Harvard Divinity School

Dionysos's Revenge and the Validation of the Hellenic World-View Author(s): Park McGinty Reviewed work(s): Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 71, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Apr., 1978), pp. 77-94 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509776 . Accessed: 18/07/2012 07:20
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DIONYSOS'S

REVENGE AND THE VALIDATION HELLENIC WORLD-VIEW Park McGinty

Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA 18015

OF THE

Stories of mortals offending the gods and being punished for their impudence occupy a prominent position in Greek religious tradition. Almost all of the major deities receive some affront, and the manner in which they avenge themselves is a significant, though usually minor, component in defining their nature. In the case of Dionysos, however, the pattern of affront and vengeance occurs too often to be a mere episode in the god's history and instead forms one of the central mythical features by which he is characterized. The accounts are too numerous and too varied even to summarize, so that here will be presented only a schema of the major types of action. Generally, Dionysos is presented as moving with his cortege from place to place bringing his worship to mortals. Resistance to Dionysos and his cult occurs with varying intensity. In some accounts his antagonist actually assaults him physically,1takes him captive,2 or kidnaps him.3In one account, the mortal attacks only the god's cortege of maenads.4 In other instances the mortal rebuffs him when he offers his worship,5 insults some aspect of his cult,6 or mistreats persons who have been gracious to him.7 Whatever the level of offense given, it is unfailingly
'Lycurgus: Homer Iliad 6.130-40; Sophocles Antigone 955-67 and later accounts. Also in the Perseus accounts: Pausanias 2.20. 4; 22.1; 23.7-8, Nonnus Dionysiaka 25-47, and the Deriades account: Nonnus Dionysiaka 21-40. 2Lycurgus in the fragments of Aeschylus and Naevius. For Aesch. see A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta2 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1926) frgs. 58-62; H. J. Mette, Die Fragmente der Tragodien des Aischylos (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1959) frgs. 72-76. For Naevius see n. 41 below. Also Pentheus in Euripides Bacchae 433ff. and later accounts. 3The Tyrrhenian pirates: Homeric Hymn 6, and later accounts. 4Boutes: Diodorus 5.50. 5Pentheus. The daughters of Proitos: Hesiod Eoiae, in R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, Fragmenta Hesiodea (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967) frg. 131 (=Apollodorus 2.[26]2.2). Also the daughters of Minyas: Ovid Metamorphoses 4.1ff.; Plutarch Quaest. Graec. 38; Antoninus Liberalis Metamorphoses 10; Aelian Varia Historia 3.42. Also Orpheus: Aeschylus (=Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta2 frg. 22). 6The daughters of Eleuther: Suidas, s.v. icXaPcvaLyitca At6vvaov. 7The murderers of Ikarios: Hyginus Fabulae 130; Nonnus Dionysiaka 47.34-225.

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punished,8 in most cases by Dionysos himself, though sometimes by others. The retribution is always severe. Sometimes the offending mortal is imprisoned,9 made ill,10 driven mad," blinded,12 or killed relatively directly,'3 though sometimes in a quite painful manner.14In many cases his punishment is even more exquisite, usually associated with a temporary insanity inflicted by the god. In this madness the mortal either kills himself15or some loved one'6 or places himself in a situation so that he will be killed by a loved one.17 In other cases, Dionysos transforms the offenders into animals.18Finally, in one late source Dionysos continues the mortal's punishment in the underworld.19Though details vary over time, the basic structure of the myths remains constant throughout antiquity. Scholars have advanced several interpretations of these stories in Dionysiac mythology, some of which are helpful, some not; yet none is totally satisfying.20Often the primarydeficiency of these explanations is
8The only exception is that of Perseus, who, because he was acting as the protege of Hera, does not represent a mortal insulting a god of his own initiative. In Schol. T on II. 14.319: (in H. Erbse, Scholia Graeca in Homeri Ilidem vol. 3[Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974] 641), Eustathius 989.23: Perseus throws Dionysos into the Lernean lake. Dionysos fares better in other accounts of this episode. In Pausanias (2.20.4; 22.1; 23.7-8) after the conflict Dionysos wins the worship of the Argives; in Nonnus (Dionysiaka 25.47) Dionysos relents from killing Perseus only at the behest of Hermes. 9Lycurgus:Sophocles Antigone 955-65. Fabulae 730: the daughters of the Attic shepherds who had murdered Ikarios 'OHyginus suffer from a pestilence until they memorialize Erigone, Ikarios's daughter who had killed herself out of grief. 'Generally the madness is followed by disaster. In the daughters of Eleuther episode (n. 6, above), however, the madness is cured without lasting effects once Dionysos is honored properly. '2Lycurgusblinded by Zeus: Nonnus Dionysiaka 21. '3Lycurgus:Homer //. 6.130-40; Deriades: Nonnus Dionysiaka 21-40. '40rpheus dismembered alive by the Bassarides: Aeschylus (=Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta2, frg. 22); Lycurgus torn apart by horses: Apollodorus 3.5.1. '5Boutes: Diodorus 5.50.1-5; Lycurgus: Hyginus Fabulae 132. '6The women of Argos devour their own nurslings after the impiety of the daughters of Proitos: see n. 5. The Minyades kill one of their children:see n. 5. Lycurgus is portrayed in late accounts as killing his wife, or child, or both: Apollodorus 3.5.1; Hyginus Fabulae 132. '7Much of the horror of the Bacchae resultsfrom the double madness Dionysos imposes in order to have Pentheus destroyed by his own mother. This scenario remains stable in later accounts. "The Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins: Homeric Hymn 6 and later accounts. The Minyades into flying animals: see n. 5. '9Lycurgus must continually fill a leaking vessel: fragment from anon. pap. in D. L. Page, Select Papyri, vol. 3 (London: Heinemann, 1962) 520-25. 20I discuss older interpretations of Dionysiac mythology in general, relating these readings to underlying hermeneutical presuppositions in my Interpretationand Dionysos. Method in the Study of a God (The Hague: Mouton, 1978).

