemnicę grozy i fascynacji (Mysterium tremendum et fascinans). Dionizos jako postać boska streszczająca w sobie przeciwieństwa objawia się jako bóstwo irracjonalne i gwałtowne w dramacie. Tym samym jego epifania przybiera charakter numinotyczny wywierając głęboki i niszczący wpływ na postaci dramatu i ich psychikę.

Women's mobility is central to understanding cultural constructions of gender. Regarding ancient cultures, including ancient Greece, a re-evaluation of women's mobility within the household and beyond it is currently taking place. This invites an informed analysis of female mobility in Greek myth, under the premise that myth may open a venue to social ideology and the imaginary.

Female Mobility and Gendered Space in Ancient Greek Myth offers the first comprehensive analysis of this topic. It presents close readings of ancient texts, engaging with feminist thought and the 'mobility turn'. A variety of Olympian goddesses and mortal heroines are explored, and the analysis of their myths follows specific chronological considerations. Female mobility is presented in quite diverse ways in myth, reflecting cultural flexibility in imagining mobile goddesses and heroines. At the same time, the out-of-doors spaces that mortal heroines inhabit seem to lack a public or civic quality, with the heroines being contained behind 'glass walls'. In this respect, myth seems to reproduce the cultural limitations of ancient Greek social ideology on mobility, inviting us to reflect not only on the limits of mythic imagination but also on the timelessness of Greek myth.

Courtney J. P. Friesen explores shifting boundaries of ancient religions by way of the reception of a popular tragedy, Euripides’ Bacchae . As a play staging political crises provoked by the arrival of the “foreign” god Dionysus and his ecstatic cult, audiences and readers found resonances with their own cultural moments. This dramatic deity became emblematic of exuberant and liberating spirituality and, at the same time, a symbol of imperial conquest. Thus, readings of the Bacchae frequently foreground conflicts between religious autonomy and political authority, and between ethnic diversity and social cohesion. This cross-disciplinary study traces appropriations and evocations of this drama ranging from the fifth century BCE through Byzantium not only among “pagans” but also Jews and Christians. Writers variously articulated their religious visions over against Dionysus, often while paradoxically adopting the god’s language and symbols. Consequently, imitation and emulation are at times indistinguishable from polemics and subversion.

The suppression of the Bacchanalia in Rome 186 BCE was the first major religious persecution in Europe. The essay provides a new analysis, referring to the political theory of Eric Voegelin. It shows that the suppression was a reaction of the Roman commonwealth to a cult which challgenged the meaning of political existence within the republic. Ultimately, the Bacchanalian affair is a collision of two types of religiosity, the political religiosity of the public cult and the orgiastic and apolitical religiosity of the Bacchic underground. Both types are based on particular religious experiences, the experience of gods preserving and fostering the political community and the experience of a god promoting the fulfilment of bodily desires. As the essay shows at the example of Euripides’ Bacchae, the worship of Bacchus-Dionysus had always represented the apolitical dimension of human existence; already in the ancient myths the “alien god” appears as the enemy of rulers and politicians. Finally, this reconsideration of the Bacchanalia helps to understand why the early Christians were likened to the Bacchants.

