Dancing in the Streets (5 page)
Read Dancing in the Streets Online
Authors: Barbara Ehrenreich
No, the single most shocking feature of maenadismâto Euripides no less than to his readers todayâwas its reputed violence. At
the height of their frenzy, the women worshippers were said to catch wild animals in the woods, tear them apart while still alive, and eat them raw. There are even words in Greek to describe these actions:
sparagmos
, for the rending of a living creature, and
omophagia
, for the eating of the raw meat, torn from the bones by hand. The victims included small creatures like snakes, but also deer and bear and wolves, and, in myth or fiction anyway, sometimes even humans; the plot of
The Bacchae
hinges on the revelers' mistaking their own king for a lion and tearing him limb from limb.
the height of their frenzy, the women worshippers were said to catch wild animals in the woods, tear them apart while still alive, and eat them raw. There are even words in Greek to describe these actions:
sparagmos
, for the rending of a living creature, and
omophagia
, for the eating of the raw meat, torn from the bones by hand. The victims included small creatures like snakes, but also deer and bear and wolves, and, in myth or fiction anyway, sometimes even humans; the plot of
The Bacchae
hinges on the revelers' mistaking their own king for a lion and tearing him limb from limb.
Such treatment of animals may have been less repulsive to the Greeks, who practiced routine animal sacrifice, than it seems to us. The potentially shocking feature of the maenads' behavior is that they, of course, are female. Usually they are said to kill their prey by hand, but in at least one depiction (on a
pyxis
, a container for salves), according to Lillian Joyce, two maenads, their hair flying out behind them, “suspend a deer belly up with its head hanging limply. This is the moment before the victim will be torn into pieces. The violence of the scene is revved up to a degree by the presence of the sword, a traditionally male implement.”
36
pyxis
, a container for salves), according to Lillian Joyce, two maenads, their hair flying out behind them, “suspend a deer belly up with its head hanging limply. This is the moment before the victim will be torn into pieces. The violence of the scene is revved up to a degree by the presence of the sword, a traditionally male implement.”
36
Clearly, the maenads' animal victims did not offer themselves up willingly for capture; the women who ran off into the mountains to worship Dionysus were also
hunting
. Lillian Portefaix has suggested that maenadism may have been a reenactment of archaic communal huntingâbefore metal weapons and the male monopolization of hunting skillsâwhen a group of people or women alone would chase and surround their prey, killing it with whatever implements lay at hand and perhaps eating it on the spot.
37
If I am right about the origins of danced rituals in communal hunting and other confrontations with animalsâand the violence of the maenads is certainly consistent with this hypothesisâthen maenadism would seem to be a very primordial form of festival: one in which dancing, revelry, feasting, and costuming still bore traces of the collective human encounter with animals.
hunting
. Lillian Portefaix has suggested that maenadism may have been a reenactment of archaic communal huntingâbefore metal weapons and the male monopolization of hunting skillsâwhen a group of people or women alone would chase and surround their prey, killing it with whatever implements lay at hand and perhaps eating it on the spot.
37
If I am right about the origins of danced rituals in communal hunting and other confrontations with animalsâand the violence of the maenads is certainly consistent with this hypothesisâthen maenadism would seem to be a very primordial form of festival: one in which dancing, revelry, feasting, and costuming still bore traces of the collective human encounter with animals.
It may be relevant here that, in myth, Dionysus occasionally
takes the form of Zagreus, the great hunter. In their reenactment of prehistoric communal hunting, his worshippers were boldly subverting the division of labor between the sexes that prevailed in historic times. The maenad was beautiful and feminine, portrayed in vase paintings with long flowing hair and sometimes an exposed breast, which a fawn might suckle at. But she was also a hunter, who had acquired male strength and usurped the male monopoly over violence. In this way, the Dionysian rites offered the kind of “ritual of inversion” that could be found in the Roman festival of Saturnalia, European carnival, and the festivities of so many other cultures, in which members of subordinate groupsâin this case, womenâtemporarily take the roles of their social superiors. During Saturnalia, masters had to wait on their slaves; carnival allowed peasants to impersonate kings; and Dionysian worship gave women license to hunt.
takes the form of Zagreus, the great hunter. In their reenactment of prehistoric communal hunting, his worshippers were boldly subverting the division of labor between the sexes that prevailed in historic times. The maenad was beautiful and feminine, portrayed in vase paintings with long flowing hair and sometimes an exposed breast, which a fawn might suckle at. But she was also a hunter, who had acquired male strength and usurped the male monopoly over violence. In this way, the Dionysian rites offered the kind of “ritual of inversion” that could be found in the Roman festival of Saturnalia, European carnival, and the festivities of so many other cultures, in which members of subordinate groupsâin this case, womenâtemporarily take the roles of their social superiors. During Saturnalia, masters had to wait on their slaves; carnival allowed peasants to impersonate kings; and Dionysian worship gave women license to hunt.
Who was this god who could intoxicate the mighty as well as the poor, who dared to challenge the power of men over women? Modern scholars have often looked at Dionysus with the same bafflement and dismay that European travelers brought to the “savage” rites they witnessed in distant lands. In his introduction to
The Bacchae
, written in 1954, Philip Vellacott opined that this is not a god whom “decent people will be prepared to worship.”