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that they have simply ceased to be relevant. Advances in the human sciences have outdated many of their presuppositions and have shifted the focus of interest to other issues. The present paper is intended to apply a new theoretical model, the Berger-Luckmann "social construction of reality"approach2'to these "resistance-"or "vengeancemyths." It will argue that these myths are best understood as ideology,22 i.e., as representing narratives which define the Greek universe as hierarchical by nature and by design and which thereby justify the asymmetrical allocation of power, privilege, and status among gods and men. I argue, then, that the most central function of the vengeance myths is as a mechanism for social control by reinforcing accepted concepts of social stratification. This is not to say that the mythographers were self-consciously using mythology to mystify the credulous or using religious beliefs purely for secular ends. Certainlyfor the most part they shared the underlying assumptions which the myths effectively embody. These assumptions included belief in a supernatural realm analogous to and, in large measure, providing the model for the human order. Therefore, at least in Hellenic times, most of those communicating the myths would have understood themselves as presenting the inevitable and proper nature of things rather than as validating a certain historically bound set of social rules. In general,
21Thebasic references for this approach are Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1966), and Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1969). Much recent anthropology has moved in the same direction. Cf. esp. the work of Clifford Geertz, Mary Douglas, and Victor Turner. While the work of Claude Levi-Strauss has applications to showing how essential categories organize the "shape" of social worlds, from the present perspective it is too formalistic to elucidate the way the myths are linked to social, political, and economic realities. While the argument of the present paper could be described as showing how the vengeance myths mediate certain contradictions within Greek society, both the contradictions and the mediations are historically bound to a specific system of social relationships and hence do not represent any inherent property of the human mind. The appreciative critique of Levi-Strauss by Kirk (Myth [Berkeley: University of California, 1973] 42-83) is helpful, especially in his suggested modifications of the structuralist method (pp. 73-77). Kirk's insistence on the fortuitous nature of much mythical material is doubtlessly correct, but it should be supplemented by awareness of the politics involved in creating and transmitting mythology. Myths after all were told to and for specific constituencies who had ways of making their approval and disapproval felt. 22The word "ideology"is used here in a value-free sense to refer to structuredideas which function both to define a world (to serve as a map or model of reality) and to orient people's behavior in that world (to serve as a blueprint or modelfor reality). While often restricted to thought systems which serve specific interest groups, "ideology" is here used in the broader sense because it is the only term which implies both an organized set of ideas and a dynamic process through which these ideas become the "real world" of a person appropriating them. "Worldview,"although helpful, connotes too much passivity; while "propaganda,"although including the dynamic aspect involved in "world-appropriation," is too pejorative.

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because these assumptions were so pervasive as to be unconscious, the mythographers would not have been aware of transmitting basic assumptions in narrative form. Nevertheless, the most salient effect of the myths was to communicate two "truths."First, different persons and groups each occupied a clearly defined "place" in the universe with attendant rights and responsibilities. Second, the moral nature of the universe was such that any challenge to this hierarchy was unjustified and bound to be punished. The myths thereby revealed the proper balance between different constituencies, divine and human. In so doing, they mitigated tensions between Dionysiac religion and other facets of Hellenism and at the same time showed that Dionysos was a powerful bulwark of the Hellenic ethos rather than, as many modern interpretations have suggested, its antagonist. Mythology and World Construction The present interpretation assumes that at the empirically observable level all cultures, hence all religions, are constructed by humans for humans. That is, they result from the selection-sometimes thought out, sometimes "revealed," often made without conscious decision-of certain possibilities for understanding and acting in the world, a selection, then, which implicitly excludes competing possibilities. Since humans are not bound by instinct and must be taught how to be proper persons in their respective societies, a great number of cultural performances are required simply to convey the "true"state of reality and thereby to encourage proper behavior. This transmission of culture is complicated by the fact that societies generally fulfill some constituencies' needs better than others. Hence, different groups have different interests at stake when it comes to perpetuating or transforming given sociocultural patterns. Those who benefit from the current patterns will tend to act to preservethem. Those whose lot is less fortunate will tend, usually, to seek the compensations which the culture makes available in lieu of fuller satisfaction. Sometimes, however, they will actively seek to change the sociocultural order better to serve their needs. Thus, at any given moment, the accepted definition of reality may have a relatively precarious hold over the members of the society. Developments at all levels of the society create new possibilities and new imperatives, necessitating in turn the continual validation, defense, and repair of the current social world. The basic argument of this paper is that the Dionysiac vengeance myths representa complex mechanism for regulatingthe Greek social world, guiding both the thoughts and actions of several different constituencies so as to reconcile them to the overall legitimacy of the Hellenic cosmos.

