~ Marble relief with a dancing maenad (Adaptation of work attributed to Kallimachos).

Period: Early Imperial, Augustan

Date: ca. 27 B.C.–A.D. 14

Culture: Roman

Dancing Maenad

Roman copy of the Augustan period after a Greek original of ca. 425–400 BC

Attributed to Kallimachos

Go forth, go forth, ye Bacchanals,  

bring home the Bromian god Dionysus, 

child of a god, from the mountains of Phrygia 

to the spacious streets of Hellas, 

bring home the Bromian god!  

Euripides - The Bacchantes - 410 BCE

Image: Dancing Maenad - Roman, 27 B.C.–A.D. 14,The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

MWW Artwork of the Day (8/25/21) Kallimachos (Greek, fl. late 5th c. BCE) Dancing Maenad (c. 425-400 BCE) Roman copy (1st c. CE) of a Greek relief, 143 cm. high The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Fletcher Fund)

As female votaries of Dionysos, maenads abandoned themselves to orgiastic festivities. They celebrated the rites of the god with song, dance, and music in the mountains, often clothed in animal skins. This dancing maenad, clothed in a diaphanous chiton, carries an object characteristic of Dionysos' retinue, the thyrsos, which consists of a fennel stalk crowned with a pinecone and ivy berries. The voluminous garment swirls about her in fanciful, highly expressive folds that evoke her dance. Her introspective expression, so typical of art of the Classical period, contrasts most effectively with the exuberance of her drapery. Callimachos was an architect and sculptor working in the second half of the 5th century BCE in the manner established by Polyclitus. 

- Venus of Milo

- Dancing Maenad, Skopas