Culti dionisiaci tra la tarda Repubblica e l'inizio dell'Impero: forme e valori attraverso l'iconografia

This research deals with Dionysiac rituals in the Late Roman Republic and at the beginning of the Imperial Age, with particular attention to those practiced by women, with the aim of evaluating the differing aspects and their possible political implications. I have started from the assumption that Dionysism was used as a means of political legitimacy since the dawn of Hellenism in order to confirm political authority by way of regal symbols. Moreover it is apparent that some Greek and Roman Dionysiac ceremonies were indeed celebrated by the most important urban magistrates for all citizens. The famous Dionysiac ceremony in the house of Archon Basileus in Athens during the urban festival of the Anthesteria is a good case in hand. From these considerations I made detailed analysis of certain Dionysiac ceremonies - and rituals of some Dionysiac character - in Rome, assessing their connection to the public sphere. I attempted to create a methodological grid in which I placed archaeological and literary evidence, considering religious implications, subjects within the documents and the public. Connections with further evidence of a Dionysiac nature were also studied. Starting from some preliminary distinctions, necessary in approaching such heterogeneous material, I analysed several important contexts in the Roman and Pompeian areas with a Dionysiac relevance. Among conspicuous material I gave particular consideration to frescoes and reliefs which appear connected to mysteries or, at least, to secret ceremonies. In primis I focused my attention on the famous Dionysiac fresco of the Villa dei Misteri, where I also provided an updated bibliography. Ceremonies represented within the frescoes examined were compared with what we do know about Dionysiac rituals in Italy and in the Greek world. My first aim was to evaluate possible connections with the rituals examined and those ceremonies performed by the urban upper classes. Secondly I studied potential influences upon the above mentioned practices from Egyptian rituals, which since the 5th century B. C. were compared to ceremonies in honour of Dionysus and Demeter. Where able, I attempted to recognize possible specificity regarding the location of Dionysiac themes within Roman domus and villae. Though a specific and recurrent taxonomy failed to materialize, many useful distinctions between private and public spaces in Roman houses were successfully made. According to the data gathered from literary fonts and recurrent iconography of the meeting of Dionysus and Ariadne, it became evident that a very common form of Dionysiac domestic rituals had the features of a Dionysiac hierogamy. Within the Roman world this holy marriage appeared in the rite of Bona Dea performed in December in the house of the first magistrate of Rome by his wife. I believe to have recognized a second form of female rites with a domestic character - from paintings, votive materials and private devotions - that concerns devotional practices in honour of a Goddess who presided over the female sphere (sexual maturity, pregnancy and childbirth). This Goddess could have aspects of Ceres, Venus/Ariadne, Isis, Hygeia, Hekate/Diana/Venus and, for themes of adoptive motherhood and nourishment, of Juno or of Ino/Mater Matuta. I suggest that the women involved in these rituals would identify themselves with these deities according to the function that they stressed: maternity (Ino, Semele); marriage (Ariadne, Bona Dea, Venus); initiation of the maidens (Juno, Diana, Omphale); fertility and health (Ceres, Hygeia and, again, Bona Dea). Moreover, given the frequent apparition in the iconography I studied of characters belonging to the mythical entourage of Dionysus, as Satyrs, Maenads and Silens, I expressed the possibility that in these ceremonies guilds of professionals similar to the Greek brotherhood of the Iobacchoi of the Piraeus were involved. Their role would have been to aid the women in the organizations of their ceremonies. A specific analysis of such female rites practiced in the heart of private houses is still to be thoroughly developed. And yet I believe to have demonstrated - stressing religious and ritual relevance of numerous Roman paintings - that we are as yet very far from a complete knowledge of every aspect of the rites practiced by the Romans and by their women, and above all that it is not possible to base our knowledge solely upon literary documents, given that many iconographies talk about themes and practices otherwise unknown.