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Before discussion of the particular vengeance myths themselves, two further points which bear on the process by which Dionysos achieves both his assumed reality and his forcefulness in Hellenic culture need to be covered: (a) the place of violence in society and (b) the internalization of symbolic social facts, especially deities, by persons in such a way that these symbols assume the status of paramount reality. While not inevitably related, in the present circumstance these two issues coalesce so as to make Dionysos a credible avenger of the order of things and hence an effective control mechanism, even though from the scientific point of view he is merely a symbolic social entity. a) It is a sociological commonplace that violence or, what is more usually the case, the threat of violence stands as a foundation of social order. Since not all needs in any human group can be satisfied, men organize society so that the gratification obtained by obeying the social rules seems preferable to the likely results of disobeying them. The more credible the threat of violence and the more intense its threatened level, the less likely is behavior defined as deviant by those enforcing the rules. Gods, then, would be very effective control mechanisms since, by definition, they are more powerful, more knowing, and often more irascible than men. b) The second point concerns the manner in which persons learn about their world, that is, the manner in which reality is socially constructed. As argued powerfully by Berger and Luckmann,23social worlds are constructed through a dialectical process of externalization, objectivation, and internalization. That is, in order to exist, humans externalize their thoughts, desires, and emotions in publicly observable action. When shared with others, this action (speech, gesture, role, etc.) attains the objective status of a social fact. Persons, especially the young, learning the accepted rules of a given social order then internalize these social facts as part of the inevitable nature of things. In this manner at a certain moment someone, through language and other symbolic behavior, expressed or externalized the concept of Dionysos as an objectively existing supernatural personality. Shared with others, this symbolic reality became a social fact which then was internalized as real by increasing numbers of individuals. The more numerous his worshippers, the more obvious the god's existence and power seemed, especially to newer generations entering the culture after the beliefs had become common. In this way Dionysos's devotees would come to see the god as just as real as a ruler who had never been seen directly but whose existence seemed to be verified by numerous indirect proofs.
23 The Social Construction of Reality.

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Once Dionysos had become part of the supernaturalsociety which the majority of the Greeks accepted as constituting the upper reaches of their own society, he, like the other deities, could serve as a credible threat against disobeying the rules of this hierarchy. Though, as will be spelled out later, Dionysos himself serves as the occasion for temporarily suspending certain of the generally observed social and religious worlds, he does this in such a manner that fundamentally he defends rather than subverts the accepted hierarchy. Thus, the social order was protected against deviant behavior by the threat of violence, both human and divine. The Dionysiac myths gain their complexity from the fact that different constituencies could read them as threatening different things. As such, they possess at least two different levels of meaning: (1) as expressing Hellenic social assumptions, (2) as expressing uniquely Dionysian matters. The remainder of this article will spell out these respective levels of meaning. 1. Vengeance Myths and Hellenic Social Assumptions. The vengeance myths associated with Dionysos correspond closely to the Hellenic portrayal of the proper relations between gods and men. Stories of conflict on both the divine and human levels are so common as to prove that conflict was a central leitmotiv of Greek culture. The gods squabble with one another; humans fight; the gods use humans to get back at one another; humans appeal to the gods to champion their cause against that of other mortals. Such an understanding of the universe implies a network of relationships, both divine and human, rife with serious tensions. Yet the situation does not reflect a state of war but rather a tempestuous family of individuals, each pressing claims against neighbors and relatives. Such a worldview then would lead men to see the internal struggles as an inevitable result of powerful and competing wills and would therefore place a premium on conflict reduction and on the virtues of civility, flexibility, and diplomatic skill. As the negative examples of Hippolytus, Pentheus, and, though in a different manner, Creon demonstrate, wisdom dictated that faced with competing demands one accept gracefully the ambiguity of things. One way to insure proper order is for the powerful to make random checks on this desired civility, rewarding its presence, punishing its absence. Indeed, in numerous myths this is precisely what the Greek gods do. When graciously received, they bless their hosts with some boon, usually associated with their divine personality. When repulsed, they manifest their divine powers destructively, creating sometimes natural, sometimes social disasters for their antagonists.24
24Forreferencesto this topos, see the following: A. P. Burnett, "Pentheus and Dionysos: Host and Guest," Classical Philology 65 (1970) 24-25, nn. 8-9; G. Procacci, "Internoa un

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of a Whenseenas an exampleof the genreof theoxenia,the reception god by mortals, the vengeance myths reveal their value as to properbehavior.Theyshowthatthe different levels encouragements within the Greekhierarchy but alwaysat the initiative interpenetrate, and underthe control of the higherlevel. A god may choose to take a mortallover,and it is exceedingly riskyforthe mortalto turnhimor her down. Let a mortal, however,overstephis or her place, even to the extent of unintentionallyseeing a deity naked, and the mortal is doomed. Thus, throughout Greek mythology the situation occurs wherethosegoingalongwiththewishesof the morepowerful repeatedly tend to be rewarded,while those resistingalmost without exception suffer. In many cases the process of destructionis presentedas a practicallyautomaticresponseto disobedienceon the part of one's ontologicalinferiors. Often the punishment by the deity is nothing more than the of ordinarily beneficialdivinepowerto a destructive level. exaggeration For example,Dionysos'smother,Semele,broughton herowndoomby demandingthat Zeus, her lover, show himselfto her as he did to the gods. Compelledby his own swornoath to obey herrequest,Zeustook on his thunderbolt natureand in so doingblastedthe haplessSemele.25 The Dionysiacvengeance to relations mythsreveala parallel response that, had they not been violated,would have been mutually satisfying. Simply by overemphasizing aspectsof his naturewhich were initially offered in a benign form, Dionysos destroys those who refuse his blessings. Many of the instancesof his vengeance,in fact, represent cult. Boutes'mad plummetinto merelycruelsimulacraof his ordinary the well is an ironicparodyof Dionysos'sown mythicalplungeinto the sea and LerneanLake,as is the seawarddriveof the Tyrsenian pirates. WhenLycurgus killshimself,hiswife,or his sonwithan ax thinking that he is choppingdown a vine, he acts underthe delusionthathe is striking
Episodo del Poema di Silio Italico (7.162-211)," Rivista Philologia 42 (1914) 441-48, esp. 442, n. 1;J. Fontenrose, Philemon, Lot and Lycaon (University of California Publications in Classical Philology 13; Berkeley, 1945) 93-120, esp. 94-102, and nn. 15-16. Burnett, 15, n. 1, makes the relevant observation that the theme of divine punishment is central to several tragedies (Aeschylus: Persae, Prometheus, Agamemnon; Sophocles: Ajax, Trachiniae, Oedipus Tyrannus; Euripides: Hippolytus, Bacchae) and important in others (Euripides: Hercules Furens, Andromache). Furthermore, the notion that gods will, as a matter of course, punish those slighting their TLM4J is perfectly congruent with Hellenic ideas; Dodds cites, in addition to Dionysos's demands for honor (Bacchae 208-9, 319-21), that of Aphrodite: Euripides Hippolytus 7-8, and that of Thanatos: Euripides Alcestis 53. Finally, for recent analysis integrating Dionysos's destruction of Pentheus into the general phenomenon of Greek gods destroying mortals, see Jeanne Roux, Euripide: Les Bacchantes (Paris: "Les Belles Lettres," 1970) 34-42. 5Pindar Olympian Odes 2.25-27; Euripides Baccae 1-3; Ovid Metamorphoses 3.259315.

