Balancing Public and Private

In the opening lines of Aristophanes’ play in her name, Lysistrata is the only one who arrives on time for her scheduled meeting. She complains that if the other women had been invited to take part in a Bacchic revel (bakkheion) they would not have been late, and the street would already have been full of tambourines (Lysistrata 1-3). Lysistrata’s complaint is the only surviving reference we have to an exclusively female celebration of Dionysus at Athens. It is important to notice, moreover, that she describes a ritual by appointment, one neither spontaneous nor scheduled in the official calendar.

Most Dionysiac rituals specifically for women were actually part of the public cult system and administered by local governments, but sometimes it was difficult to draw the line between public and private events. The overlap of public and private is an administrative issue in a hellenistic text from Miletos. As part of a job description issued when the priestess assumed office, the city issued a statement about the privileges and responsibilities of the priestess of Dionysus:

Whenever the priestess performs the sacrifices for the sake of the whole city, it is not possible for anyone to throw in a victim to be eaten raw [Smophagion] before the priestess throws one in for the sake of the whole city. Nor is it possible for anyone to conduct a thiasos ahead of the public one. But if any man or woman wishes to offer sacrifice to Dionysus, let the one who sacrifices designate whichever of the two he wishes to preside and let the designated official receive the perquisites... [section on schedule of fees]

... and the priestess is to give to women... and to provide the equipment for the women in all the celebrations. And if any woman wishes to sacrifice to Dionysus, let her give as perquisites to the priestess the splankhna, the kidneys, the intestine, the consecrated portion, the tongue, and the leg cut off as far as the hip joint.

And if any woman wishes to perform initiations for Dionysus Bakkhios in the polis or in the khora or in the islands, let her give to the priestess a stater (gold coin) every trieteris.

And at the Katagcrgia the priests and priestesses of Dionysus Bakkhios are to bring Dionysus down from the sea with the priest and priestess before day until the setting of the sun... of the city... (Jaccottet 2003:2.148-50 no. 150; 277-276 BC)

The office of the priestess was controlled by the polis, the ritual described in the first sentence takes place in town, and is performed ‘‘for the sake of the polis.’’ The public (demosios) thiasos must be allowed to take the lead. Private groups organized to worship Dionysus that wanted to participate had to recognize the authority of both the polis and the public thiasos. This text gives us the only epigraphical example of the word omophagion, ‘‘victim eaten raw,’’ a term heavy with Euripidean resonance, but the raw meat from the sacrificial victim is not eaten by the worshipers. Rather, it is tossed into something, most likely a megaron, a subterranean pit for depositing items in sacrifice (Henrichs 1978:133). The raw meat is owed to Dionysus himself, on Lesbos known as ‘‘Raw-Eater,’’ Omestes (Alcaeus fr. 129 Voigt).

A tomb epigram gives the name of one of the priestesses of Dionysus at Miletos:

Official Bakkhai of the polis, bid farewell to your sacred priestess; this is the right thing to do for a good woman. She led you to the mountain, and she carried all the sacrificial equipment and sacred things, passing in procession before the whole city. Her name was Alkmeionis, daughter of Rhodios; she knew her share of the blessings. (IMiletos 2.733: the translation follows Henrichs 1978:148)

At Miletos a hierarchy of women served Dionysus. The main polis priestess of Dionysus was at the top, and the suburban and rural priestesses were under her administration. Taking the two texts together, we can see that the duties of the main city priestess included presiding over sacrifices (both public and private), managing the equipment for Bacchic celebrations, leading the city’s Bakkhai to the mountain, taking part in a public procession for the whole city, managing the women who performed initiation ceremonies in the city’s territory, and participating in the KatagOgia for Dionysus. At Kos the priestess of Dionysus Thyllophoros also mediated between the city administration and local groups of female worshipers. The priestess here appointed a subordinate priestess in each deme, and it was not possible for any other woman to perform initiations (or, more accurately, ‘‘perform special rites’’) for Dionysus Thyllophoros. If the priestess found that anyone had not followed the rules, her kurios had to report the woman to the local council (Soko-lowski 1969: no. 166, 24-30, 67-8). Clearly the city administration at Kos assumed that small private groups of women were in need of oversight when the issue was a Bacchic celebration.