created 2025-04-21, & modified, =this.modified
Note
via A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel
Bacchari - to go, run or roam about in a wild, raving, raging or furious manner.
Female followers of Dionysus (Roman Bacchus), translated as “raving ones.”
The serpent in the hair (as above) or entwined in the hand, the fawnskin on the back, the wild behavior—that they are women—all are sufficient to show their closeness to nature. There is no need for metamorphosis.
In Euripides’ play and other art forms and works, the frenzied dances of the god are direct manifestations of euphoric possession, and these worshippers, sometimes by eating the flesh of a man or animal who has temporarily incarnated the god, come to partake of his divinity.