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at a property or symbol of the god. When marvels appear just before Dionysos drives his victims mad, they are in the form of Bacchic manifestations: wine, honey, ivy, vines, aromatic smells, snakes, lions, tigers, panthers, bears, the sounds of timbrels, flutes, horns, and cymbals. The madness itself is, of course, simply the mania intensified, while the child murders are cruel travesties of the mountaintop diasparagmoi, where animals were torn apart at the culmination of the ecstatic worship. In essence, when Dionysos sees his mania refused, he imposes it involuntarily but, like the unmasked glory of Zeus before Semele, now raised to an intensity incommensurate with human powers. Potentially joyful, the ecstasy now destroys. There are, however, a number of other myths in which the outcome of Dionysos's appearance to mortals is fortunate. Incompatible with other interpretations of the resistance-vengeancemythology, they support the view that the myths are basically validations of proper divine-human relationships. Furthermore, they suggest that the typical vengeance myth (divine appearance, rejection by humans, divine punishment) is but the negative instance of the more basic form of the theoxenia: divine appearance, reception by humans, divine recompense. In the positive instances, humans welcome Dionysos graciously26or defend him from attack by others.27In response, he rewards them with some blessing,28 saves them from possible hardship,29 or when that is impossible, memorializes them30 or provides some other recompense.31As in the case of his vengeance, the god's rewards are also congruent with his general nature and worship: the gifts of translation to a happier existence, ecstatic worship, and the joys of wine.

26Ikarios:see n. 7 above; Brongos: Nonnus Dionysiaka 17.37-86; Falernus: Silius Italicus Punica 7.162-211; Oeneus: Hyginus Fabulae 129;the inhabitants of Naxos (who allowed Dionysos to have Ariadne): Seneca Oedipus 488-96; cf. Propertius 3.17.27-28; and the Egyptians: Diodorus 3.73.5-6. 27The helmsman of the Tyrsenian or Tyrrhenian pirates: Homeric Hymn 6; Ovid Metamorphoses 3.582-691; Kutis, the wife of Lycurgus who urges him not to resist:Anon. pap., (ed. Page, n. 19 above); Charops, the Thracian who informs Dionysos of Lycurgus's evil intentions: Diodorus 3.65.5-6, and Cadmus and Teiresias: Euripides Bacchae 170369. 28Ikarios,Brongos, Falernus all get wine; the helmsman in the Homeric hymn is made "entirely blessed," 7racv6hf3ov; Charops gets Lycurgus's Thracian kingdom and knowledge of the initiatory rites. 29Kutis,Lycurgus's wife, is saved from destruction; so too the Tyrrhenian helmsman. 30Afterthe tragic deaths of Ikarios and Erigone, Erigone is memorialized in the Aiora festival (Hyginus Fabulae 130) and / or she and her father, along with their faithful dog, are translated into constellations: Nonnus Dionysiaka 21-40. 3'Cadmos and his wife, though having to suffer many hardships, are eventually to be brought ot the Land of the Blessed: Euripides Bacchae 1330-39.

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When taken with the stories of destruction, these myths offer the Greeks a clear and religiously reasonable choice: accept the divine presence and be happy or resist and be destroyed. And it is clear from the totality of descriptions of Dionysos's relationships with mankind that the Greeks did not usually perceive his presence to be oppressive. Indeed, the entire first part of Euripides'Bacchae evokes thejoy given by Dionysiac worship when properly accepted.32 Another powerful indication that the vengeance myths are ideological supports for the divine hierarchy is the fact that the myths consistently portray antagonism to Dionysos as culpable. Furthermore, Dionysos enjoys the support of all the other Hellenic deities with the understandable exception of Hera. This is clearly the case from the earliest parts of the tradition. In Homer, for example, it is Zeus who blinds Lycurgus for having attacked Dionysos.33 There is no need to interpret this as evidence of Homer's contempt for Dionysos's unnatural cowardice and inability to take care of himself,34 especially since Dionysos seems to have been portrayed as a child.35The tone of the episode is sympathetic to Dionysos and hostile to Lycurgus. After having been blinded by Zeus, Lycurgus soon dies "since he was hated by all the immortal gods" (irei a&avaroloLv trrao OELatv).36 &arjXxOerTO The lesson is that Dionysos is part of the divine family and ought not to be opposed, not that he is pusillanimous and an easy victim. The most powerful demonstration of Dionysos's congruence with Hellenic views on gods and men comes from tragedy. The two most important tragic figures exemplifying the error of impiety towards Dionysos are Lycurgus and Pentheus. Though the complete works are lost, fragments remain from the tetralogy dealing with Lycurgus by Aeschylus, revealing striking similarities to Euripides' treatment of the Pentheus episode in the Bacchae. Like Euripides' Pentheus, Aeschylus's Lycurgus speaks contemptuously of Dionysos's weakness and effeminacy.37 Apparently as a warning, Dionysos fills the house or
32Cf.Jacqueline de Romilly, "Le theme du bonheur dans les Bacchantes," Revue des Etudes grecques 76 (1963) 361-80; R. P. Festugiere, "La signification religieuse de la parodos des Bacchantes," Eranos 54 (1956) 72-86.
33Il. 6.139.

