Ut sacrificantes vel insanientes Bacchae. Bacchus's women in Rome

This paper aims to explore the public identity and reception of the bacchae in Ancient Rome, by means of three case studies: Paculla Annia, Valeria Messalina and Pompeia Agrippinilla, three women associated by either literary or epigraphic evidence with the cult of Bacchus-Dionysus in Rome. According to Livy, Paculla Annia was the Campanian priestess who brought Bacchus’ cult to Rome. The empress Valeria Messalina is depicted by Tacitus as a proper maenad, wielding a thyrsus in frenzy during a feast that transformed the imperial household in a Dionysiac orgy. Pompeia Agrippinilla appears as dedicatee of an inscription from Torrenova (160–170 ce). She is addressed as ἱέρεια (‘priestess’) at the head of a monument recording many men and women under the title bacchoi and bacchai. Whereas literary sources use the bacchae as a negative example to reinforce the distinction between masculine and feminine social domains, material sources reveal a more fluid reality.