The theme uniting the majority of the full frontal figures is transition to an altered state. The activities that effect this transition are: (1) frenetic dancing; (2) playing the aulos (double flute) or listening to music; (3) excessive wine-drinking; (4) losing a physical contest; (5) sleep; and (6) death (Frontisi-Ducroux 1995:81-132 divides the Dionysiac frontal images into sleep and death; the symposium; satyrs; and females as object of the male gaze). The full frontal face compels attention. There is no gaze when the eyes are closed in sleep or death, but even closed eyes do not dilute the impact of the full face, ominous because the situations where it appears are so unstable. Even among a crowd of figures, it is normally only one head that turns toward the viewer. A scene showing the dismemberment of Pentheus, however, provides a rare example of two figures in full frontal view on the same side of the vase. Here, among a group of dancing women in profile, two women move in dance, faces turned outward, unaware that what they have in their hands is pieces of Pentheus’ torn body (LIMC vii, pl. 259; Carpenter 1997a: pl. 42A-B; Frontisi-Ducroux 1995: pl. 70).
Dionysus is associated with four of the six principal categories of transition to altered states: frenetic dancing, wine, sleep, and death. His followers, the satyrs and nymphs who give themselves over to violent dancing, do so because they are susceptible to his power. The isolated dancing female displayed full face among others in profile risks giving way to a trance so powerful that she may not be able to throw it off by herself. For females excluded from the symposium, frenetic dancing is a substitute for wine-drinking and a means of reaching Dionysus. The god is responsible for the trance, and he is also responsible for its release. Worshipers need him for both transitions.
For females exhausted by dancing, sleep is an antidote for exertion, but Dionysus must give his support to secure the process. The sleep of Ariadne under the influence of Dionysus is explored first in red-figure vase painting (McNally 1985). Ariadne appears sleeping in frontal view as she is about to lose Theseus (ARV2 560; McNally 1985: pl. iii, fig. 4). The sleep of Ariadne is the sleep of the Bakkhai recovering from the exertion of ritual. When the messenger in Euripides’ Bacchae goes up the mountain to look for the Theban women possessed by Dionysus, he finds them draped over rocks and foliage, sleeping in exhaustion from the intensity of their experience (Bacchae 683-94). Similar scenes are depicted on red-figure vases, where solitary females worn out from dancing are caught in deep sleep out in the open countryside, exposed, unprotected, and in danger of sexual interference by satyrs. Sleep is the transitional state that can restore the exhausted worshiper to normal consciousness, but restoration also depends on Dionysus as Lusios, ‘‘Releaser.’’ The mad women on the mountain in Euripides’ Bacchae are prevented from recovery when their sleep is interrupted by Agave’s piercing ololuge (a shrill ritual cry). Dionysus will not permit them to awaken until they have torn Pentheus apart.
A story about a group of Delphic Thuiades replicates the pattern. As Plutarch tells it, the Thuiades celebrating the winter rites of Dionysus on Parnassus lost their way at night while raving ( ekmaineisai) for the god and ended up at Amphissa. Exhausted and unable to think clearly, they fell asleep in the agora. The women of Amphissa, anxious about the threat posed by soldiers billeted in the town and recognizing the therapeutic power of deep sleep, ran out and stood guard in silence until the Thuiades awoke (Plutarch, The Virtues of Women 249e-f). The women of Amphissa protected the Thuiades from more than the soldiers; they also rescued the women from the dangers of interrupted ritual.
World History