ΙΠΠΟΛΥΤΟΣ – ΠΕΝΘΕΑΣ: Η άρνηση του υπερβατικού και η τραγική καταστροφή Στον Ἱππόλυτο και τις Βάκχες, μια τραγωδία της πρώιμης και μια της όψιμης παραγωγικής φάσης του Ευριπίδη αντίστοιχα, αποκαλύπτεται το εύρος της σκέψης και των προβληματισμών του μεγάλου τραγικού και αναδύονται ιδέες που ίσως δεν είναι κυρίαρχες στα πιο " ορθολογικά " έργα του αλλά μας βοηθούν να σκιαγραφήσουμε ένα ολοκληρωμένο πορτραίτο του δημιουργού. Και στα δύο έργα τον πρωταγωνιστικό ρόλο κρατούν ευγενείς νέοι με πολλά χαρίσματα, που όμως εμφορούνται από υπερβολική αυτοπεποίθηση, υπέρμετρη πίστη στις αρχές τους, μονολιθική και αυθαίρετη τάση χάραξης κανόνων συμπεριφοράς, αντιμετώπιση του κόσμου και της ζωής μέσα από παρωπίδες, πολλά καταπιεσμένα συναισθήματα και πεισματική αρνητικότητα απέναντι σε υπερβατικές μορφές, όπως η Αφροδίτη και ο Διόνυσος. Στο επίκεντρο της δράσης τοποθετούνται επίσης δύο θεότητες, που αποκαλύπτονται μπροστά μας με όλη την ομορφιά αλλά και τη φρικαλεότητα της λατρείας τους, με όλο το μεγαλείο αλλά και τη μικρότητα της ψυχής τους, με όλη τη γοητεία αλλά και την απεχθή συνάμα όψη τους.

This article explores the interdependency that existed in ancient Greece between religious and musical practices. The intimate relationship between those two cultural fields is stressed through a reading of Euripides Bakchai as a testimony for the uses of music in acts of cult foundation and cult diffusion in Classical and Archaic Greece. The Bakchai, which narrate the arriving of a new god, Dionysos, and his cult to Thebes, highlights the importance of Dionysian musical practices in the dialectic process of cult inauguration. The new God announce his arrival with music, musical are the means by which Dionysos and his entourage fights local resistance and his ultimate victory, too, becomes manifest through the embodiment of his particular mousikē by the Theban citizens. Moreover, the narrative of the play also points to a large body of Greek myths featuring the archetypical motif of the ‘musician cult founder’ thus underlining an actual Greek practice of inaugurating new cults by the use of music.

Nel contesto del pensiero greco antico, la transizione fra età arcaica e classica (VI-V sec. a.C.) fu un momento di notevole importanza per l'inizio di un'approfondita riflessione sulla follia, soprattutto alla luce di una sua concettualizzazione come "disturbo mentale". Le "Baccanti" di Euripide possono fornire numerose chiavi di lettura per intendere l'approccio greco alla follia da un punto di vista non solo terapeutico, ma anche culturale, sociale e religioso.

https://en.unipress.dk/udgivelser/a/ascending-and-descending-the-acropolis/

This chapter discusses one of the ancient Greek rituals associated with maenads, during which the participants left their homes and the city to worship Dionysus at the mountains. While historians of religion and archaeologists are becoming increasingly aware that the movement of worshipers must have played an important role in their ritual experience, archaeological finds are not available for every ritual. The ritual at the mountain is one such ritual. The chapter therefore turns to the so-called “early” sources on maenadism from the fifth century BC, both literary and visual, and the analysis assumes that these sources form part of the Athenian imaginary, they belong to the realm of representations. The first part describes the structuring of space in the Bacchae, while the second moves back in time to the first third of the fifth century BC and to a small group of Attic vases. Just as the study of archaeological space has proven informative in tracing the worshipers’ experience in a sanctuary, the consistent representation of this mountain space as related to movement, dancing and an altered state of consciousness could also shed some light on the ritual experience of maenads in the Athenian imaginary.

This article seeks to explain two of the stranger remarks in Plato’s Symposium. Beginning from the commonly observed Dionysian characteristics of the intruding Alcibiades, it argues that this resemblance between the general and the god is key to understanding both dramatic and philosophical aspects of the dialogue. Alcibiades resembles not just any image of Dionysus, but specifically that of the angered god in Euripides’ Bacchae. Of the two remarks examined, the first occurs in the course of Diotima’s description of the conception of Eros, and alerts us to the absence of Dionysus. The second, more comprehensible after recognising the import of the first, is the last remark of Socrates’ reported by Apollodorus, that the best poet should be an accomplished exponent of both tragedy and comedy. Again, many critics have suspected this remark of providing some clue as to Plato’s intention and the character of the dialogue. It is argued that recourse to the play that furnishes the Dionysian image of Alcibiades illuminates the statement: in its content, Symposium is predominantly comedic, while its form, circumscribing the speeches, mimics that of a tragedy—specifically, Euripides’ Bacchae.

