Bacchanalian Women
When sweet sacred pipes play out their rhythmic holy song, in time to the dancing wanderers, ‘then to the mountains, then to the mountains,’ then the bacchanalian woman is filled with joy. Like a foal in pasture right beside her mother, her swift feet skip in playful dance. Euripides, Bacchae 206-213.
Viewers experienced the divine through the power of music, dance, and song: the movement of the animated bacchae, with their long flowing hair, dresses draped with fawn skins, and fennel thrysoi (wands) decorated with ivy, heightened this effect.
Figures like this painted terracotta of a draped woman evoke both the colour and movement of a Dionysiac revel. While Hero’s automaton could rotate a series of figures around the rim of the itus (wheel), it lacked the technical complexity to allow the figures themselves to spin in place.
This deficit was more than made up for by the skill of ancient craftspeople in capturing the movement of the human figure, as demonstrated by the dymanic pose of the figure.