Editing Maenad (section)

==Cult worship==
===Bacchanalia===
{{main|Bacchanalia}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2019}}
Cultist rites associated with the worship of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus (or [[Bacchus]] in Roman mythology), were characterized by maniacal dancing to the sound of loud music and crashing cymbals, in which the revelers, called Bacchantes, whirled, screamed, became drunk and incited one another to greater and greater ecstasy. The goal was to achieve a state of enthusiasm in which the celebrants' souls were temporarily freed from their earthly bodies and were able to commune with Bacchus/Dionysus and gain a glimpse of and a preparation for what they would someday experience in eternity. The rite climaxed in a performance of frenzied feats of strength and madness, such as uprooting trees, tearing a [[bull]] (the symbol of Dionysus) apart with their bare hands, an act called ''[[sparagmos]]'', and eating its flesh raw, an act called ''[[omophagia]]''. This latter rite was a sacrament akin to communion in which the participants assumed the strength and character of the god by symbolically eating the raw flesh and drinking the blood of his symbolic incarnation. Having symbolically eaten his body and drunk his blood, the celebrants became possessed by Dionysus.<!--no:The main shrines where these rites took place were at Delphi and Eleusis.-->
[[File:Satyroi Mainade Louvre K19.jpg|thumb|Two satyrs and a maenad. Side A from an ancient Greek [[Red-figure pottery|red figure]] calyx-krater from [[Apulia]], 380–370 BC. [[Louvre]], Paris.]]
[[File:Dionysos Mainades Cdm Paris 222.jpg|thumb|Dionysus and two maenads as depicted by the [[Amasis Painter]] circa 550–530 BC.]]

===Priestesses of Dionysus===
Maenads are found in later references as priestesses of the Dionysian cult. In the third century BC, when the city of [[Magnesia on the Maeander|Magnesia]] wanted to establish a maenadic cult in honour of Dionysus, the [[Delphic Oracle]] bade them, "Go to the holy plain of Thebes to fetch maenads from the race of [[Cadmus|Cadmean]] [[Ino (Greek mythology)|Ino]]. They will bring you maenadic rites and noble customs and will establish troops of Bacchus in your city."<ref>"The Establishment of Dionysiac Rites in Magnesia", in ''Women's Religions in the Greco-Roman World'', Ross Shepard Kraemer, ed., Oxford (2004).</ref>