At Miletos a hierarchy of women served Dionysus. The main polis priestess of
Dionysus was at the top, and the suburban and rural priestesses were under her
administration. Taking the two texts together, we can see that the duties of the
main city priestess included presiding over sacrifices (both public and private), man-
aging the equipment for Bacchic celebrations, leading the city’sBakkhaito the
mountain, taking part in a public procession for the whole city, managing the
women who performed initiation ceremonies in the city’s territory, and participating
in theKatago ̄giafor Dionysus. At Kos the priestess of Dionysus Thyllophoros also
mediated between the city administration and local groups of female worshipers. The
priestess here appointed a subordinate priestess in each deme, and it was not possible
for any other woman to perform initiations (or, more accurately, ‘‘perform special
rites’’) for Dionysus Thyllophoros. If the priestess found that anyone had not
followed the rules, herkurioshad to report the woman to the local council (Soko-
lowski 1969: no. 166, 24–30, 67–8). Clearly the city administration at Kos assumed
that small private groups of women were in need of oversight when the issue was a
Bacchic celebration.
Dionysus and the Dead
A gold-clad bronze krater of the fourth century BC, excavated at Derveni in Mace-
donia, is reminiscent of the golden amphora of Thetis. Both were vessels for holding
wine and both were used to collect ashes from cremation. The Macedonian krater is
decorated with a continuous frieze of Dionysiac images in high relief. Scenes around
the belly of the vase include Dionysus himself and Ariadne with satyrs and maenads in
a wild dance. TwoBakkhaisit on the shoulder of the vase, both sunk in deep sleep,
each paired with a vigilant satyr. The same Lykourgos who attacked Dionysus in the
Iliadappears in the frieze, raving here with a terrible madness imposed by the god
(Gioure 1978: pls 11–16). Completely out of his mind, Lykourgos prepares to
dismember his own little son, held aloft by an ankle in the grasp of a frenziedBakkhe ̄.
The scene tells us that the punishment of Dionysus is terrible and that Lykourgos
suffered what he deserved, but why would anyone choose to be buried in a vase
decorated with a scene like this?
The answer to this question begins in Hipponion, a small Greek city in the very
south of Italy, where a tiny gold tablet inscribed with instructions for reaching the
world of the dead was found in the grave of a woman in 1969. The text, dated about
400 BC, only a little earlier than the Derveni krater, gives detailed instructions for a
scripted performance by the soul when confronted by the guardians of the under-
world:
This is the task of Memory; when you are about to die...
[line missing?]
into the broad halls of Hades, there is to the right a spring:
and standing next to it a white cypress tree;
arriving down there, the souls of the dead grow cold.
Do not go near this spring at all.338 Susan Guettel Cole