Baccanti ebbre e ninfomani tra la fine della Repubblica e la prima età imperiale

Maenads in pop culture are usually women with a strong eroticism, distinguished by sexual addiction and pure lust, malice, and murders. However, the maenads in Ancient Greek iconography and drama were completely different, not connected to the sexual sphere or to the manipulation of men. Ancient Greek maenads preserve their chastity, and their task is to honor Dionysus with dances and rites. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the common thread that has led to this contemporary sexual and gloomy distinctive characterization of maenads in modern media and to understand where this dark vision of maenadism comes from. The stages on this journey through times past are the Bacchanalia scandal (186 B.C.), the black legend of Messalina, some cases of Christian condemnations, and the conception of maenads during the Renaissance and Victorian Hellenism.