Deities - XIII: Dionysos and the Ritual “Sparagmos”
Vase fragment depicting the "sparagmos", or the wild ritual act of dismembering a living animal practiced in Dionysiac context. Dionysos was the god of all wild nature, and his reveling train of ecstatic followers were Satyrs, Silens, Nymphs and Maenads, all celebrating the god's rites with wine and music, song and dance, and sometimes, in their ecstasy, tearing animals to pieces, “sparagmos”, and eating the flesh raw, “omophagia”.
Here Dionysos is portrayed standing between a maenad and a satyr; in his hands he holds a dismembered goat. According to the rite the “sparagmos” was followed by “omophagia”: Dionysos followers, maenads and satyrs, ate the raw flesh of the sacrificed animals. The picture shows the gesture of Dionysus offering to his followers the pieces of goat quartered with his own hands.
Attic white-ground black-figured fragment
Attributed to Dokimasia Painter [?]
480 – 470 BC
Paris, Musée du Louvre
Deities - XIII: Dionysos and the Ritual “Sparagmos”
Vase fragment depicting the "sparagmos", or the wild ritual act of dismembering a living animal practiced in Dionysiac context. Dionysos was the god of all wild nature, and his reveling train of ecstatic followers were Satyrs, Silens, Nymphs and Maenads, all celebrating the god's rites with wine and music, song and dance, and sometimes, in their ecstasy, tearing animals to pieces, “sparagmos”, and eating the flesh raw, “omophagia”.
Here Dionysos is portrayed standing between a maenad and a satyr; in his hands he holds a dismembered goat. According to the rite the “sparagmos” was followed by “omophagia”: Dionysos followers, maenads and satyrs, ate the raw flesh of the sacrificed animals. The picture shows the gesture of Dionysus offering to his followers the pieces of goat quartered with his own hands.
Attic white-ground black-figured fragment
Attributed to Dokimasia Painter [?]
480 – 470 BC
Paris, Musée du Louvre