38
Walter Otto, in his book on Dionysus, exclaimed: “A god who is mad! A god, part of whose nature it is to be insane! What did they experience or seeâthese men on whom the horror of this concept must have forced itself?”
39
The Bacchae
, written in 1954, Philip Vellacott opined that this is not a god whom “decent people will be prepared to worship.”
38
Walter Otto, in his book on Dionysus, exclaimed: “A god who is mad! A god, part of whose nature it is to be insane! What did they experience or seeâthese men on whom the horror of this concept must have forced itself?”
39
The facts, such as they are, about the god are first that he was beautiful, in an androgynous way, to both men and women. Euripides describes him with “long curls ⦠cascading close over [his] cheeks, most seductively.”
40
Cross-dressing was a part of Dionysian worship in some locales.
41
Although he had occasional liaisons with women, like the Cretan princess Ariadne, he is usually portrayed as “detached and unconcerned with sex.”
42
In vase paintings he is never shown “involved in the satyrs' sexual shenanigans. He may
dance, he may drink, but he is never shown paired with ⦠any of the female companions.”
43
40
Cross-dressing was a part of Dionysian worship in some locales.
41
Although he had occasional liaisons with women, like the Cretan princess Ariadne, he is usually portrayed as “detached and unconcerned with sex.”
42
In vase paintings he is never shown “involved in the satyrs' sexual shenanigans. He may
dance, he may drink, but he is never shown paired with ⦠any of the female companions.”
43
As one of the few Greek gods with a specific following, he had a special relationship to humans. They could evoke him by their dancing, and it was he who “possessed” them in their frenzy. He is, in other words, difficult to separate from the form that his worship took, and this may explain his rage at those who refused to join in his revels, for Dionysus cannot fully exist without his rites. Other gods demanded animal sacrifice, but the sacrifice was an act of obeisance or propitiation, not the hallmark of the god himself. Dionysus, in contrast, was not worshipped for ulterior reasons (to increase the crops or win the war) but for the sheer joy of his rite itself. Not only does he demand and instigate; he is the ecstatic experience that, according to Durkheim, defines the sacred and sets it apart from daily life.
44
44
So it may make more sense to explain the anthropomorphized persona of the god in terms of his rituals, rather than the other way around. The fact that he is asexual may embody the Greeks' understanding that collective ecstasy is not fundamentally sexual in nature, in contrast to the imaginings of later Europeans. Besides, men would hardly have stood by while their wives ran off to orgies of a sexual nature; the god's well-known indifference guarantees their chastity on the mountaintops. The fact that he is sometimes violent may reflect Greek ambivalence toward his rites: On the one hand, from an elite male perspective, the communal ecstasy of underlings (women in this case) is threatening to the entire social order. On the other hand, the god's potential cruelty serves to help justify each woman's participation, since the most terrible madness and violence are always inflicted on those who abstain from his worship. The god may have been invented, then, to explain and justify preexisting rites.
If so, the Dionysian rites may have originated in some “nonreligious” practice, assuming that it is even possible to distinguish the “religious” from other aspects of a distant culture. E. R. Dodds conjectured that the rites originally arose as “spontaneous attacks
of mass hysteria,”
45
and indeed, there are mythic accounts of manic dancing in ancient Greece unrelated to Dionysus or any other god. Lawler suggests that waves of “dance mania” may have swept through the Myceneaen culture of prehistoric Greece and relates the myth of the three princesses of Tiryns, who, when the time came for them to marry, conveniently went mad: “They rushed out of doors, and in a frenzied dance ranged over the countryside, singing weird songs, and tearing their garments, unable to stop dancing.”
46
Now possibly there were such spontaneous outbreaks of “madness” predating Dionysian ritual, but something must have set them off and given them their form. One person can go “mad” spontaneously, but what was the signal that called scores or hundreds of women from their homes at the same time? Who provided the music, for example, or remembered to bring the wine?
f
of mass hysteria,”
45
and indeed, there are mythic accounts of manic dancing in ancient Greece unrelated to Dionysus or any other god. Lawler suggests that waves of “dance mania” may have swept through the Myceneaen culture of prehistoric Greece and relates the myth of the three princesses of Tiryns, who, when the time came for them to marry, conveniently went mad: “They rushed out of doors, and in a frenzied dance ranged over the countryside, singing weird songs, and tearing their garments, unable to stop dancing.”
46
Now possibly there were such spontaneous outbreaks of “madness” predating Dionysian ritual, but something must have set them off and given them their form. One person can go “mad” spontaneously, but what was the signal that called scores or hundreds of women from their homes at the same time? Who provided the music, for example, or remembered to bring the wine?
f
There is a possible historical basis for the Dionysian rite and indeed for the god himself. The classicist Walter Burkert mentions the existence, in ancient andâearlier than thatâarchaic Greece, of itinerant charismatics, men who traveled from place to place, serving as healers, priests, and seers.
47
As early as the fifth century BCE, men called
orpheotelestae
traveled through Greece offering to cure illnesses, including mental ones, by dancing around the sick person, “not infrequently in the form of a ring-dance.”
