As Bacchus was the god of vintage, of wine and of drinkers, he is generally
represented crowned with vine and ivy leaves, with a thyrsus in his hand.
His figure is that of an effeminate young man, to denote the joys which
commonly prevail at feasts; and sometimes an old man, to teach us that wine
taken immoderately, will enervate us, consume our health, render us
loquacious and childish, like old men, and unable to keep secrets.
Bacchus is sometimes represented like an infant, holding a thyrsus and
clusters of grapes, with a horn.
His beauty is compared to that of Apollo, and like him, he is represented
with fine hair, flowing loosely down his shoulders; the roundness of his
limbs and visage, evidence the generous life he leads; while his smiling
countenance and laughing eye, are meant to indicate the merry thoughts that
are inspired by the juice of the grape. All writers agree in their
delineation of the wild madness which distinguished his festivals: witness
the following description of a pedestal, on which was an imitation of an
altar to Bacchus.
"Under the festoons of fruits and flowers that grace the pedestal, the
corners of which are ornamented by the sculls of goats, are sculptured
some figures of moenads, under the inspiration of the {65} God. Nothing
can be conceived more wild and terrible than their gestures, touching,
as they do, the verge of distortion, into which their fine limbs and
lovely forms are thrown. There is nothing, however, which exceeds the
possibility of nature, though it borders on its utmost line.
"The tremendous spirit of superstition, aided by drunkenness, producing
something beyond insanity, seems to have caught them in its whirlwinds,
and to bear them over the earth, as the rapid volutions of a tempest
have the everchanging trunk of a waterspout; or as the torrent of a
mountain river whirls the autumnal leaves resistlessly along, in its
full eddies.
"The hair, loose and floating, seems caught in the tempest of their own
tumultuous motion; their heads are thrown back, leaning with a kind of
delirium upon their necks, and looking up to heaven, whilst they totter
and stumble, even in the energy of their tempestuous dance.
"One represents a faun, with the head of Pentheus in one hand, and in
the other a great knife. Another has a spear with its pine cane, which
was the thyrsus; another dances with mad voluptuousness; the fourth is
beating a kind of tambourine.
"This was indeed a monstrous superstition, even in Greece, where it was
alone capable of combining ideal beauty, and poetical and abstract
enthusiasm, with the wild errors from which it sprung. In Rome it had a
more familiar, wicked, and dry appearance; it was not suited to the
severe and exact apprehensions of the Romans, and their strict morals
were violated by it, and sustained a deep injury, little analagous to
its effect upon the Greeks, who turned all things--superstition,
prejudice, murder, madness--to beauty."