Chapter 8 Ut sacrificantes vel insanientes Bacchae

Bacchus’ Women in Rome

In: The Public Lives of Ancient Women (500 BCE-650 CE)
Author:
Emilia Salerno
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Type:
Chapter
Pages:
173–193
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004534513_011

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Abstract

This paper aims to explore the public identity and reception of the bacchae in Ancient Rome, by means of three case studies: Paculla Annia, Valeria Messalina and Pompeia Agrippinilla, three women associated by either literary or epigraphic evidence with the cult of Bacchus-Dionysus in Rome. According to Livy, Paculla Annia was the Campanian priestess who brought Bacchus’ cult to Rome. The empress Valeria Messalina is depicted by Tacitus as a proper maenad, wielding a thyrsus in frenzy during a feast that transformed the imperial household in a Dionysiac orgy. Pompeia Agrippinilla appears as dedicatee of an inscription from Torrenova (160–170 CE). She is addressed as ἱέρεια (‘priestess’) at the head of a monument recording many men and women under the title bacchoi and bacchai. Whereas literary sources use the bacchae as a negative example to reinforce the distinction between masculine and feminine social domains, material sources reveal a more fluid reality.

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Series:  Mnemosyne, Supplements, Volume: 468 and  Mnemosyne, Supplements, History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity, Volume: 468
Cover The Public Lives of Ancient Women (500 BCE-650 CE)
E-Book ISBN:
9789004534513
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
07 Feb 2023

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