48
Dionysus arrives in the city of Thebes in the form of such a traveler, and when Dionysian worship comes to Rome about two centuries after Euripides' time, it is brought by a wandering magician-priest. As a healer, the itinerant charismatic cured by drawing the afflicted into ecstatic dances
49
âwhich may well have been effective in the case of psychosomatic and mental illnessesâsuggesting that he was a musician and dancer as well as a priest. It was probably his arrival, announced by the beating of the
tympana
, that drew the women out
from their houses and into the “madness” that was also a
cure
for madness.
47
As early as the fifth century BCE, men called
orpheotelestae
traveled through Greece offering to cure illnesses, including mental ones, by dancing around the sick person, “not infrequently in the form of a ring-dance.”
48
Dionysus arrives in the city of Thebes in the form of such a traveler, and when Dionysian worship comes to Rome about two centuries after Euripides' time, it is brought by a wandering magician-priest. As a healer, the itinerant charismatic cured by drawing the afflicted into ecstatic dances
49
âwhich may well have been effective in the case of psychosomatic and mental illnessesâsuggesting that he was a musician and dancer as well as a priest. It was probably his arrival, announced by the beating of the
tympana
, that drew the women out
from their houses and into the “madness” that was also a
cure
for madness.
These itinerant musicians and masters of ecstatic ritual may well have been the prototype for the god Dionysus. As one scholar writes, the god in many ways resembles a certain kind of wandering musician in our own time, one who is also capable of inspiring “hysteria” in his devotees: the “male leader of the pop group, who for all the violence of music, gestures, and words is neither traditionally masculine nor yet effeminate. To the established order he may be a threat but not to the adoring young, especially the young women.”
50
With his long hair, his hints of violence, and his promise of ecstasy, Dionysus was the first rock star.
50
With his long hair, his hints of violence, and his promise of ecstasy, Dionysus was the first rock star.
Civilization and Backlash
Almost as soon as ecstatic rituals appear in the historicalâthat is, writtenârecord, a note of ambivalence enters into the story, a suggestion of social tensions surrounding these rituals, and even violent hostility toward their participants. Euripides' play
The Bacchae
, for example, both records these tensions and expresses what seems to be a tormented ambivalence on the part of the playwright. In the play, Pentheus, the king of Thebes, greets the god with derision and determines to suppress him by force. “Go at once to the Electran gate,” he commands his officers. “Tell all my men who bear shields, heavy or light, all who ride fast horses or twang the bowstring, to meet me there in readiness for an assault on the Bacchae [maenads]. This is past all bearing, if we are to let women so defy us.”
1
At first the play seems to take the god's sideâmocking the uptight Pentheus and showing the community elders piously joining the maenads in their revelry. After all, if the beautiful young stranger is indeed a god, it is incumbent on good citizens to observe his rites. But things end badly for both sides: Pentheus is killed and dismembered by his own mother, whoâin her god-given ecstasyâmistakes him for a lion.
The Bacchae
, for example, both records these tensions and expresses what seems to be a tormented ambivalence on the part of the playwright. In the play, Pentheus, the king of Thebes, greets the god with derision and determines to suppress him by force. “Go at once to the Electran gate,” he commands his officers. “Tell all my men who bear shields, heavy or light, all who ride fast horses or twang the bowstring, to meet me there in readiness for an assault on the Bacchae [maenads]. This is past all bearing, if we are to let women so defy us.”
1
At first the play seems to take the god's sideâmocking the uptight Pentheus and showing the community elders piously joining the maenads in their revelry. After all, if the beautiful young stranger is indeed a god, it is incumbent on good citizens to observe his rites. But things end badly for both sides: Pentheus is killed and dismembered by his own mother, whoâin her god-given ecstasyâmistakes him for a lion.
The ambivalence and hostility found in ancient written records may tell us more about the conditions under which writing was invented than about any long-standing prior conflict over ecstatic rituals themselves. Writing arises with “civilization,” in particular, with the emergence of social stratification and the rise of elites. In fact, writing was probably invented, along with arithmetic, as a means of keeping track of the elite's possessions: herds, stored grain, and slaves. From an elite perspective, there is one inherent problem with traditional festivities and ecstatic rituals, and that is their leveling effect, the way in which they dissolve rank and other forms of social difference. It's difficult, if not impossible, to retain one's regal dignity in the mad excitement of the dance. Masks and other forms of costuming may render participants equally anonymous or equally “special.” The deity may choose to possessâand speak throughâa lowly shepherdess as readily as a queen.
We have some evidenceâfrom a very different part of the ancient worldâof the dampening effect of civilization and social hierarchy on traditional rituals. Recent carbon-14 dating of an archaeological site in Oaxaca suggests that the earliest residents, who were hunter-gatherers living about nine thousand years ago, met on a cleared “dance ground” for rituals that included the entire community. Later, with the rise of agriculture, rituals appear to have been enacted solely by initiates who were “social achievers,” or members of an elite, and most likely men. Finally, with the emergence of organized and militarized states two thousand years ago, the archaeologists deduce that “many important rituals were performed only by trained full-time priests using religious calendars and occupying temples built by corvée labor.” In the Oaxacan case, only a few thousand years appear to have elapsed between the archaic danced rituals of Paleolithic bands and their refinement into the formal rituals of the civilized state.
