BACCANTI. — Minor Greek female divinities in the retinue of Dionysus. They were represented with their hair loose, a fawnskin (nebris) over their long robes, and in their hands the thyrsus, cymbals, a torch, or a fawn, which they brandished in the frenzied movements of the Bacchic dance. In the Bacchae, Euripides admirably described their sacred delirium, during which they boasted of making wine, milk, and honey spring forth, tore men and animals apart, and devoured them. The priestesses of Dionysus are also called b.; in them we find the delirious exaltation of the mythical prototypes, though somewhat attenuated.
BIBLI.: Rapp, Maenaden, in Roscher, Lex., II, II, col. 2243 ff.; Marbach, Mainades, in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclop., XXVIII, col. 561 ff.; N. Turchi, Menadi, in Enc. Ital., XXII, p. 837. Luisa Banti