BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

The Bacchic Cult at Pompeii

Newly found frieze depicts the procession of Bacchus

The procession of Bacchus depicted on a frieze in Pompeii. Courtesy Pompeii Archaeological Park.

While carrying out excavations at the archaeological site of Pompeii in Italy, archaeologists uncovered a large banqueting room painted with a nearly life-size frieze of the sacred procession of Bacchus. Buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE, the frieze reveals fascinating details about Roman culture and the mystery cult of Bacchus.

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Scene of Mystery Cult Initiation

The Initiate and Silenus on the Pompeii frieze. Courtesy Pompeii Archaeological Park.

The frieze was uncovered in the central part of Pompeii, as part of an ongoing project aimed at regenerating the archaeological and urban landscape of the ancient Roman city. Covering three walls of a large banquet hall, the frieze depicts the Thiasus (procession) of the god Bacchus, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Dionysus, the god of wine and festivity. This procession was primarily made up of women, known as bacchantes, and human-goat hybrids called satyrs. The frieze depicts the bacchantes as dancers and ferocious hunters, shown either with slaughtered goats or holding a sword and the innards of an animal. Meanwhile, one satyr is playing a double flute while the other offers a libation of wine. In the center of the frieze is a woman standing beside Silenus, the tutor and companion of Bacchus. The frieze depicts the woman as an initiate into the mysteries of Bacchus who, according to myth, died and was reborn, promising his followers the same. Above the procession of Bacchus was painted a second, smaller frieze with various animals, including deer, wild boar, chickens, birds, and fish.

The archaeologists at Pompeii gave the house the name Thiasus, in reference to the procession. Dated to the 40s or 30s BCE, the frieze connects directly to the mystery cult of Bacchus, one among many cults in antiquity that were only accessible by those who went through an initiation ritual, as illustrated in the frieze. It was only after initiation that one could learn the secrets of the cult. These cults were often linked to the promise of a new blissful life, in this world and the next.

One of the bacchantes with a goat over her shoulder. Courtesy Pompeii Archaeological Park.

According to Alessandro Giuli, the Italian Minister of Culture, the frieze “provides another glimpse into the rituals of the mysteries of Dionysus. It is an exceptional historical document and, together with the fresco of the Villa of the Mysteries, constitutes a one-of-a-kind, making Pompeii an extraordinary testimony to an aspect of life in classical Mediterranean life that is largely unknown.”

“The hunt of the Dionysiac bacchantes,” explains Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, was “a metaphor for an unrestrained, ecstatic life that aims to achieve ’great, wondrous things,’ as the chorus observe in Euripides’ play. For the ancients, the bacchante or maenad expressed the wild, untamable side of women; the woman who abandons her children, the house and the city, who breaks free from male order to dance freely, go hunting and eat raw meat in the mountains and the woods. These frescoes have a profoundly religious meaning which, however, was also designed to decorate areas for holding banquets and feasts … rather like when we find a copy of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam on the wall of an Italian restaurant in New York to create a little bit of atmosphere.”

View of the banquet hall of the house of Thiasus. Courtesy Pompeii Archaeological Park.

The house of the Thiasus was just one of many buildings in its neighborhood at Pompeii that included incredible and vibrant paintings. Other such examples were a large reception room decorated with scenes from the Trojan War, and a massive private bath complex with paintings of athletes and more scenes of the Trojan War.

Read more in Bible History Daily:

Pompeii Reborn

Pompeii Fast Food Restaurant Uncovered

A Shrine, Frescoes, and…Pizza?

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The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?

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