and Lenaion, for the Lenaia, were common throughout the cities of the Cyclades,
Ionia, and the Ionian colonies. Agrionos, named for the Agrionia (‘‘wild-like’’
rituals), was common in Doric areas, in Boeotia, and in Thessaly. Thuios (named
for the Thuia, ‘‘raving women’’ rituals) was common in the Peloponnese and Thes-
saly. Dionysus moved north with Greek colonization. He was taken to Thasos from
Paros, to Abdera from Teos, and to Olbia from Miletos. At both Teos and Abdera the
Dionysiac rituals called Anthesteria constituted one of the three major festivals
of the polis. At Olbia an inscription with a complete calendar of the months repro-
duces the Milesian calendar and confirms that both cities originally celebrated
the same festivals. Herodotus makes it clear that the Bacchic rites practiced at
Olbia were Greek rites imported from Miletos and despised by the local indigenous
population (4.78). His information about solemn Bacchic rites,teletai, is confirmed
by several recent finds at Olbia, among them a bronze mirror of the sixth century
BC inscribed with a Dionysiac theophoric name together with the Bacchic ritual
cry used by females, euai (Dubois 1996:143–6 no. 92). The evidence for
Dionysus in Ionia is especially rich. In later periods Dionysiac inscriptions tend to
be thickly clustered in the Greek cities along the Ionian coast and to thin out
considerably as one proceeds inland. In the coastal cities inscriptions testify to
public organization of his priesthoods as part of the city administration and
public organization of his festivals as part of the regular festival calendar. Inland,
where the institutions of the polis developed later, Dionysus is not always a
polis divinity and rarely appears in public documents. His impact in inland areas is
limited to private dedications, sepulchral texts, and the records generated by private
organizations.
Experiencing Dionysus
In Euripides’Bacchaethe women of Thebes, compelled to dance in the mountains for
Dionysus, are calledmainades, ‘‘mad women.’’ E.R. Dodds interpreted this noun as a
ritual title and the plot of the play as a historical account of a religious movement
(Dodds 1960:xv, xx–xxii). He describedoreibasiaas a series of rites where women
roamed the mountains and actually tore apart wild animals (sparagmos). Dodds
presentssparagmosas preparation for a sacrifice where the worshiper ate the flesh of
the sacrificial victim raw, ̄omophagia. His interpretation, delivered with fervor in the
introduction to his deservedly admired commentary on Euripides’ play, still convinces
some, but it is not clear that ‘‘maenad’’ was a ritual title or that spontaneous attacks of
frenzy incited females to mass exodus to the mountains for dancing and the rending
of wild animals (Henrichs 1978). Rather, the myths of resistance describing excessive
frenzy inflicted by a punitive Dionysus show the dangers of refusing to honor the god
and therefore explain the local rituals designed to meet his approval.
It is important to notice that there are two different groups of ‘‘maenads’’
in Euripides’ play, the women who accompany the god from Asia, successfully per-
forming his solemn rituals,teletai, and the women of Thebes, harshly punished for
refusing to recognize him as a god. Euripides also distinguishes two kinds ofmania,
‘‘madness.’’ The first is the positive ritual experience of identification with the god as
described by the Chorus of LydianBakkhaiwhen it enters the orchestra. The second is
Finding Dionysus 329