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The ancient reception of Euripides’ Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium

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Dionysus and Rome
This chapter is in the book Dionysus and Rome

Abstract

This chapter offers a reception history of Euripides’ Bacchae from its original production until its intertextual transformation in the Byzantine Christus Patiens. It traces a broad arc from Classical Athens through the Roman Empire, taking in also Hellenistic Alexandria, the Greek-speaking East, Christianity, and Byzantine literature. By examining the cultural contexts and inflections of the different receptions of one poetic text - Greek, Roman and Italian, ‘Eastern’, and Christian - it exposes distinctions between religious or cultural attitudes to Bacchus/ Dionysus across a broad range of Greek and Latin sources. The discussion is divided into four thematic sections, within which receptions are mostly presented in chronological order: Classic Bacchae; Performances; Narratives; and Christian discourse. These sections encompass drama, epic, didactic, epyllion, historiography, biography, epigram, scholarly citations, and theological texts. A selection of the most significant case studies receive in-depth discussion in the body of the chapter; for completeness, the reception history of Bacchae is filled out by listing additional receptions in summary form in an appendix.

Abstract

This chapter offers a reception history of Euripides’ Bacchae from its original production until its intertextual transformation in the Byzantine Christus Patiens. It traces a broad arc from Classical Athens through the Roman Empire, taking in also Hellenistic Alexandria, the Greek-speaking East, Christianity, and Byzantine literature. By examining the cultural contexts and inflections of the different receptions of one poetic text - Greek, Roman and Italian, ‘Eastern’, and Christian - it exposes distinctions between religious or cultural attitudes to Bacchus/ Dionysus across a broad range of Greek and Latin sources. The discussion is divided into four thematic sections, within which receptions are mostly presented in chronological order: Classic Bacchae; Performances; Narratives; and Christian discourse. These sections encompass drama, epic, didactic, epyllion, historiography, biography, epigram, scholarly citations, and theological texts. A selection of the most significant case studies receive in-depth discussion in the body of the chapter; for completeness, the reception history of Bacchae is filled out by listing additional receptions in summary form in an appendix.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. List of illustrations IX
  5. List of Contributors XI
  6. Introduction. Dionysus in Rome: accommodation and resistance 1
  7. The ancient reception of Euripides’ Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium 39
  8. Images of Dionysus in Rome: the archaic and Augustan periods 85
  9. Liber, Fufluns, and the others: rethinking Dionysus in Italy between the fifth and the third centuries BCE 111
  10. Dionysian associations and the Bacchanalian affair 133
  11. Dionysus/Bacchus/Liber in Cicero 157
  12. Bacchus and the exiled Ovid (Tristia 5.3) 177
  13. Alius furor. Statius’ Thebaid and the metamorphoses of Bacchus 193
  14. The shadow of Bacchus: Liber and Dionysus in Christian Latin literature (2nd–4th centuries) 219
  15. Index rerum et nominum 239
  16. Index locorum 245
  17. Index of inscriptions and visual artefacts 247
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110672237-002

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. List of illustrations IX
  5. List of Contributors XI
  6. Introduction. Dionysus in Rome: accommodation and resistance 1
  7. The ancient reception of Euripides’ Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium 39
  8. Images of Dionysus in Rome: the archaic and Augustan periods 85
  9. Liber, Fufluns, and the others: rethinking Dionysus in Italy between the fifth and the third centuries BCE 111
  10. Dionysian associations and the Bacchanalian affair 133
  11. Dionysus/Bacchus/Liber in Cicero 157
  12. Bacchus and the exiled Ovid (Tristia 5.3) 177
  13. Alius furor. Statius’ Thebaid and the metamorphoses of Bacchus 193
  14. The shadow of Bacchus: Liber and Dionysus in Christian Latin literature (2nd–4th centuries) 219
  15. Index rerum et nominum 239
  16. Index locorum 245
  17. Index of inscriptions and visual artefacts 247
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