Bacchanalia

The Bacchanalia.

The Bacchanalia (or Bacchanal / Carnival) were Roman festivals of Bacchus based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia. It also acts as a cult which is held by Dionysus' followers known as the Bacchantes. However, like all Greco-Roman mysteries very little is known of their rites. Once the Bacchanalia had become popular, the Roman Senate considered them a threat, believing it was designed to rebel against their political views, thus they wanted to suppress the mystery cult to avoid any kind of rebellion against the Senate.

Cultist rites associated with worship of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus (or Bacchus in Roman mythology), were characterized by maniacal dancing to the sound of loud music and crashing cymbals, in which the revelers, called Bacchantes, whirled, screamed, became drunk and incited one another to greater and greater ecstasy. The goal was to achieve a state of enthusiasm in which the celebrants’ souls were temporarily freed from their earthly bodies and were able to commune with Bacchus/Dionysus and gain a glimpse of and a preparation for what they would someday experience in eternity.

The rite climaxed in a performance of frenzied feats of strength and madness, such as uprooting trees, tearing a bull (the symbol of Dionysus) apart with their bare hands, an act called sparagmos, and eating its flesh raw, an act called omophagia. This latter rite was a sacrament akin to communion in which the participants assumed the strength and character of the god by symbolically eating the raw flesh and drinking the blood of his symbolic incarnation. Having symbolically eaten his body and drunk his blood, the celebrants became possessed by Dionysus.