Abstract:
The logos of the soul requires a way of seeing outside of the positive, everyday seeing which ego
consciousness utilizes. By exploring the kind of seeing we find in the theatrical event, (specifically
the complex relationship between audience and performer) and comparing theatre with Jung’s
writings on dream and active imagination, themes of reflexivity and reciprocity are highlighted. A
reading of Euripides’ Bacchae reveals that to see the psychic image means to be seen by it and that
this reflexive theoria is Dionysian, displaying a logos that, through its profoundly paradoxical nature
moves beyond the subject/object dichotomy.

Keywords:
Theatre, Jung on Active Imagination, Seeing the psychic image, Dionysian, Paradox, Subject/Object.

The great masquerade of reversals portrayed in the Euripides Bakchai offers a baffling discourse on the status and image of the. On the one hand the stranger is a central attribute of Dionysos who is, by his nature, foreign to this world and even a stranger to himself. He is the other, the unknown, lacking any clear identity, always fluid, present and absent at the same time. He arrives at the city of Thebes masked as a foreign "practitioner of the sacred" carrying the knowledge of the secret mystical cult of the unwanted god Dionysos i.e. himself. But as opposed to the stranger coming from afar Dionysos escapes even this structure for he returns to his homeland. He is not the stranger who must learn the habits of a new country; he is the one forcing his own habits on his homeland. In some way this duplicity is the actualization of his true nature as a god who is also a human being, and thus existing in those two realms, never belonging to either. These extremes are enhanced by the fact that self alienation is the root of the tragedy of the stranger; as such the liberation offered by the Dionysian rite includes in itself the necessary alienation to the former self. The initiate who is encountered with the foreign god is required to yield his own personality so that he may be filled with the presence of god who is forever transcendent and as such forever foreign to the world of the worshiper. On the other hand Pentheus, as a perverted mirror image, is the ruler-king but his conduct and nature and the dramatic process of the play portray him as a stranger, starting from his connection to the chthonic and violent spartoi and ending with the process in which he becomes a stranger to his former self and to life itself.
In my paper I would like to offer a reading of this famous play based on the construct of the xenos as expressing the system of reversals which forms not only the dualistic images of Dionysos, but also expresses the violent struggle inherent to the mystical experience itself. I would like to claim that the metaphor of the stranger is part of the fact that Dionysos is in many ways may the personification of the "mystical" itself i.e., of the opposition of divine and human realms as constructing within the human realm the existence of the complete other.

Frontespizio, indice e introduzione della mia tesi di laurea magistrale in Antropologia del Mondo Antico (relatore: Andrea Taddei; correlatore: Alessandro Grilli). Il lavoro analizza l’immaginario mitico-rituale del dionisismo del V secolo - così come declinato nelle "Baccanti" euripidee - in relazione alle dinamiche di costruzione dell’identità sociale dei "politai" ateniesi.

Allusion to Euripides' Bacchae in the Aeneid is considered in terms of Virgil's poetics of civil war. Aeneas plays the role of Dionysus; Turnus replays Pentheus; Amata alludes to Agave. The Euripidean allusion intersects with echoes of recent Roman history.

This thesis aims to recount the performance history of Euripides’ Bakkhai with special reference to nine eminent productions of the 20th century. First, I deal with methodological issues on how one gathers together the pieces of evidence from an ‘invisible’ performance. Given that the Bakkhai was only revived in the 20th century,
the review of its textual reception in Chapter 1 covers the gap between the textual and the theatrical re-usage of the play. Moreover, to review the literature would prove that
there is indeed a structural model already inbuilt in the text and subsequently applied to performance not necessarily as a footnote to classicist theories. Chapter 2 retells the
stage history of the Bakkhai through nine of the least documented productions of this ‘forgotten’ Euripidean tragedy. My Conclusions decipher the structural model of the Bakkhai and provide an explanation for its ‘otherness’ as a tragedy intended for the theatre of the mise-en-scène.