2
2
The rise of social hierarchy, anthropologists agree, goes hand in hand with the rise of militarism and war, which are in their own way also usually hostile to the danced rituals of the archaic past.
Possibly the first social elite consisted of men who specialized in fighting the men of other tribes or villages and who could thus impose a kind of “protection racket” on their fellow citizens: Feed us, or else we will leave you to the mercies of the thugs from neighboring settlements; do the planting and herding for us, or we will turn our weapons on you, our own clanspeople. Through raiding and more prolonged forms of warfare, this early elite would have further enriched itself, until we have the kind of state Dionysus threatened in
The Bacchae
âone ruled by a warrior-king.
3
Possibly the first social elite consisted of men who specialized in fighting the men of other tribes or villages and who could thus impose a kind of “protection racket” on their fellow citizens: Feed us, or else we will leave you to the mercies of the thugs from neighboring settlements; do the planting and herding for us, or we will turn our weapons on you, our own clanspeople. Through raiding and more prolonged forms of warfare, this early elite would have further enriched itself, until we have the kind of state Dionysus threatened in
The Bacchae
âone ruled by a warrior-king.
3
In ancient Israel, both militarism and concerns about the maintenance of hierarchy seem to have worked against the old ecstatic rituals. After Michal, King Saul's daughter and the wife of King David, sees her husband perform his near-naked victory dance through the streets of Jerusalem, she “despises him in her heart” and greets him with sarcasm: “How glorious was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself! ⦠today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself.” To danceâespecially ecstaticallyâin the company or even the presence of one's inferiors was to upset the increasingly rigid hierarchy of wealth and status.
But the most common explanation for the ancient Israelis' hostility to group ecstatic rites is a military one. Harassed by the Philistines from the west, Egyptians from the south, and Hittites and others from the north, the Hebrews could ill afford to lose themselves in collective raptureâor so the reasoning goes. As Robert Graves put it:
It became clear that if Judaea, a small buffer state between Egypt and Assyria, was to keep its political independence, a stronger religious discipline must be inculcated, and the people trained to arms. Hitherto most Israelites had clung to the orgiastic Canaanite cult in which goddesses played the leading role, with demigods as their consorts. This, though admirably suited to peaceful times, could not steel the Jews to resist the invading armies of Egypt and Assyria.
4
4
Their god Yahweh was the perfect disciplinarianâa war god known as Yahweh Sabaoth, Lord God of Hosts, with
hosts
referring to armies. The religious scholar Karen Armstrong also explains the Hebrews' religious vacillations in terms of military pressures: “They remembered [their covenant with Yahweh] in times of war, when they needed Yahweh's skilled military protection, but when times were easy they worshipped Baal, Anat and Asherah in the old way.”
5
hosts
referring to armies. The religious scholar Karen Armstrong also explains the Hebrews' religious vacillations in terms of military pressures: “They remembered [their covenant with Yahweh] in times of war, when they needed Yahweh's skilled military protection, but when times were easy they worshipped Baal, Anat and Asherah in the old way.”
5
A concern for military preparedness seems also to have soured the Greek view of ecstatic rituals. In
The Bacchae
, Euripides posed a basic incompatibility between the warrior-king Pentheus and Dionysus, who is descibed as a “lover of peace.” Arthur Evans, in his book on Dionysus, argues that he is the antiwar god, citing among other things the fourth-century BCE Greek philosopher Diodorus's praise of Dionysus for founding festivals “everywhere” and “in general resolv[ing] the conflicts of nations and states, and in place of domestic strife and war ⦠la[ying] the grounds for concord and great peace.”
6
Dionysus could be violent, but not in a warrior's way. At their first encounter, Pentheus taunts Dionysus for his effeminacy: “Those long curls of yours show that you're no wrestler.”
The Bacchae
, Euripides posed a basic incompatibility between the warrior-king Pentheus and Dionysus, who is descibed as a “lover of peace.” Arthur Evans, in his book on Dionysus, argues that he is the antiwar god, citing among other things the fourth-century BCE Greek philosopher Diodorus's praise of Dionysus for founding festivals “everywhere” and “in general resolv[ing] the conflicts of nations and states, and in place of domestic strife and war ⦠la[ying] the grounds for concord and great peace.”
6
Dionysus could be violent, but not in a warrior's way. At their first encounter, Pentheus taunts Dionysus for his effeminacy: “Those long curls of yours show that you're no wrestler.”
But the ancient Greek elite did not abandon the old ecstatic rituals; instead, they simply took them underground, where they could be indulged in out of sight of the hoi polloi. As early as the sixth century BCE, there emerges a strange new form of religious grouping in Greece:
mystery cults
, drawing on social elites, whose members gathered periodically for secret rites apparently aimed, above all, at engendering collective ecstasy. The secrets were well kept, leaving scholars to guess at what exactly went on at the cults' gatherings. Surely there was dancing, since the ancients admitted this much, as well as wine drinking and possibly the ingestion of hallucinatory drugs, along with striking sound and light effects. “We hear of frenzied nocturnal dances, with crazed outcries, to the stirring accompaniment of shrill flutes, tympana, metal cymbals, castanets ⦠âbull-roarers,' and rattles,” Lawler reports. “We hear
of snake-handling, of trances, of prophesying, even of self-mutilation.”
