Ancient Rome
Roman Pompeii and the Bacchic Mysteries
1st century AD, Pompeii, Bay of Naples, Italy.
A third figure is looking down into the bowl and seeing not his own reflection but the reflection of the mask staring back at him.
‘Ancient Greek Drama, the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes, formed a central part of the City Dionysia in Athens,’ said Miranda. ‘The City Dionysia was held in March, although the month wasn't called that then of course, and there was another Dionysian festival in January, timed to coincide with the completion of the fermentation of the new wine, at which Dionysus, or Bacchus as he was otherwise known, was said to be reborn.’
‘A vine that needs to be pruned and cut back in order that it can grow properly again next season,’ said Quintin. ‘Birth, death and rebirth; the vegetation cycle.’
‘Also the feeling that something powerful has entered you after drinking the wine, the blood of this god,’ said Miranda. ‘But do you know the most enlightening thing to survive of the Dionysian Mysteries, which were known as the Bacchic Mysteries in Roman times?’
‘That the wife of Spartacus, the Roman slave who led the Slave Revolt of 73 BC, believed her husband to be a reincarnation of Dionysus,’ said Quintin.
‘Well, very interesting, but I was thinking of the frescoes that were miraculously preserved at the Bacchic Villa of the Mysteries just outside Pompeii in southern Italy, after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. They show what is believed to be a pictorial representation of a woman being initiated into the Mysteries. In two of these pictures, and the two that seem to deal with the central events of the initiation, a terrified female initiate is looking across on one angle of the room at a Satyr depicted on the next wall, a creature that is half man and half goat, holding a bowl in which is reflected the image of a mask that is being held by another Satyr standing nearby. A third figure is looking down into the bowl and seeing not his own reflection but the reflection of the mask staring back up at him. In close proximity to all this, the god Dionysus is reclining in the arms of his mother, the goddess Semele, who is sitting on a throne.’
‘The use of masks was probably how Athenian drama first evolved, in the sixth century BC,' said Quintin. 'All the actors wore masks, and each played several characters during the course of a play.’
‘But there is a goddess sitting on a throne,’ emphasised Miranda. 'And in a fresco later in the sequence we see the initiate being dressed up in new clothes with a mirror held up to her.’