aulos(double flute) or listening to music; (3) excessive wine-drinking; (4) losing a
physical contest; (5) sleep; and (6) death (Frontisi-Ducroux 1995:81–132 divides the
Dionysiac frontal images into sleep and death; the symposium; satyrs; and females as
object of the male gaze). The full frontal face compels attention. There is no gaze
when the eyes are closed in sleep or death, but even closed eyes do not dilute the
impact of the full face, ominous because the situations where it appears are so
unstable. Even among a crowd of figures, it is normally only one head that turns
toward the viewer. A scene showing the dismemberment of Pentheus, however,
provides a rare example of two figures in full frontal view on the same side of
the vase. Here, among a group of dancing women in profile, two women move
in dance, faces turned outward, unaware that what they have in their hands is
pieces of Pentheus’ torn body (LIMCvii, pl. 259; Carpenter 1997a: pl. 42A–B;
Frontisi-Ducroux 1995: pl. 70).
Dionysus is associated with four of the six principal categories of transition to
altered states: frenetic dancing, wine, sleep, and death. His followers, the satyrs and
nymphs who give themselves over to violent dancing, do so because they are suscep-
tible to his power. The isolated dancing female displayed full face among others in
profile risks giving way to a trance so powerful that she may not be able to throw it off
by herself. For females excluded from the symposium, frenetic dancing is a substitute
for wine-drinking and a means of reaching Dionysus. The god is responsible for the
trance, and he is also responsible for its release. Worshipers need him for both
transitions.
For females exhausted by dancing, sleep is an antidote for exertion, but Dionysus
must give his support to secure the process. The sleep of Ariadne under the influence
of Dionysus is explored first in red-figure vase painting (McNally 1985). Ariadne
appears sleeping in frontal view as she is about to lose Theseus (ARV^2 560; McNally
1985: pl. iii, fig. 4). The sleep of Ariadne is the sleep of theBakkhairecovering from
the exertion of ritual. When the messenger in Euripides’ Bacchaegoes up the
mountain to look for the Theban women possessed by Dionysus, he finds them
draped over rocks and foliage, sleeping in exhaustion from the intensity of their
experience (Bacchae683–94). Similar scenes are depicted on red-figure vases, where
solitary females worn out from dancing are caught in deep sleep out in the open
countryside, exposed, unprotected, and in danger of sexual interference by satyrs.
Sleep is the transitional state that can restore the exhausted worshiper to normal
consciousness, but restoration also depends on Dionysus as Lusios, ‘‘Releaser.’’ The
mad women on the mountain in Euripides’Bacchaeare prevented from recovery
when their sleep is interrupted by Agave’s piercing ololuge ̄(a shrill ritual cry).
Dionysus will not permit them to awaken until they have torn Pentheus apart.
A story about a group of Delphic Thuiades replicates the pattern. As Plutarch tells
it, the Thuiades celebrating the winter rites of Dionysus on Parnassus lost their way at
night while raving (ekmaineisai) for the god and ended up at Amphissa. Exhausted
and unable to think clearly, they fell asleep in the agora. The women of Amphissa,
anxious about the threat posed by soldiers billeted in the town and recognizing the
therapeutic power of deep sleep, ran out and stood guard in silence until the Thuiades
awoke (Plutarch,The Virtues of Women249e–f). The women of Amphissa protected
the Thuiades from more than the soldiers; they also rescued the women from the
dangers of interrupted ritual.
Finding Dionysus 333