Se Dioniso non fosse un dio, ma il sacerdote che l'ha inventato, come risulterebbe la sinossi delle "Baccanti" di Euripide? Il punto di vista ateo fa di Penteo la vittima di una guerra santa, combattuta per la supremazia del potere religioso su quello politico.

Perris situates his fine monograph on versions of Euripides’ Bacchae amidst ‘stronger’ and ‘weaker’ theses on reception. P. finds that this tragedy is fertile material, ‘predisposed to creative translation’ (p. 170). Hence Bacchae provokes responses so diverse as Gilbert Murray’s ‘mystery play’ (p. 63), H.D.’s ‘incantatory, secular mysticism’ (p. 93), Derek Mahon’s ‘anti-political’ irreverence (p. 96), and Colin Teevan’s deadpan ‘translationese’ (p. 120). While P. offers no substan- tial commentary on Brian de Palma and Wole Soyinka, whose versions of Bacchae have received much critical attention elsewhere, his book covers an impressive expanse. Each translation is considered amidst the efforts of its author’s contemporaries, and we are given an exhaustive list of adaptations of the play. P. takes a strong line on the versions we should avoid: ‘the less said about Dionysus in New York (2008), by retired New York State Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Clemente, the better’; Richard Edwin Day’s 1909 epic is ‘insufferable’ (p. 47). Contemplation of Dionysus’ manifestations even begets allusions to Spinal Tap, Jimi Hendrix and Queens of the Stone Age.

In this paper I propose to investigate how Euripides frames the phenomena of wisdom and folly, in order to distinguish between mortals and the gods. Both the triumph of reason and its breakdown are subject to the relativism that derives from human ideas of good judgement, which are apparently different from the gods’. In his tragedies, Euripides outlines characters who wonder whether it is possible to define wisdom unambiguously, as the result of cognitive effort. We will look at examples of a plausible double system of values, and at the difficulty of being able to attach coherent definitions of both wisdom and folly to the very same phenomena, which indicates the inadequacy of human language and its incapability of signifying reality. These examples bring out an interesting aspect of Euripides’ incessant exploration of the meaning of the divine.

This paper focuses on the performative perspective of fear in the
contemporary theatrical experience, in order to propose a reading that can be framed according to the direction of Euripides’ Bacchae by the Master of the international scene Theodoros Terzopoulos. Using a short projection of the audiovisual material of the performance, we will try to identify the passage from the text to the theatrical performance. The video focus on the figure of Agave and her communicative models
when he recognizes the broken head of her son Pentheus, one of the most famous and touching scenes of ancient Greek tragedy. The path starts from the vision of the actress’s character on stage, from the performing of fear and its dual manifestation: the one of phonological character (voice) and the other of the prosopographic character
(face) that will allow us to highlight the aesthetic outcomes following the dramaturgical choices made by the director to underline the fear of the character as a linguistic act.

La fortuna scenica delle Baccanti nella modernità, se paragonata a quella di altre tragedie, ha origine in tempi piuttosto recenti. Dopo la grande popolarità di cui aveva goduto nella Grecia tardo-antica, infatti, l’ultimo testo euripideo sembra sparire totalmente dalla scena. Non lo tocca il rinnovato interesse che da più di due secoli ripopola i teatri di numerose tragedie classiche: il dramma delle Baccanti non sembra trovare spazio nei cartelloni teatrali fino al 1908 e anche dopo tale data l’assenza si protrae, con rare eccezioni, per gran parte del XX Secolo. Soltanto al termine degli anni ’60 – meno di mezzo secolo fa – la tragedia euripidea conosce nuova luce, riemergendo in una folta varietà di rappresentazioni che continua ancora oggi ad affollare i palcoscenici di tutto il mondo.