34AsGuthrie does ingeniously in The Greeks and their Gods (Boston: Beacon, 1955) 165. 35Hehas "nurses"(rtOe1aL); and when he dives into the sea, Thetis, in maternal fashion, takes him to her breast (OErTt 6' vred:aro K6Xhrr In Nonnus (20.4), even as a 6eL&6Tra). mature god Dionysos flees, but only after Hera tricks him into taking off his armor and frightening him with thunder. 3611. 6.140. 37Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta2, frgs. 60-62; Mette, Die Fragmente der Tragodien des Aischylos, frgs. 72-74. For discussion see Mette, Der verlorene Aischylos

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palace with his presence and causes the roof to shake like a maenad The ending is unknown, but clearly Lycurgus is punished by revelling.38 the god or his representatives. Aeschylus is suggestive but it is Euripides who, in the Bacchae, presents the richest rhetoric about Dionysos's legitimacy and the foolishness of rejecting him. There is, of course, considerable disagreement over Euripides'attitude towards the god.39Yet the drama is consistent with other expressions of Dionysos's place in Hellenism and, used judiciously, can serve as an index of traditional conceptions. The entire momentum of the play works to establish Pentheus as wrong. The rhetoric marshalled to convince him that the worship of Dionysos is proper conforms so closely to what is thought of as typically Hellenic that it could come from Apollo's temple at Delphi. Throughout the play Pentheus is judged not merely for impiety (e.g., 490) but for Xp6va, "as old as time violating ancestral traditions &s 0' 6o1AtrXtKac itself" (201). Both Cadmus (331) and the Chorus (387-89, 890-92) interpret his resistance as a violation of law. Dionysos himself continually uses the rhetoric of "wisdom"(641: Trpos aouoov av6p6s) of "moderation"(641: oawpov', 1341: coxpovev) and of "understanding" versus "folly" (39: iK1a06ev, 480: aclaOEZ,490: 4aaOiar, 1345: to exhort Pentheus and the city of Thebes into the proper cUWOe0'),40 bearing. Even the most "Apolline" of all sentiments-"know yourself," "know that you are but a mortal"-is quite at home in the developing tension. In their first encounter (506; cf. 635-36) Dionysos warns Pentheus that he does not know his own true identity or his own limits. Later, just before Dionysos turns on Pentheus to lure him to his death on Cithaeron (794-95), he advises him that it would be better to make the proper sacrifices than "to kick against the pricks, a mortal against god." Earlier (396-97) the chorus had already spoken against overstepping proper human boundaries. Thus, the hybris of Pentheus goes well beyond a youthful defensiveness; it is a rebellion against the ordained nature of the universe. And finally, Dionysos invokes the king of the gods on his side. Zeus, he replies (1349) to Agave's lament, long ago ordained things to work out this way.
(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963) 136-41; Louis Sechan, Etudes sur la tragedie dans ses rapports avec la ceramique (Paris: Champion, 1926) 63-79. 38jvOovaLo 6v)6&lua, faKXEeL arTyrl7( TragicorumGraecorum Fragmenta2,frg. 58; Die Fragmente der Trag6dien des Aischylos, frg. 76). 39Forreview discussion of general scholarly positions see the following: for pre-1912 interpretations, Rene Nihard, Le Problkme des Bacchantes d'Euripide (Louvain: Ch. Peters, 1912) 9-14; for more recent materials, E. R. Dodds, Euripides' Bacchae2, pp. xxxix-1; Jean Carriere,"Sur le message des Bacchantes,"L 'Antiquite classique 35 (1966) 119, n. 7. 4OCf. Burnett, 21. Also see Festugiere (80-81) for a discussion of the contrast between i6, "the uninstructed," as used in the Bacchae. e6J5, "he who knows," and a&aO

