Bakchant
_-_Bacchante_on_a_Panther_(1855).jpg)
A bakchant ( Greek Βάκχος bakchos ) or a bakchantin ( Βάκχη ) is a participant in a cult celebration (orgy) of Dionysus , who begins to race, seized by the deity. This frenzy is called mania ( μανία ), hence the name maenad for the (female) followers of the god in the Greek cult. The attributes of the bakkhant, which are also regularly found in the pictorial representations, are clothing with a deer calf skin ( νεβρίς nebrís ) and above all the thyrsos staff .
origin
The image of the bakkhante in Western art history is strongly shaped by the form that the cult took among the Romans. The Roman bacchanalia originated from the rather rural spring festivals. To what extent the cult was identical to that of the Etruscan Fuflun or was influenced by it, can no longer be said today. At the beginning of the 2nd century BC But the cult celebrations developed into excessive feasts, which were accompanied by dances and orgies , took place in secret and to which (unlike in the Greek cult) men were also allowed. According to Livy’s report , crimes, sexual abuse and murder should also have occurred in the course of these orgies. 186 BC This came to the knowledge of the Roman authorities and with it the so-called bacchanalia scandal . The Roman Senate forbade the cult, had the cult sites destroyed and numerous followers of the cult (Livy speaks of 7000) executed.
reception
In later centuries bacchants became a synonym for drunk and uninhibited people, but especially for wine drinkers. They became a popular motif in the visual arts, with the original mythological background playing a different role in the depiction - depending on the taste of the time.
Derived from this, the newcomers to high schools were referred to as bacchants in the lads' language of student circles in the 16th and 17th centuries.
literature
- FW Hamdorf: Dionysus-Bacchus: Cult and changes of the wine god. Munich 1986;
- M. Gesing: Triumph of Bacchus. The idea of triumph and Bacchanian representations reflected in the reception of antiquity. Dissertation Munich 1987.