7
mystery cults
, drawing on social elites, whose members gathered periodically for secret rites apparently aimed, above all, at engendering collective ecstasy. The secrets were well kept, leaving scholars to guess at what exactly went on at the cults' gatherings. Surely there was dancing, since the ancients admitted this much, as well as wine drinking and possibly the ingestion of hallucinatory drugs, along with striking sound and light effects. “We hear of frenzied nocturnal dances, with crazed outcries, to the stirring accompaniment of shrill flutes, tympana, metal cymbals, castanets ⦠âbull-roarers,' and rattles,” Lawler reports. “We hear
of snake-handling, of trances, of prophesying, even of self-mutilation.”
7
In his book
Ancient Mystery Cults
, Walter Burkert infers a sequence of activities not unlike that which anthropologists have observed in many “primitive” societies, in which new initiates to the cult are first isolated and deliberately terrified, then finally embraced by the whole group in dance.
Ancient Mystery Cults
, Walter Burkert infers a sequence of activities not unlike that which anthropologists have observed in many “primitive” societies, in which new initiates to the cult are first isolated and deliberately terrified, then finally embraced by the whole group in dance.
The initiands, seated, are ⦠smeared with a mixture of clay and chaff; from the dark the priestess appears like a frightening demon; clean again and rising to their feet, the initiates exclaim “I escaped from evil, I found the better,” and the bystanders yell in a high, shrieking voice (
ololyge
) as though in the presence of some divine agent. In the daytime there follows the integration of the initiates into the group of celebrants ⦠people are crowned with fennel and white poplar; they dance and utter rhythmic cries ⦠some brandishing live snakes.
8
ololyge
) as though in the presence of some divine agent. In the daytime there follows the integration of the initiates into the group of celebrants ⦠people are crowned with fennel and white poplar; they dance and utter rhythmic cries ⦠some brandishing live snakes.
8
Because the participants were members of a literate elite, some subjective reports of the rituals' effects have survived. Initiates described the experience as purifying, healing, and deeply reassuring; certainly it was transformative. “I came out of the mystery hall feeling like a stranger to myself,” said one participant of the mystery rites held at Eleusis in honor of the goddess Demeter.
9
In fact, it is to this kind of experience that we owe the very word
ecstasy
, derived from Greek words meaning “to stand outside of oneself.”
9
In fact, it is to this kind of experience that we owe the very word
ecstasy
, derived from Greek words meaning “to stand outside of oneself.”
Where the Greek elite had ditheredâlooking askance at the disorderly maenads while celebrating their own secret ecstatic ritesâthe Romans took a firm stand. In Roman culture, militarism triumphs over the old traditions of communal ecstasy; the god of warâhere called Marsâfinally vanquishes Dionysus, who, in his Roman form,
has already been diminished to Bacchus, the fun-loving god of wine. It is in Rome that the Greek word
orgeia
, for ecstatic religious rites, takes on its modern connotations of grossness and excess, of too much food, drink, and sex promiscuously indulged in all at once, while the Greek word
ekstasis
itself often gets translated into Latin as
superstitio.
10
has already been diminished to Bacchus, the fun-loving god of wine. It is in Rome that the Greek word
orgeia
, for ecstatic religious rites, takes on its modern connotations of grossness and excess, of too much food, drink, and sex promiscuously indulged in all at once, while the Greek word
ekstasis
itself often gets translated into Latin as
superstitio.
10
Even those elementary ingredients of ecstatic traditionsâmusic and danceâwere “alien,” as one historian of dance put it, to the “sober, realistically minded Roman, certainly by the time of the empire.”
11
True, the Romans had their annual Saturnalia, which involved drinking, feasting, and a so-called ritual of inversion in which masters and slaves briefly exchanged roles. But apparently even more so than among the ancient Hebrews and Greeks, social inequality served both to inhibit the powerful and to make them distrustful of exuberant outbursts from below. Max Weber observed that “the nobles, who constituted a rational nobility of office of increasing range, and who possessed whole cities and provinces as client holdings of single families, completely rejected ecstasy, like the dance, as utterly unseemly and unworthy of a nobleman's sense of honor.”
12
So thorough was the official Roman condemnation of the dance that the Roman scholar Cornelius Nepos, writing in the time of Augustus, had to explain to his readers why a prominent Greek might indulge in such an unseemly activity: “Readers should not judge foreign customs by their own ⦠We do not need to be told that, by Roman convention, music is unbecoming to a person of prominence, and dancing is thought to be positively vicious. In Greece, on the other hand, these are held to be agreeable and laudable diversions.”
13
Just as Roman architecture and statuary projected the implacable calm of absolute power, the individual Roman patrician sought, in his everyday demeanor, to impress observers with his personal authority. Public ecstasy of any kind was not a temptation, because it “involves the loss of that dignity that was so carefully projected by the honorific statues which enshrine so much of the civil elite's behavioural ideal.”
