(no subject)
From the admirable Perseus classics website:
Bacchantes
Men and women who joined in the Dionysian festivals dressed in Asiatic robes and bonnets; and with their heads wreathed with vine and ivy leaves, with fawn-skins (nebrides) flung over their shoulders, and thyrsi, or blunt spears twined with vine-leaves, in their hands, they ran through the country, shouting Io Bacche! Euoi! Iacche! Ia. Iê. swinging their thyrsi, beating on drums, and sounding various instruments. Indecent emblems were carried in procession, and the ceremonies often assumed a most immoral character and tendency. The women, who bore a chief part in these frantic revels, were called Bacchae, Maenades, Thyiades, Euades. See Dionysia.
-- Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)
No shit. They're basically having an orgy and you're sitting there tut-tutting at the mysteries assuming "a most immoral character and tendency"? The 19th century amuses me so.
and why am i blogging random rubbish?? study! study!
Bacchantes
Men and women who joined in the Dionysian festivals dressed in Asiatic robes and bonnets; and with their heads wreathed with vine and ivy leaves, with fawn-skins (nebrides) flung over their shoulders, and thyrsi, or blunt spears twined with vine-leaves, in their hands, they ran through the country, shouting Io Bacche! Euoi! Iacche! Ia. Iê. swinging their thyrsi, beating on drums, and sounding various instruments. Indecent emblems were carried in procession, and the ceremonies often assumed a most immoral character and tendency. The women, who bore a chief part in these frantic revels, were called Bacchae, Maenades, Thyiades, Euades. See Dionysia.
-- Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)
No shit. They're basically having an orgy and you're sitting there tut-tutting at the mysteries assuming "a most immoral character and tendency"? The 19th century amuses me so.
and why am i blogging random rubbish?? study! study!