Un caso singolare all’interno di tale improvviso fenomeno di ripresa, nell’ambito italiano è costituito dalle Baccanti dirette da Luca Ronconi. Il primo fattore a destare attenzione è certamente l’insistenza con cui il regista torna a interrogare, nel corso della sua carriera, il testo euripideo: non pago della prima messinscena, Ronconi decide infatti di rimettere più volte mano, nell’arco del trentennio che va dal 1973 al 2002, alla tragedia di Dioniso. Con curiosa pertinacia, le Baccanti sono così riproposte allo sguardo del pubblico contemporaneo secondo tre disegni registici molto diversi.

În imaginarul colectiv, „străinul" este mai mult decât un cumul de trăsături etnice. Afectul deviant și diferența etnică le apropie pe Medeea și Laura Brown, ipostaze ale străinei malefice. Meursault al lui Albert Camus suferă de o schizoidie sublimată prin valorizare etică și ontologică. Aceasta permite asocierea „străinului "camusian cu o figură emblematică a gnozei: înstrăinatul care acuză – cu un diagnostic à la Hans Jonas – o „dublă alienare”: față de lume și de transcendență. În al doilea rând, este posibilă asocierea erolui camusian cu o figură kierkegaardiană, „cavalerul resemnării”. Gânditorul danez, model declarat al lui Camus, vede în „cavalerul resemnării” pe „înstrăinatul prin excelență”. Penteu tebanul și Aschenbach al lui Thomas Mann împărtășesc aceeași experiență: revelația alterității interioare – dimensiune cenzurată și finalmente devastatoare a personalității. Eul acesta secund, anarhic poartă – la Euripide, în „Bacantele” și în „Moartea laVeneția”, de Thomas Mann – o mască mitologică și o încărcătură psihanalitică: „zeul străin”, Dionysos lysios, „Eliberatorul”.

ABSTRACT The drama of King Pentheus, ritual adversary and victim of the god Dionysos in Euripides’s Bacchae, bears striking resemblance to the drama of the alcoholic-addict in the progression of his or her disease. The chorus of the Bacchae sings of the holy rites and ancient wisdom that could cure the “madness” of Pentheus, in which resonances with the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous can be found. In a larger context, the Bacchae is also the nightmare of the end of what the Greeks called the Age of Zeus, our present age, characterized by the increasing hemispheric lateralization of our cerebral cortex and the hyperdevelopment and dominance of our left-hemispheric powers of abstract reasoning. This neurological evolution transformed human consciousness and reality according to its logos, rejecting and banishing to the unconscious the mythos of the knowing body: the heart, the gut, and all our embodied, direct, holistic powers of perceiving. This transformation of consciousness is described archetypally in three myths of the god Dionysos’s birth. These depict how the god of life was dismembered to become an abstract, deathless Olympian; the soot and ashes of the Titans from which humans were made; and the literal form of the god, that is, wine. In our Western psychohistorical and cultural history, these myths depict the rescue of the idealized, masculine, impenetrable hero/ego from the vicissitudes of mortal life. Over time, the archaic meaning of initiation and of “hero” as initiated human embedded in community and the lineage of ancestors, was lost in the glorification of the ideal Apollonian hero’s power to escape the limitations of embodiment by making others (or the unconscious/body) suffer and die for him. This article explores the necessity to re-member the dismembered incarnate god from the shadows of the abandoned body of need and desire for communion. AA offers a template for the acceptance of essential limitation and personal suffering as initiation into experience of the embodied divine in and through community as well as in individual relationship with a greater reality. Such initiatory practices constitute rebirth in a divine self and world, described by Jung as the inauguration of the Age of the Holy Spirit.

