
might mention a statuette of a dancing maenad found clasped in the
hand of a young woman buried at Lokri about 400
BC
.
There were specific burial customs ‘known as Orphic and Bacchic’
(Herodotus 2.81), and a fifth-century
BC
inscription from Cumae
forbids burial to all save Dionysiac initiates. Some objects found in
tombs identify the dead as initiated, notably the funerary gold leaves
inscribed with mystic formulae, and a mirror inscribed with the
Dionysiac cry euai (circa 500
BC
) from Olbia north of the Black sea.
Nevertheless, probably at least some Dionysiac symbols were well
enough known to accompany even the uninitiated to the next world.
This is even more likely much later, in the imperial period, with images
of the Dionysiac thiasos and its symbols regularly decorating the
tombs of those who could afford it. In the imperial period there are
also sepulchral images that identify the dead person with Dionysos (as
in Apuleius Metamorphoses 8.7), but even this does not necessarily
imply mystic initiation. Not did mystic initiation ever necessarily
exclude the need for intense lamentation.
On an Apulian krater (mixing-bowl) dated 335–325
BC
(now in
Toledo, Ohio) there is painted on one side a tomb and its occupant,
and on the other side various labelled figures in the underworld (Figure
5): at the centre are Hades enthroned and Persephone in a naiskos
(little shrine), and Dionysos standing just outside the naiskos but
clasping with his right hand the right hand of Hades. Also outside the
naiskos are, on the left with Dionysos, two maenads and a satyr called
Oinops; underneath is a Paniskos teasing Cerberus; on the right is
Hermes, and Aktaion, Pentheus, and Agaue. The handclasp signifies
concord: whether, more specifically, it also anticipates arrival or
departure or anything else, we cannot say. For the Dionysiac initiate
it would surely be reassuring, as indicating that Dionysos, though
not himself the ruler, has power in the kingdom of the dead. This
close relation is sometimes expressed as kinship: Dionysos, normally
the son of Semele, becomes the son of Persephone. Even his enemy
(and cousin!) Pentheus seems now untroubled. In a description
of the underworld reported by Plutarch (Moralia 565–6) there is a
very pleasant place like ‘Bacchic caves’, with ‘bacchic revelry and
laughter and all kinds of festivity and delight. It was here, said the
guide, that Dionysos ascended and later brought up Semele.’ The
DEATH 79