Antiquities Exhibits

Image: Marble statuette of Dionysus early 3rd century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York courtesy of the museum. This fully clad figure of Dionysus is in stark contrast to the many depictions of the god in various states of undress during raucous celebratory processions depicted in Roman art. The god wears Thracian boots, a short chiton, a belted panther skin, and a goatskin worn like a cape, with the forelegs of the goat wrapped around his arms. He can perhaps be identified as Dionysus Melanaigis (of the Black Goatskin), whose cult was introduced into Attica from Boeotia. Pausanias (II.35.1), second century CE author of a guide to Greece, mentions a temple to Dionysus Melanaigis in Methana on the Saronic Gulf and states that a music competition was held there in the god's honor every year and that prizes were awarded for swimming races and boat races. - The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Thracian boots represent the belief that Dionysus was born in Thra...

Another Kushan piece illustrating an eastern take on the god Dionysus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This mature bearded man has grape leaves in his hair, suggesting that he is Dionysus. The furrowed brow, indications of age, and piercing gaze reflect a taste for naturalism, possibly the result of Hellenistic influence following the conquest of Alexander the Great. The head was buried, and over the centuries a hard crust developed on the surface. Image: Kushan head of Dionysus, 4th-5th centuries CE, from ancient Gandhara at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Bronze head of Bacchus, Roman, 1st century CE, at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California. "Although only the lower portion of the head survives today, this fragment comes from an elaborate half life-size statue of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. The jagged edge of the neck shows where the head broke from the body. The now-missing top of the head was cast separately and fitted into the lower part. The head depicts Bacchus  as a young man with long, wavy hair pulled back and originally knotted into a bun at the back of his neck. A headband worn around his forehead holds back his hair, and also hides the seam where the two pieces of the head joined." "The head as originally cast was a relatively simple piece, but the unknown artist added many colorful details to enliven the work. The heavily incised line around the lips suggests that they were made separately of copper and inserted into the head. The eyes were inlaid with a contrasting material. A silver in...

Dancing Maenad 27 BCE - 14 CE Roman copy of a Greek original attributed to Kallimachos circa 425-400 BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Maenads were mythical women inspired by the god of wine, Dionysos, to abandon their homes and families and roam the mountains and forests, singing and dancing in a state of ecstatic frenzy. This figure, wearing an ivy wreath and carrying a thyrsos (fennel stalk) bedecked wi th ivy leaves and berries, moves forward, trancelike, her drapery swirling about her. Maenads became popular as art subjects in the late fifth century B.C.E. with Euripides portrayal of the manic devotées of Dionysos in his play the Bacchae. In the play, King Pentheus bans the worship of Dionysus then the king's cousin lures him into the woods where he is torn apart by maenads including his own mother, Agave, who, in a trance tears off his head believing it to be that of a lion. The rites associated with the worship of Dionysus (Roman Bacchus) were chara...