The multiple similarities between the "Bacchae" and the "Frogs" have long intrigued scholars and inspired theories about the intertextual relationship of the two plays. In his book (based on his doctoral dissertation at Exeter University), L. Barzini views both plays as reactions to the grave socio-political crisis of civic division and constitutional tensions, which plagued Athenian public life at that time, on the eve of the defeat of Athens in the great war. As an initiate in Richard Seaford's school, Barzini lays emphasis on the interaction between mystic rituals and civic experience. His central thesis is that the "Bacchae" and the "Frogs" share a common political purpose: the poets propose that reconciliation of the opposed factions in the polis will be achieved through the ethical and social values of the Eleusinian and Dionysiac mystery rituals, which are endorsed by the citizen population. The choruses of the two plays, the Eleusinian mystai of the "Frogs" and Dionysus’ Maenads in the "Bacchae", represent on stage the thiasoi of the initiates of the mysteries, which constitute all-inclusive and egalitarian communities with shared religious and moral beliefs and, as such, provide an ideal model for the equality-centred democratic state.

Unfortunately, the book is a rather immature work and is marred by may flaws. The central thesis is overblown with multifarious materials concerning the Realien of ancient theatre and mystery cults, which might be easily found in standard handbooks. There is some repetitiveness in the exposition of the arguments. The author tries to trace mystic elements in every kind of poetic and historical discourse, even when a more straightforward interpretation is available and more suitable. The question of the ideological positions of Euripides and Aristophanes is treated in a simplified, if not naïve manner. The author displays a cavalier attitude towards the principles of historical Quellenkritik and philological/textual criticism. There are also serious factual mistakes (Aeschines is mixed up with Ctesiphon, the eponymous archon with the archon basileus, Nestor with Calchas), which are frankly surprising for an author who holds a PhD in Classics.

For more detailed and in-depth discussion of the problems of this book, see also the probing review by Dimitrios Kanellakis in the new volume of the Logeion (https://logeion.upatras.gr/node/281, https://www.academia.edu/79796879/Review_of_L_Barzini_2021_Mystery_Cults_Theatre_and_Athenian_Politics_London).

In the field of studies on the 'theatricality' of Plato’s dialogues, this article deals with Plato's 'Symposium', its references to theatre (real and metaphorical), and in particular its relationship with Aristophanes’ 'Frogs' and Euripides' 'Bacchae'.
In fact, in his dialogue Plato refers repeatedly to these classical plays, that share their Dionysiac nature with the 'Symposium' their Dionysiac nature: in the verbal competition of the philosophic symposium, the arbiter of which is called Dionysus, Socrates is seen as the comic Aeschylus of Aristophanes’ 'Frogs' (winner of the challenge with Euripides in the underworld, and crowned by Dionysus like Socrates by Alcibiades), and also as the tragic Dionysus of Euripides’ 'Bacchae' (the only tragedy with this god as a character). Thus Socrates appears the absolute king of theatre.
The message we receive from these echoes and allusions, is that the mysterious 'player who is able to write comedies as well as tragedies' (mentioned by Socrates in the final part of 'Symposium'), is precisely the philosopher: Platonic philosophy is proposed as a new form of theatre that puts together comedy and tragedy in a single search for truth.

This chapter is about the afterlife ('reception') of one of the greatest of all Greek tragedies, Euripides' Bacchae, from antiquity to the present day. It appears in the first-ever essay collection devoted to the worldwide reception of this most modern of playwrights. Bacchae is probably Euripides' darkest, most violent play, and it became especially popular from the mid-20th century. In this chapter, I collect and discuss reflections of Bacchae in translations, performances, adaptations, poems, plays, operas, and even paintings, exploring the idea that one focus of the play, in the original performance and in later eras, is violence and change.

Abstract: This article aims to give a new reading to the concluding events in Plutarch’s Crassus by employing a broader comparison between the Nicias and the Crassus in order to distinguish the historical facts from the literary artifices adopted by Plutarch  (which, according to the author, help illuminate the nature of his characters).
Through a combination of Plutarch studies, neo-parthiká and ars militaris, I will attempt to expand the discourse identified by Braund (i.e., the link between Plutarch and Dionysus, Crassus and Bacchus) and develop the method put forth by Zadirojniy (on the “symmetry of polarities” use of Euripides in the Crassus and Nicias).