14
11
True, the Romans had their annual Saturnalia, which involved drinking, feasting, and a so-called ritual of inversion in which masters and slaves briefly exchanged roles. But apparently even more so than among the ancient Hebrews and Greeks, social inequality served both to inhibit the powerful and to make them distrustful of exuberant outbursts from below. Max Weber observed that “the nobles, who constituted a rational nobility of office of increasing range, and who possessed whole cities and provinces as client holdings of single families, completely rejected ecstasy, like the dance, as utterly unseemly and unworthy of a nobleman's sense of honor.”
12
So thorough was the official Roman condemnation of the dance that the Roman scholar Cornelius Nepos, writing in the time of Augustus, had to explain to his readers why a prominent Greek might indulge in such an unseemly activity: “Readers should not judge foreign customs by their own ⦠We do not need to be told that, by Roman convention, music is unbecoming to a person of prominence, and dancing is thought to be positively vicious. In Greece, on the other hand, these are held to be agreeable and laudable diversions.”
13
Just as Roman architecture and statuary projected the implacable calm of absolute power, the individual Roman patrician sought, in his everyday demeanor, to impress observers with his personal authority. Public ecstasy of any kind was not a temptation, because it “involves the loss of that dignity that was so carefully projected by the honorific statues which enshrine so much of the civil elite's behavioural ideal.”
14
Certainly dancing occurred, at least indoors, within the wealthy Roman household, but it was regarded with ambivalence and usually relegated to professionals of dubious reputation. In 150 BCE we find the consul Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ordering that dancing schools for Roman children be closed.
15
A couple of hundred years later there are references to women dancing for guests within their homes, though these women were likely to incur criticism if their dancing was thought to be too “professional,” meaning overly skillful or perhaps indecent.
16
The satirist Juvenal, for example, saw in the dancing of highborn Roman women only a display of sexual lust, calculated to “warm the age-chilled balls” of elderly men.
15
A couple of hundred years later there are references to women dancing for guests within their homes, though these women were likely to incur criticism if their dancing was thought to be too “professional,” meaning overly skillful or perhaps indecent.
16
The satirist Juvenal, for example, saw in the dancing of highborn Roman women only a display of sexual lust, calculated to “warm the age-chilled balls” of elderly men.
Ah, what a vast mounting passion fills their spirits
To get themselves mounted! Such lustful yelps, such a copious
Downflow of vintage liquor splashing their thighs!
Off goes Saufeia's wreath, she challenges the call-girls
To a contest of bumps and grinds, emerges victorious,
Herself admires the shimmy of Medullina's buttocks.
17
To get themselves mounted! Such lustful yelps, such a copious
Downflow of vintage liquor splashing their thighs!
Off goes Saufeia's wreath, she challenges the call-girls
To a contest of bumps and grinds, emerges victorious,
Herself admires the shimmy of Medullina's buttocks.
17
Official Roman religion was, not surprisingly, a “cold and prosaic” affair,
18
designed to reinforce the social hierarchy rather than to offer the worshipper an experience of communion with the deities. Instead of a specialized priesthood, men of noble rank were appointed to perform the rites; and once the emperor had achieved divinity, starting when Augustus declared himself a god, the connection between religious and secular authority was indissoluble. As for the rites themselves, no one expected them to transform, excite, or in any way appeal to the emotions. Rather, the emphasis was on exact and perfect performance, down to the smallest detail. In animal sacrificeâthe most common form of religious observanceâthe animal had to be physically perfect and, ideally, willing to die, which it demonstrated by obligingly stretching forth its neck for the knife. If the sacrificial rite was marred in any detail, it had to be repeated until the presiding officials got it right. One man acting as
priest was forced to quit because his hat fell off while he was sacrificing.
19
The gods, and not the humans present, were the true connoisseurs of the Roman rites, and they were known to be sensitive to the least liturgical lapse.
18
designed to reinforce the social hierarchy rather than to offer the worshipper an experience of communion with the deities. Instead of a specialized priesthood, men of noble rank were appointed to perform the rites; and once the emperor had achieved divinity, starting when Augustus declared himself a god, the connection between religious and secular authority was indissoluble. As for the rites themselves, no one expected them to transform, excite, or in any way appeal to the emotions. Rather, the emphasis was on exact and perfect performance, down to the smallest detail. In animal sacrificeâthe most common form of religious observanceâthe animal had to be physically perfect and, ideally, willing to die, which it demonstrated by obligingly stretching forth its neck for the knife. If the sacrificial rite was marred in any detail, it had to be repeated until the presiding officials got it right. One man acting as
priest was forced to quit because his hat fell off while he was sacrificing.
19
The gods, and not the humans present, were the true connoisseurs of the Roman rites, and they were known to be sensitive to the least liturgical lapse.
