NEW POMPEII DISCOVERY REVEALS ANOTHER WILD SIDE TO ANCIENT ROMAN WOMEN
Pompeii's recently unearthed frescoes reveal a more untamed and even obscene side of ancient Roman women. The frescoes, which cover three walls of a large banquet hall within a house in Region IX of Pompeii, are considered a "megalography" due to their almost life-size proportions.
The discovered frescoes are unique in their portrayal of the Dionysiac procession, which honors Dionysus, the god of wine, celebration, and ecstasy. It is also an extremely uncommon instance of megalography. The gods' rites have always remained mysterious because of their rigorous initiation requirements and the consequences of disclosing cult secrets. However, these frescoes provide insight into the possible evolution of Dionysiac rituals.
Several maenads, or female followers of Dionysus, are depicted in various roles, including dancers and hunters holding slain goats over their shoulders or swords and animal innards in their hands. Young, pointed-eared satyrs play the double flute, and another performs a wine sacrifice, squirting wine behind him from a drinking horn into a shallow bowl. The composition's central image shows a woman holding a torch, signifying that she is a mortal about to undergo a Dionysiac initiation rite.
IFLScience quotes Zuchtriegel as saying, "[It's] a metaphor for a wild, exuberant life." The woman who looks in the mirror and "makes herself beautiful" is, in essence, the antithesis of the "attractive" woman who aspires to be like Venus, the goddess of marriage and love.
About the Dionysiac procession (thiasos), archaeologists have dubbed the house featuring these frescoes the Casa del Tiaso (House of Thiasus). The frescoes were between 40 and 30 BCE, according to the archeological team, which means that they were already around 100 years old when Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.
A frieze in the Villa of Mysteries beyond Pompeii's gates is the only other megalography with comparable ceremonies. However, the frescoes in Casa del Tiaso feature a new theme—hunting—that hasn't been documented in Dionysiac initiation ceremonies up to this point. The maenad hunters and a second, smaller frieze that runs along the top of the one with the maenads and satyrs also invoke this hunting idea. This little piece, which features a wild boar and a butchered fawn, depicts a violent world of animals.
"The megalograph in [Casa del Tiaso] provides another glimpse into the rituals of the mysteries of Dionysus,” Alessandro Giuli, the Minister of Culture, shares in a statement. “It is an exceptional historical document and, together with the fresco of the Villa of the Mysteries, constitutes a one-of-a-kind.”