Sobre Dionísio "Não estamos aqui para explicações." T.S. Eliot O desafio de abarcar o mito de Dionísio é grande, principalmente tentando uma abordagem racional, completa e ordenada-"apolínea"-que seria justamente o seu oposto. Dionísio é um deus jovem, o último imortal nascido das relações promíscuas de Zeus. O mito de seu nascimento já sinaliza as contradições que vão acompanhar para sempre seu nome e sua presença. Concebido por Semele, bela jovem filha de Cadmo, rei fundador de Tebas. Semele foi seduzida por Zeus; ao saber que estava grávida de um filho, Hera disfarçada de ama a convence a pedir a Zeus para vê-lo em sua plenitude divina. Zeus cumpre a promessa que havia feito a ela e atende seu pedido, aparecendo como um raio que a queima e consome fatalmente. Sabendo que um filho seu está em seu ventre, pede a Hermes que o retire ainda como feto e o costura no interior de sua coxa. Quando ele julga que a criança está pronta, vai até o monte Nysia e o retira-e de onde recebe seu nome Dios Nysia, "de Zeus em Nysia", Dionísio. Deste nascimento vem suas primeiras características: humano e divino, "o nascido duas vezes", parido de um "útero masculino" que é a coxa de seu pai-e não da cabeça, racional, como foi Palas Athena, já nascida de armadura e pronta ao combate. Criado por ninfas, no ambiente da natureza, oculto por Zeus da fúria da esposa traída, Dionísio cria laços profundos com o feminino, com a terra, com a natureza. Torna-se o único deus grego cujo principal atributo é a loucura, em sentido amplo: o que está fora do mundo real, o desconhecido, o misterioso, o ambíguo, o que não pode ser definido, enfim. Como disse W.C.K. Guthrie, "o culto a Dionísio jamais poderá ser explicado em sua totalidade". Passa a ser sempre um deus estranho ao panteão oficial grego. Seus atributos são estranhos ao que os gregos mais prezam, qual seja, o racional, previsível, ordenado, tradicional e patriarcal. Surge sempre como um elemento perturbador da ordem, da destruição, e seus cultos são vistos como algo a ser controlado, disciplinado pelo estado. Destas tentativas de acolher o mito no seio da pólis, surge o advento da tragédia grega-traygos + ode, o "canto do bode", ou seja, uma celebração a uma das muitas formas animalescas de Dionísio.

As regards the methodological matters pertaining to the stage of the Theatre of Dionysus in the age of Euripides, it is argued that dramatic texts should be studied on the basis of a synchronic approach, in conjunction with the whole dramatic production and the visual arts of that era. There follows a detailed survey of the evidence coming from the eighteen surviving Euripidean plays. The interpretation of the extant corpus suggests that the stage building in the last quarter of the fifth century seems to have a tripartite structure with paraskenia at each of the two sides and may be reminiscentof the Propylaea at the Acropolis. It probably had three doors (including two side doors at the paraskenia), a f lat roof and windows at the paraskenia, and involved the use of stage machinery (mechane, ekkyklema). The existence of a slightly raised stage, a crepidoma and a portico is highly likely. What remains unclear so far is the exact form of the central door (did it comprise a permanent porch?), the question of the overall height of the skene building, as well as the form of the levels on which stage action evolved in each case.

In this paper I argue that by reading Plato's Republic through the ancient Greek genre of the satyr-play, new insights into his project emerge. I start by showing that the dialogue abounds with a number of hitherto unrecognized satyr-play elements. Second, I argue that the unique form of serious play, characteristic of the ancient Greek satyr-play, helps to explain the kind of stance that Plato hoped to pass on to his readers, which
includes a combination of suspicion and engagement, distance and proximity, humor and seriousness in relation to any authoritative utterance, including those coming from his character, Socrates.