But there was a risk inherent in the aristocratic formality of Roman religion. Maybe the tedious official rites did serve to reinforce hierarchy and obedience, but they also left the Roman gods vulnerable to repeated challenges from more emotionally accessible foreign deities. And with an empire embracing so many subjugated peoplesâfrom the tribal Gauls and Britons to the urbane Greeks and Egyptiansâthere was no way to insulate Rome from the ecstatic rites of alien gods. Historians until recently referred to these ecstatic alternatives somewhat pejoratively, as “oriental religions,” in the usual attempt to locate the sources of the “irrational” somewhere far outside the West, and blamed them in part for the empire's eventual decadence and decline. Geographically, though, the term
oriental
applies only to the cult of Cybele, the Great Mother, which was introduced to Rome from Anatolia in 204 BCE. The goddess Isis, whose worship was widespread in Rome at the start of the Christian era, hailed from Egypt; and Dionysus/Bacchus was hardly foreign at all.
oriental
applies only to the cult of Cybele, the Great Mother, which was introduced to Rome from Anatolia in 204 BCE. The goddess Isis, whose worship was widespread in Rome at the start of the Christian era, hailed from Egypt; and Dionysus/Bacchus was hardly foreign at all.
On the whole, the Romans were remarkably tolerant toward the gods of their subject peoples, to the point of adopting particularly attractive or efficacious ones. But insofar as these imported deities drew their adherents from marginalized groups within Roman societyâwomen and slavesâthe “oriental” cults of Isis, Cybele, and Dionysus carried a hint of political menace. The public worship of Cybele was particularly outrageous, as the historian Mary Beard reports: “With their flowing hair, extravagant jewelry, and long yellow silken robes, they [the devotees of Cybele] offered an image of mad religious frenzy involving not only ecstatic dancing but frenetic self-flagellation and ⦠[in the case of male worshippers] the act of self-castration performed in a divine trance.”
20
This was the ultimate challenge to Roman masculine propriety: Not only did Cybele call forth bands of female worshippers on her holy days;
she demanded that her male priests, or
galli
, lop off their testicles in public. Since a man could perform that act of obeisance only once, he was expected, on future occasions of worship, to slash his skin with a knife and proceed through the streets bleeding as he danced in what must have looked, to the status-conscious Romans, like an inexplicable display of self-abasement. Modern historians agree that the worship of Cybele constituted a form of “resistance to dominant elite goals.”
21
As Beard puts it:
20
This was the ultimate challenge to Roman masculine propriety: Not only did Cybele call forth bands of female worshippers on her holy days;
she demanded that her male priests, or
galli
, lop off their testicles in public. Since a man could perform that act of obeisance only once, he was expected, on future occasions of worship, to slash his skin with a knife and proceed through the streets bleeding as he danced in what must have looked, to the status-conscious Romans, like an inexplicable display of self-abasement. Modern historians agree that the worship of Cybele constituted a form of “resistance to dominant elite goals.”
21
As Beard puts it:
On the one hand was the routinized, formal approach of the traditional priesthood, embedded in the political and social hierarchies of the city. On the other hand were the claims of the galli that they enjoyed direct inspiration from the godsâan inspiration that came with frenzy and trance, open to anyone, without consideration of political or social status ⦠By challenging the position of the Roman elite as the sole guardians of access to the gods, the eunuch priests were effectively challenging the wider authority of that elite and the social and cultural norms they have long guaranteed.
22
22
But, on account of her alleged assistance to the Romans during the Punic Wars, there wasn't much the authorities could do about Cybele and her followersâexcept to mock them, as Juvenal did with glee.
⦠Now here come the devotees
of frenzied Bellona, and Cybele, Mother of Gods,
with a huge eunuch, a face for lesser obscenities
to revere. Long ago, with a sherd, he lopped off his soft genitals:
now neither the howling rabble nor all the kettledrums can outshriek
him.
A Phrygian mitre [or bonnet, a kind of headgear associated with
Dionysian worship in Greece] tops his plebeian cheeks.
23
of frenzied Bellona, and Cybele, Mother of Gods,
with a huge eunuch, a face for lesser obscenities
to revere. Long ago, with a sherd, he lopped off his soft genitals:
now neither the howling rabble nor all the kettledrums can outshriek
him.
A Phrygian mitre [or bonnet, a kind of headgear associated with
Dionysian worship in Greece] tops his plebeian cheeks.
23
Dionysus, or Bacchus, however, did not enjoy the official protection accorded Cybele. He had not helped Rome militarily or
offered any other service to the state. As a result, his devotees could be forcibly suppressed and were in fact eradicated with a viciousness comparable to the repression of Christians a few centuries later. One thing that bothered the authorities was the simple fact that people were gathering without official authorization. To quote the consul who convened the assembly where the Dionysian rites were first denounced: “Your ancestors did not wish that even the citizens should assemble fortuitously, without good reason: they did not wish you to assemble except when the standard was set up on the citadel, or when the army was called out for an election, or when the tribunes had proclaimed a council of the plebs.”
24
“Freedom of assembly” was not yet even a distant aspiration; Romans were to express their desire for social contact only at the level of the family or that of the entire mass, and then only when that mass was duly convened by the state. Anything in between was politically suspect. Thus when Pliny the Younger became governor of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, he hesitated to permit the formation of a volunteer fire department. “Will you consider whether you think a company of firemen might be formed, limited to 150 members?” he wrote to the emperor Trajan. “It will not be difficult to keep such small numbers under observation.” Even so, Trajan refused to grant permission, responding that “if people assemble for a common purpose, whatever name we give them and for whatever purpose, they soon turn into a political club.”