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Thus, Dionysiac mythology in the earliest literature, both Homer and the tragedians, clearly supported the classical virtues of piety and avoidance of hybris, i.e., of stepping out of one's place in the scheme of things. As time passed, poets seem to have transmitted the myths more from aesthetic than from religious concerns, so that it is risky to take later literary versions of the myths as reflections of contemporary religiosity. Nevertheless, the structure of the vengeance myths remained remarkably stable through the time of Nonnus.41 To the extent (and it may have been negligible) that the Hellenistic and Roman readers looked to the myths for a definition of the nature of reality, they would have confronted an unvarying demand that humans be subservient to gods. If, indeed, the vengeance myths did reinforce the general Hellenic religious ethos from the earliest period, then there is no reason to continue to define Dionysos as the antithesis of Apollo, with the latter representing genuine Hellenism and the former, an alien regression. It is true that the Greeks frequently employed binary oppositions. It is also true that in many respects Apollo and Dionysos differ markedly. Yet it is time to admit that the standard Apolline/Dionysiac dichotomieslaw/ disorder; boundary-maintaining/ boundary-breaking; Olympic/ chthonic; idea/will; dream/intoxication; masculine/feminine; polisoriented/ individualistic-while they may help clarify the nature of the gods, can be pushed too far. By fixating on such structural oppositions, one freezes Dionysos and Apollo into a static and misleading mold. Apollo too has his disruptive side, his strange connections to the underworld, his own mania. Conversely, Dionysos was often seen as a great agent for civilization and order as the Greeks knew it. It is not insignificant that in Sophocles' Antigone, one of the most harrowing dramas of excess in Greek tragedy, it is Dionysos that the chorus invokes to heal the city of its troubles and reestablish it in its proper course (1115-54). To be sure, the god's connections with Thebes would predispose one to think of him, but he would hardly have been invoked had he been conceived of solely as a deity of excess and madness.
4'The third century B.C. Roman tragedy Lycurgus by Naevius seems clearly to reproduce the general structure of Aeschylus's Edonoi and centers on divine punishment of hybris. (See E. H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin [4 vols.; London: Heinemann, 1936] 2.122-35). By the time of Roman ascendency the myths were so common that they no longer needed full telling but could function as a literary topos. Authors could simply list key names and artists paint key figures of those punished (Horace Carmina 2.19.14-16; Diodorus 3.65.4; 4.4; Ovid Tristia5.3.39-40) or those blessed (Philostratus Imagines 1.25) or groups containing both (Pausanias 1.20.3; Propertius 3.17.21-28; Longos Daphnis and Chloe 4.3; Seneca Oedipus 435-96) and these figures could function as shorthand slogans to evoke images of divine power and to warn against impiety. Finally, Nonnus collects almost all of the vengeance myths and supplies his own supplements, in general changing the myths only to heighten the power of Dionysos.

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In effect, the vengeance myths present Dionysos as consistent with other deities in upholding the Hellenic order. Dionysiac excess is a response to betrayal or attack, not a necessary property of the god. In telling these myths the Greeks reiterated the complex hierarchy of relationships on both the divine and the human levels and, more importantly, represented this hierarchy as a unity. Since Dionysos is part of the religious system, whoever assails his presence not only insults an individual god but also ultimately impugns the integrity of the entire pantheon. While there are indisputable tensions within the divine family, there is a more important solidarity, so that it is most precarious for mortals to try to play off one deity against another.42 Stories such as the vengeance myths would make it exceedingly difficult for a Greek to ignore any important sphere of the religious life. This is not only because the myths could be expected to instill fear but also because they portray a god making just claims but rejected or assaulted by objectionable mortals. The story line makes it generally impossible to sympathize with the mortals and not to sympathize with Dionysos. The myths would then represent negative models of human action, inculcating not only respect and awe for the deity but also a sense of shame at the ingratitude of men. In essence, the audience is forced to choose for the gods against men. This situation is repeated many times throughout Greek literature, much of which concerns reflections on human duty to the gods. By this repetition the sense of the divine presence becomes quite powerful, no matter how ambiguous it appears from the perspective of human self interest. Also, through the ideologically clever maneuver of making the humans the villains, the myths solve the problem of theodicy43 and thereby provide a readymade justification for violence in the actual Bacchic cult, such as the hunting and occasional murder of the descendents of the Minyades by the Dionysiac priest during the Agrionia.44 Men initiated the disequilibrium in their relationship to Dionysos. If this disequilibrium still produces aftershocks, humans have no one to blame but themselves. The resistance myths postulate man's permanent debt to Dionysos, which can be discharged only through proper religious observance. Furthermore, since the resistance myths are paralleled by stories of human ingratitude and disrespect to other deities, there is an overall ideological momentum demanding obeisance to all of the gods.

42Thatgods could force mortals into opposing other gods does not, of course, argue against the fact that mortals were not to initiate such opposition on their own. 43Cf.Berger (The Sacred Canopy, 54-80, esp. 73-78) for discussion relating theodicy to man's choice for the divine "other" and against himself. 44PlutarchQuaest. Graec. 38.

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On a different level the myths stand as an implicit curb against destructive action on the part of the devotees. Lycurgus, the daughters of Cadmos, of Minyas and of Proitos all cause or directly inflict death, but only because they stand under the condemnation of the god. The myths, hence, associate anti-social action with improper rather than proper divine-human relations and, despite their violence, indirectly celebrate a harmonious world. 2. Vengeance Myths and the Special Character of Dionysos in Greek Religion While it is true that the myths reinforce the logic of Greek religion, there are important ways in which they point to the special status of Dionysos in Hellenism. Stories of resistance are much more important in the lore about Dionysos than in that of any other deity. Other gods may be occasionally insulted, rebuffed, and abused; but none so often as Dionysos. Also peculiar to the Dionysiac myths is the fact that in most of them people are resisting the god's gift-his mania and its attendant exultation-rather than some act of aggression or demand for unpleasant service. It may be true that some persons resist submitting their reason to extrarational forces, but in the historical period we have no evidence that the actual devotees did fight the mania or find it threatening. The psychological theory of resistance is suggestive, but it does not solve the puzzle of stories which portray certain people joyously accepting a cultic ecstasy while others violently repulse it. Like much of Dionysiac religion, stories of resistance to ecstasy may always elude thoroughly satisfactory explanation. However, recent anthropological scholarship points to exceedingly suggestive relationships between ecstatic movements and socioeconomic realities and may help reveal tensions reflected in the myths and the solution to these tensions which the myths aid in bringing about. In Ecstatic Religion,45 I. M. Lewis argues convincingly that one entire genre of possession cults represents an oblique aggressive strategy on the part of persons who are socially marginal, i.e., persons prevented from playing the role in society that they feel is due them. By opening themselves up to ecstatic possession, these persons temporarily are able to break traditional role stereotypes and to undergo experiences and claim privileges ordinarily denied them. Because it is the god or spirit or ancestor who possesses and acts through them, they are not held responsible for suspending daily patterns and behaving in an extraordinary fashion. Lewis sees Dionysiac religion as one instance of
45Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971).

