The Maenads: More than Greece's Good-Time Girls: An Examination in Athenian Image, Text, and Historical Evidence

Open Access
- Author:
- Ubbels, Krista Marie
- Graduate Program:
- Art History
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 22, 2008
- Committee Members:
- Elizabeth Walters, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Brian A Curran, Committee Member
Elizabeth Bradford Smith, Committee Member
Dennis Schmidt, Committee Member - Keywords:
- maenads
- Abstract:
- ABSTRACT This dissertation is the only work to date that examines the evidence for maenadism from evidence on vases, on inscriptions and within tragedy and from historical writers in one dissertation. This dissertation deals with the assertion that the alteration of maenadism in its various forms occurs over time and can be perceived in literary and material form. In addition, the change of attitude toward maenadism (as demonstrated on vases and in literature) in antiquity (especially from the Classical age into the Hellenistic age) demonstrates a heightened sense of ancient “urgency” in acknowledging the “over-domestication” of women and subsequently a heightened danger of “maddened” women to the polis in general. In observing current concerns regarding, 1) mythological connections with “evidence” of maenad ritual as interpreted from ancient literature (both epic and tragedy as well as from ancient historians), as they relate thereto, and 2) the historical validity of maenadism (and interpretations thereof) from inscription evidence, one is confronted with yet a third element: the continuity and/or change of these elements as they relate to each other over time and sometimes space. In so approaching maenadism, it is asserted that a more comprehensive yet broader understanding of maenadism can be reached. The above issues will be approached with the ultimate notion in mind that mythical maenadism, a historical mechanism of Greek intellects and artists, perpetuated, or echoed a sense of “warning” to the polis to guard one’s precious instincts (the balance between the wild self and the civilized self) and to “adhere” specifically to the dangerous condition of the over-domestication (as an effect of an overly patriarchal legal system) of women within the polis. In “mythical ritual,” as for example, in the Bacchae by Euripides, the urgency of the warning seems to have reached its highest point during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. The “maenadic metaphor” is also to be found in the dramatic works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Evidence from inscriptions supports the existence of “real maenad” activity in the third and second centuries BCE. This dissertation highlights the high status of the maenads as tragic figures, as time honored, and as important to the Athenians. There is an increase seen in “real” (material) evidence of maenadism that coincides with the decrease in the marginality of women’s appearance in public spheres into the Hellenistic age. From inscriptions describing the penalties to be paid for not attending meetings, and for not joining the dance on the hill, more than social status is indicated. It seems that a particular economic status of the well-born and presumably citizen women who participated in maenadism in ancient Greece was required. This is contrary to the images we have of wild women, free and unrestricted, that is seen on vases, but is truer to the image of the ancient Greek historians who implied that maenads were well-respected citizen women who were socially sanctioned to perform the important rites of Dionysos. In so far as this dissertation represents a serious attempt to compile the extant scholarship surrounding the concept of maenadism (as well as to assert my theory on the ancient message of the dangers of over-domestication), it should be noted that my theoretical hypothesis is based on evidence that is only available materially. Of course, I do not presume to generalize the hypothesized trend as having been purposeful by Homer, the tragedians, ancient historians, the Greek population, or the authors who have wrestled with the meaning of the maenad in myth, ritual and history in modern times. Status was important, and marriage was a major cause of inquiry by the tragedians. Historians often described matrons and maidens in terms of distinct differences regarding their duties to the god. In tragedy, events surrounding marriage (or lack thereof) were events that “caused” the maenadic metaphor to occur. In the case of Andromache, for example, it is the “undoing” of the ritual of marriage and the negation of her role as wife which brings on madness, as well as maenadic behavior, and causes her to abandon her domestic space. This dissertation highlights the principal maenadic episodes and maenadic behavior in tragedy, but also demonstrates the reason for female frenzied behavior as exemplified in tragedy, specifically in Antigone’s behavior in Euripides’ Phoenician Women as she calls herself a “maenad of the dead” (Phoenician Women, 1485-92). In this case, as well as in Sophocles’ Antigone, the act of a “wedding in reverse” is not recalled as in Andromache, rather it is enacted in a bridal-funereal journey to meet her dead kin. Many tragic female characters are compared to maenads in a relationship of the act of acting like a maenad (maenadism), thus resulting in negations of/to marriage, in what is determined as imagined by the Greeks from myth through tragedy. In these pages, I attempt to untangle the paradigm of tragic women’s participation in the real as opposed to mythological maenadic metaphor. The trend that the boundary between real and imagined or mythological maenadism becomes more blurred over time becomes clear in my examination of Attic black and red figure vases from the Early Classical period into the Hellenistic period. I attempt to re-direct (in my method) the current scholarly trends in Art History and the Classics that merely support ancient texts with matching images on vases. This is a superficial modern scholarly construct of ancient society. To be more plain, we must acknowledge that vase painters did more with images than just illustrate plays and the writings of historians (or provide illustrative accompaniment to existing modern theories regarding significant queries into antiquity such as gender relations). Their role in Greek culture is far more complex and refuses to be “boxed” into categories of modern convenience. Quantitative, as well as qualitative, study of a control group of vases provided me with a good sample of various ancient vases with images of maenads. The collection of vases in the British Museum is one of the best in the world and I was fortunate to have been able to perform original research there. I observed and recorded data for 177 images of maenads on vases out of over 6000 vases all together. The images were studied, categorized and the data was made into graphs and charts. The important information was shape and function, period, style and other characters present. Patterns emerged, and alongside the trends that emerged in the study of maenads in inscriptions and maenadic behavior in tragedy, even more issues arose. The general trend for vases follows that of the tragedies; that over time, Dionysus becomes less important to the image and function of the image of the maenad on the vase. However, more important than these, are the observations that emerged by examining the trends in all fields, and in particular, the separate development that occurred around approximately 460-470 BCE in regards to the issue of violent maenads on vases and comparing it to that issue in tragedy. To summarize my findings: there are more amphorae (wine shapes) of the older black figure period which have maenads accompanied by Dionysus, featured on “heroic vases” (vases with heroic scenes), and show Dionysus as a zoanon figure (plank-like and made of wood). I perceive this effort to transmit the message of the maenad as something that was socially sanctioned in the role as servants to the god until around 490-470 BCE. Possibly this phenomenon made maenads more “mythological” as opposed to “real”. With time, however, more images of maenads appear on hydria and “other” (non-wine or specifically water shapes) shapes more frequently and the images of the maenads increasingly seem to resemble regular women. This is observed as they have fewer and fewer maenad “features” such as the thyrsus, snakes, deer, cubs, torches, etc. than the older vase images and happens more frequently after 460 BCE. My dissertation owes much to the theories by Seaford and Schlesier with regards to maenadism and tragedy. It challenges and celebrates the works of scholars such as Albert Henrichs, E. R. Dodds and A. Rapp on maenadism (mainly from epigraphs and ancient historians). Finally, it demonstrates a unique and original method of quantifying images of maenads on ancient Greek vases.