25
offered any other service to the state. As a result, his devotees could be forcibly suppressed and were in fact eradicated with a viciousness comparable to the repression of Christians a few centuries later. One thing that bothered the authorities was the simple fact that people were gathering without official authorization. To quote the consul who convened the assembly where the Dionysian rites were first denounced: “Your ancestors did not wish that even the citizens should assemble fortuitously, without good reason: they did not wish you to assemble except when the standard was set up on the citadel, or when the army was called out for an election, or when the tribunes had proclaimed a council of the plebs.”
24
“Freedom of assembly” was not yet even a distant aspiration; Romans were to express their desire for social contact only at the level of the family or that of the entire mass, and then only when that mass was duly convened by the state. Anything in between was politically suspect. Thus when Pliny the Younger became governor of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, he hesitated to permit the formation of a volunteer fire department. “Will you consider whether you think a company of firemen might be formed, limited to 150 members?” he wrote to the emperor Trajan. “It will not be difficult to keep such small numbers under observation.” Even so, Trajan refused to grant permission, responding that “if people assemble for a common purpose, whatever name we give them and for whatever purpose, they soon turn into a political club.”
25
At the time of the crackdown on Bacchic rites, the worship of Dionysus/Bacchus had been widespread and deeply rooted in Italy for decades.
26
According to the Roman historian Livy, the trouble begins with the arrival of a charismatic stranger, just as in Euripides' play
The Bacchae
. In the Roman case, the stranger is an itinerant, no-account Greek who “dealt in sacrifices and soothsaying.”
27
At first he recruits only women, who observe the rites by day; only when men are included do the rites move to nighttime.
26
According to the Roman historian Livy, the trouble begins with the arrival of a charismatic stranger, just as in Euripides' play
The Bacchae
. In the Roman case, the stranger is an itinerant, no-account Greek who “dealt in sacrifices and soothsaying.”
27
At first he recruits only women, who observe the rites by day; only when men are included do the rites move to nighttime.
When the license offered by darkness had been added, no sort of crime, no kind of immorality, was left unattempted. There were
more obscenities practised between men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to submit to outrage or reluctant to commit crimes was slaughtered as a sacrificial victim ⦠Men, apparently out of their wits, would utter prophecies with frenzied bodily convulsions: matrons, attired as Bacchantes, with their hair dishevelled and carrying blazing torches, would run down to the Tiber, plunge their torches into the water and bring them out still alight.
28
more obscenities practised between men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to submit to outrage or reluctant to commit crimes was slaughtered as a sacrificial victim ⦠Men, apparently out of their wits, would utter prophecies with frenzied bodily convulsions: matrons, attired as Bacchantes, with their hair dishevelled and carrying blazing torches, would run down to the Tiber, plunge their torches into the water and bring them out still alight.
28
The allegations of male homosexual activity were alarming enough to the Romans, who shared none of the Greeks' enthusiasm for same-sex love. But perhaps equally alarming, from a pragmatic Roman point of view, the cult was allegedly “a source of supply of false witnesses, forged documents and wills, and perjured evidence.”
29
29
It was the latter kind of chicanery that provided the excuse for forcible suppression. In 186 BCEâjust eight years after the unsettling introduction of the cult of Cybeleâthe widow of an elite cavalryman plotted to somehow defraud her grown son Publius Aebutius of his inheritance by having him initiated in the Bacchic rite. According to Livy, Publius agreed to prepare for his initiation and confided as much to his girlfriend, Hispala, a former slave who had become a wealthy prostitute. Having been initiated herself years ago as a slave, she knew the horrible violations that awaited Publius and pleaded with him to ignore his mother's wishes and forgo the initiation. When his mother insisted, Hispala broke her vow of secrecy to the cult and, despite the “trembling [that] seized every part of her body,” revealed the cult's activities to the Roman authorities.
Their response was little short of hysterical; an assembly was called to denounce the “conspiracy” represented by Bacchic forms of worship and order its complete uprooting. Informers were to be rewarded; no one was to leave the city until the investigations were complete. Apparently Rome was crawling with secret Bacchists, since the announcement of the purge plunged the city into “extreme
terror,” with thousands attempting to escape before the authorities could get to them. In the ensuing crackdown, about seven thousand men and women were detained, and the majority of them executedâmales by the state, women handed over to their families to be killed in private.
terror,” with thousands attempting to escape before the authorities could get to them. In the ensuing crackdown, about seven thousand men and women were detained, and the majority of them executedâmales by the state, women handed over to their families to be killed in private.
We cannot of course know how much of Livy's story, and the lurid allegations contained within it, are true. Did the Roman worshippers of Dionysus really engage in homosexual orgies in addition to the standard Greek practice of dancing to ecstasy? And how did they manage to carry on the painstaking work of forging wills, brewing poisons, etcetera, in the midst of their frenzied rites?
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