Semele’s role in dionysiac cults. A general view
Abstract
Semele is Dionysos’ mortal mother, struck down by Zeus’ thunderbolt and later deified by her son as Thyone. Literary and epigraphic testimonies show that Semele was worshipped in various parts of classical Greece, such as Thebes, Delphi and Attica, usually along with Dionysus. Three epigraphs from Athens, Erchia and Myconos, dated between the 5th and 3rd c. BCE are key to show the links between the Lenaia and the Eleusinian mysteries, as well as the importance of Semele in the origin of this cult. In these testimonies women are protagonists. In the case of the Erchias cult calendar, the integration of maenadism is almost certain within the civic religion, with Semele as the mediator between the faithful women and her son, as vase images seem to support. These precedents will be the breeding ground for the development of specific mysteries for women centered on the death and apotheosis of Semele, particularly in Thrace, in the Hellenistic and Imperial periods.
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