Dancing Maenad

Greek terracotta statuette, 3rd century B.C. Made in Taranto.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Inv. 12.232.13.

In Greek mythology, maenads (Greek: μαινάδες, mainádes) were the female followers of Dionysus (Bacchus in the Roman pantheon). Their name literally translates as “raving ones”. Often the maenads were portrayed as inspired by him into a state of ecstatic frenzy, through a combination of dancing and drunken intoxication.

#dance