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this peripheral possession, largely because of its presumed appeal to women and to men of low social status.46According to Lewis's theory, by participating in the mania, the devotees both expressed a mild protest against social inequities without seriously challenging them and enjoyed
46EcstaticReligion, 101. The assertion that Dionysos was a god primarily of the lower classes is difficult, if not impossible, to verify or refute. G. Aurelio Privitera (Dioniso in Omero e nella poesia greca arcaica. [Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1970] 21-27, passim) presents suggestive evidence that Dionysos was both known by the Mycenaen aristocracy and venerated by the nobility of the archaic and classical periods. Dionysiac religion is, however, complex; and the socially powerful could have worshipped Dionysos as god of wine and drama without associating themselves with the orgiastic cult which, after all, is the catalyst for the violence in the resistance-vengeancemyths. The central issue is actually whether it was primarily the socially marginal who were the carriers of the ecstatic cult. Surviving evidence suggests that indeed it was the "relatively deprived" members of society, especially women, who were most attracted to the ecstatic cult. (References to women and the orgia are assembled in Farnell, Cults, 5.297-99). Relative deprivation, as recent discussions (cf. David Aberle, "A Note on Relative Deprivation Theory as Applied to Millenarian and Other Cult Movements"in W. A. Lessa and E. Z. Vogt, eds., Reader in Comparative Religion2 [New York: Harper & Row, 1965] 537-41; John Gager, Kingdom and Community [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1975] 27-28, 94-96) make clear, is not a static, objective category but rather refers to a discrepancy between what a person or group sees as legitimate expectations on the one hand and actuality on the other. This discrepancy between what is hoped for and what is attainable could then be sufficient to lead even prominent but frustrated figures to participate in the orgia. Given that Greek historians concerned themselves with the powerful, it is not surprising that the only historical devotees of the ecstasy whose social background we know (Olympias, mother of Alexander, and Skylas, a Scythian king) were powerful figures. What is striking, however, is the fact that both were barred from playing fully the role he or she desired. Herodotus (4.78-80) explicitly states that Skylas, even though king, was dissatisfied with Scythian culture and preferred disguising himself as an ordinary Greek and participating in Greek customs to being a Scythian. The rest of the Scythian leadership found their King's participation in the Dionysiac orgia shameful and brought about his death. Olympias, for her part, though close to the pinnacle of Macedonian leadership, was constantly thwarted from the level of power she so clearly craved. The royal women of Macedonia, no matter how talented, occupied (and, more important for the present discussion, could expect to occupy) positions of subservience relative to the men surrounding them, a fact emphasized by Alexander's alleged remark (Plutarch Alexander 68) that his mother's assuming command in Epirus was a wise choice since the Macedonians would never submit to having a woman as king. (On the disparity between the abilities of and the opportunities for Macedonian queens, see G. H. Macurdy, Hellenistic Queens [Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1932] esp. 1-17.) Thus, according to the interpretation offered here, both Skylas and Olympias, though powerful in one sense, were, in another sense, powerless to fulfill their most basic aspirations and hence sought compensatory satisfactions in the Dionysiac ecstasy. Similarly in the Bacchae (11.185-90) Cadmus and Teiresias, the only male devotees of Dionysos, are both essentially powerless, and explicitly contrast thejoys of the Dionysian ecstasy to the burden of old age. Once one notes that the devotees of the ecstatic cult tend to be those who are blocked from the full exercise of their powers, it is possible to abandon the traditional but fatuous sexist interpretations that see women as by nature more prone than men to the Bacchic orgia.

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a brief respite from their drudgery and boredom. De Romilly has well expressed this escapist aspect of the cult by calling it "an evasion towards God."47 Yet whereas possession cults guarantee certain benefits for marginal social classes, the more powerful persons in the society have countervailing strategies to contain these outbursts. In the first place, in a sophisticated, class-stratified society, the elite would want to spare the community such possession cults because the latter would seem in appallingly bad taste, much in the same way that contemporary upperclass Christians tend to find speaking in tongues by lower-class Christians an embarrassment. Secondly, however mild or temporary, such protests against the prevailing social order are always threatening. Lewis's theory is helpful in that it not only makes sense out of possession cults but also leads one to predict reactions against such cults. As an anthropologist, Lewis primarilytreats tribal cultures, where accusations of witchcraft serve as the main mechanism for the upper-class "counterattack"; but his analysis is relevant for the Greek situation. In the tribal context, while possession frees the ecstatic from responsibility for his actions, it often also taints him with suspicion. He is now perceived as charged with supernaturalpowers which can be used maliciously, and his social superiors can accuse him of being a witch who employs black magic and can discipline him accordingly. Applying Lewis's analysis to the Dionysiac vengeance myths, we can link the religious tensions to underlying social tensions. Lewis's theory suggests that in part the ecstatic cult was a religious response to straitened social circumstances and that at some level it was seen in tension with dominant cultural and social values. The motif of resistance to this cult would then be an ideological equivalent to witchcraft accusations: the protest by the dominant social group48 against the protest of the subordinate religious group; in other words resistance against resistance. In this case rather than accusing the Dionysiac votaries of witchcraft, the mythical superior group, when it attempts any justification at all, justifies its opposition in terms of allegiance to more "established" deities, thereby impugning the Dionysiac cult as a betrayal of traditional values. What makes the vengeance myths so complex is that both viewpoints are maintained and hence presented to the audience at the same time. On the one hand, the dominant ideology emerging from the myths is that
47De Romilly, p. 365. 48Whateverthe actual historical relationship between Dionysos and the ruling class, in the myths the number of kings, rulers, and apparently "established"matrons resisting the ecstatic cult is striking.

