the transgressive and frenzied behavior inflicted by the god on the three daughters of
Kadmos and their cohorts, the corrupt and pollutedBakkhai.
The first Bacchic experience is induced by willing participation inteletaiandorgia,
where the worshiper yields to union with Dionysus and achieves simultaneous spir-
itual community with the Bacchic group (thiaseuetai psukhan: Euripides,Bacchae
75). In this process Dionysus (also called Bromios) is the one who decides. As
Herodotus puts it when describing the effects of Bacchicteleltaion Skyles, the
Scythian king, Dionysus ‘‘takes hold of ’’ (lambanei) the one performing Bacchic
ritual (4.79). The second experience, described in Euripides’Bacchaeby the messen-
ger, first to Pentheus (675–774) and then to the horrified Chorus (1043–1152), is
something else altogether. It is a painful affliction. The first is enacted in a regular
ritual celebrated every two years (triete ̄rides:Bacchae33); the second is inflicted as a
divine punishment in which Dionysiacmaniais no longer the result of communal
ritual, but a consequence of delusion controlled by the god. ‘‘To the mountain, to the
mountain [eis oros, eis oros]’’ is a ritual cry used by Euripides, but it is only the second
group of mad women that actually climbs Mount Kithairon.
Interpreting Resistance
Dionysus is so difficult to pin down because he is ever on the move and always in a
perennial state of arrival and epiphany (Detienne 1989a:6–10; Otto 1965:71–80).
On Attic vases Dionysus traveling with a grapevine is paired with Triptolemos, the
Eleusinian hero who carried Demeter’s gift of grain throughout the world (Schwarz
1987). Bread and wine were considered the basic components of a civilized diet,
and Dionysus and Demeter were recognized in ritual for providing these gifts to all.
Dionysus should have been welcomed everywhere, but wine was a problematic gift
and Dionysus was considered a foreign newcomer.
Myths of local resistance to the rites of Dionysus fit a standard pattern. One plot
focuses on females. Insult to the god’s divine status leads to punishment of a king’s
daughters by inflicting them with madness and inciting them to leave their weaving
and their children to rave in the mountains. Dionysus can infect those who challenge
him with madness so strong that they even tear their own children apart. This is the
plot of stories told about the daughters of Kadmos at Thebes (Euripides,Bacchae);
the daughters of Minyas at Orchomenos (Plutarch,Greek Questions38); the daughters
of Eleuther at Eleutherai (Suda, ‘‘Melan’’); and the daughters of Proitos at Argos
(Apollodorus,Library2.2.2).
Another plot targets males. In one version Dionysus arrives in Attica from Thebes
by the route over Mount Kithairon and through the pass at Eleutherai. Continuing to
Ikaria, he is received by Ikarios, to whom he gives a vine branch. In one version,
Ikarios learns to make wine and shares it with a group of shepherds. They drink up the
wine without diluting it with water and become very drunk. Believing that they have
been poisoned, they kill Ikarios. When his daughter Erigone finds his body, she hangs
herself (Apollodorus,Library3.14.7). The story illustrates the danger of wine to a
society not yet ready to manage its consumption.
In both story patterns Dionysus appears to be a threat to community, but evidence
for his worship tells us otherwise. The Delphic oracle promoted Dionysus more than
330 Susan Guettel Cole