Tales of Ladies Dancing Trivia Quiz

Answer: Raving Ones

After reading the mythological accounts of the maenads, one attribute really stands out: they could turn on a person like rabid dogs! Also called "mad ones", at times they could reach such a frenzied state that they became very treacherous. The great playwright Euripides, in his play "The Bacchae", wrote that the maenads literally tore King Pentheus of Thebes apart - even his own mother participated - after he banned the worship of their deity. Of course, it must be understood that the simple act of dancing in a circle at night did not drive the maenads to commit these terrible deeds.

Answer: Dionysus

Perhaps here is where some insight into the behavior of maenads can be found. Dionysus, of course, was the god of the grape harvest and wine. His power, however, does not end there. He was also the god of ritual madness and religious ecstasy. So, as you might have already concluded, when the maenads danced in circles in the night, they also drank wine.

It is written in mythology that the first maenads were nymphs who took care of Dionysus after the death of his mother, Semele; they were actually his sisters, Ino, Agave, and Autonoe.

While the maenads were said to rip animals and people apart and eat the raw flesh, it must be noted that similar stories exist of Dionysus doing the same thing as a child.

Answer: Fawn Skins

Like the god they worshiped, maenads wore fawn skins - if they wore clothing at all! They wore their hair long and flowing; sometimes they are pictured as having ivy wrapped in wreaths about their head, or having nonvenomous snakes in their hair. While the term "maenad" is used to describe the female followers of Dionysus, it is also used to describe those women who rejected this type of behavior, and attempted to be the kind of housewives Greek men expected them to be. As Dionysus had the ability to force women against their will to participate in his rituals, those who resisted were also driven mad.

Could the maenad practice of releasing their hair from restraint be the origin of the phrase "letting one's hair down"?

Answer: Thyrsus

A thyrsus was a long stick of giant fennel that was wrapped in ivy and topped with a pine cone. Associated with Dionysus, it represented fertility, prosperity, and enjoyment; the stick carried by the god himself was sometimes said to have an iron point, and was, according to Ovid, "a spear enveloped in vine-leaves".

Answer: Leopard

Again, the leopard was closely associated with the god worshiped by the maenads; he is depicted in art as riding a leopard or wearing leopard skins. It has been suggested that the animal was adopted as a symbol of the maenads because its grace and agility was equal to their own while dancing.

In fact, in their madness, maenads were as bloodthirsty as a leopard (some sources say the animal was a panther); in some myths the maenads actually turned into the animal.

Answer: Free their soul and commune with their god

At first glance the behavior of the meanads might look like an excuse to do away with social norms and seek pleasure - sort of like a "Girls Behaving Badly" scenario. These women, however, believed they could actually become one with the god; they believed that as they danced, their souls would be freed from their earthly bodies and join with the soul of Dionysus.

The joining would serve to give them an idea of life after death, or "cosmic insight". As the dancers worked themselves into a frenzy, it was believed that they possessed great strength; they could uproot trees with their bare hands or rip apart a bull to eat its raw flesh and drink its blood - another way they could become one with the god.

Answer: In the woods

While there was a cult temple to Dionysus located on the island Naxos, unlike the other Greek gods and goddesses, the followers of Dionysus were not required to worship in a temple. In fact, even the people at Naxos believed that Dionysus resided in the forests there, always drunk on wine. He was an important patron to them because wine production was the specialty of the ancient people on the island.

The maenads were said to go into the wilderness at night - the "deepest forests and wildest mountains" to worship Dionysus, according to Edith Hamilton's "Mythology". There he took care of them, giving them food and drink while they slept on the soft grass and pine needles. The setting of the clean, outdoors was meant to add to the ecstasy reached while playing instruments, dancing, and drinking wine.

Answer: Satyr

The satyrs lived in the forests and "wild places of the earth", so it makes sense that they were companions of Dionysus, and part of his ruckus entourage. Pictured with characteristics of a horse or goat (at times half man half beast), satyrs represented the wild nature of men. Like the maenads, satyrs loved wine, music, dancing, and were hopeless chasers of females - in endless pursuit of the nymphs or maenads who also lived in the wild places.

Answer: Olympias

Olympias was a princess of Epirus, which today is located between Greece and Albania. Although Thucydides and Strabo both called the people there "barbarians", other writers described them as being Greek. It must be remembered that a barbarian to an ancient Greek was someone who did not share their culture, and even the Macedonians, who spoke Greek in a different dialect, were considered barbarians at one time in their history.

It appears that Greek religious beliefs and mythological stories had found their way to Epirus, as Olympias was said to have traced her ancestry to the great Achilles.

In Epirus at Dodona, the oracle of Zeus could be found, which was considered second in importance only to the famous Delphi. The point is that the people in Epirus did share the same religious beliefs as the Greeks.

Historians still discuss the fact that before Olympias married Philip II, she was a priestess in a snake handling cult, and a devotee of the god Dionysus. The story that Philip found her in bed with a snake on their wedding night led many to believe that Alexander's father was none other than the almighty Zeus! Plutarch wrote that Olympias was "wont to have great tame serpents about her, which sometimes creeping out of the ivy in the mystic fans, sometimes winding themselves about the sacred spears, and the women's chaplets, made a spectacle which men could not look upon without terror". Of course, Olympias was shoved out of the limelight after Philip took a new wife, Cleopatra; when Alexander became king upon his father's death, however, her wishes once again become relevant.

She asked Alexander to execute Cleopatra and her children by roasting them alive in order to secure his position on the Macedonian throne. Could Olympias have been a maenad? Most certainly!

Answer: Orpheus

One of the many accounts of the death of Orpheus was written by Ovid, who told that he was killed by Ciconian maenads. After failing to bring his bride, Eurydice, back from the underworld, Orpheus was said to have wandered in the wild, playing his lyre.

When the maenads found him, they were enraged that he would not respond to their advances. First they threw sticks and stones at him, however, his music was so lovely that he was protected from them - the sticks and stones simply bounced off. Further enraged, and worked into their typical frenzy, the women tore him apart as they had King Pentheus.

The famous lyre of Orpheus was carried to heaven by the Muses, who also collected his body parts and placed them in a tomb near Mt. Olympus. At last he was reunited with his love, Eurydice.