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Dionysos indeed does belong within the accepted structure and that appeals to some greater allegiance elsewhere are misguided and deserve the punishment they receive. At the same time, because the resistance myths recur so frequently, they, in effect, celebrate resistance to the ecstatic cult and form, as it were, a kind of narrative "minority report" on the place of Dionysos in the overall system. Thus, what is expressed is not a conflict between established Hellenism and an upstart interloper but a set of tensions between legitimate but divergent religious (and social) allegiances which the myths resolve into a remarkably precise formula for coexistence. The players in the dramas may have been obliterated by the god's legitimate fury, but they have delivered their cautionary message to all who hear their tale. At the same time the victorious Dionysos delivers his own caution against opposing a god. Because the myths are tales of misdeeds justifiably punished rather than of raw power and irascibility, they mesh into the wider ideology of moderation, justice, civility, reciprocity, balance, and self-knowledge and therefore validate the unspoken assumptions of Hellenic religion. There is a broad cultural synthesis implicit in the resistance myths; and it depends on resolving several antithetical strains into, if not a compromise, a fragile equipoise where all voices are heard and the ultimate outcome is meaningful in terms of the Greeks' shared values. Beneath the cultural synthesis, however, the myths derive their power from the fact that contending classes would each be able to focus on different aspects of the myth and see its own values upheld. The common people, just as they prayed to the "lesser"deities for aid in practical matters, would tend to identify with the fortunes of gods like Dionysos who were not at the center of power. Following the career of Dionysos they would realize that, although he might be rebuffed by high and mighty mortals, he had the final word. He not only offered his gifts but also imposed his will on mortals of every status. Ultimately, through the ecstasy Dionysos forced all to put aside the discriminating characteristics of rank and privilege and lose themselves in a new social and cosmic harmony.49The message of the myths is clear: those who pridefully refused the momentary, ecstatic unity and equality paid dearly for their arrogance.
49Thefirst section of Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy still represents one of the most effective evocations of the suspension of social barriers produced by the Dionysian ecstasy. In light of the powerful appeal of the later Dionysiac cult as a salvation religion, it is not unreasonable to speculate that the Bacchic ecstasy may have served, from a very early period, as a catalyst for inchoate eschatological longings for a society both egalitarian and joyful.

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The elite, on the other hand, could take comfort from another layer of meaning. While it is true that the myths present the downfall of the powerful, this downfall occurs only at the hands of the more powerful, i.e., the gods. Although in terms of content the myths may representthe momentary triumph of the values of the dispossessed, in terms of formal relationships they are quite explicit in affirming that anyone who violates his rank in the social structure of gods and men is impudent, immoral, and doomed. The myths, then, may have allowed for the temporary suspension of rules but only by legitimating this suspension in terms of more fundamental rules which upheld clearly defined power relationships. By accomplishing this balance the vengeance myths perform one of the central functions of an ideology: defining the authentic nature of the community. On the supernatural level the myths demonstrate that though the divine "family" is rife with tensions, each individual deity within it shares the basic value that mortals must bow to immortals and each is ready to act to support this value. On the human level the myths also demonstrate a generally unified community, within which the diverse needs of different segments deserve respect. In their own way the resistance myths help prevent the formation of an outcaste group. In terms of the socially marginal, who might be stigmatized because of low-class religious values and therefore become even more marginal, the myths serve as a sanction in the name of Zeus and the entire religious structure for their religion of compensatory ecstasy and release. Conversely, the myths do register what may be subsurface objections of the socially powerful but only to negate them. Portraying such objections as illegitimate and potentially catastrophic, the myths discourage any kind of class-sanctioned religious exclusivism and, more important, any persecution.50 In one sense the stories do create an outgroup, but it is a mythological one-the mythical antagonists of Dionysos who, ironically, understanding themselves as attacking the real outgroup, learn their mistake only at the last, tragic moment. Yet there does not seem to have been any historical parallel to the mythical opponents of the god. It would be unwarranted to say that because the myths presented a consistently dark picture of attempts to reject Dionysiac worship, no one ever seriously tried. Nevertheless, the myths do, through negative example, hold up a picture of a unified society of gods and men as a

50Theinterpretation offered here, while agreeing with the folk-historical school that tensions which might have led to a resistance to Dionysos may have been present, finds no need to postulate an actual opposition and sees the myths as a defense against, ratherthan a memory of, such a situation.

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source of blessings and of a conflict-ridden society as a source of disaster. Obviously more than religious ideology is required to keep peace, especially in class-stratified societies. However, ideology is one component in this process, and the resistance myths are a sufficiently sophisticated narrative embodiment of shared values to have served this function. Behind the antagonism and the violence, the clear message is that, within the social network of Greek gods and men, things are better when each segment is guaranteed its own proper sphere. By acquiescing to the rules of the system, all are allowed to make their contribution to the "right" order of the universe.

5'I wish to thank Professor C. Robert Phillips (Department of Classics, Lehigh University) for criticisms of this paper.