Newly Discovered Frescoes Reveal Ancient Ritual in Pompeii

A century before the ancient city’s destruction, artists adorned the walls of a Pompeii banquet hall with a procession of Dionysian revelers. Brightly colored and nearly life-sized, the newly identified fresco figures dance, hunt, and imbibe in the name of the god of wine.

Archaeologists date the Dionysian frieze back to the 1st century BCE—specifically the 40s and 30s BCE. That means the frescoes were painted about 100 years before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii in 79 CE. Extending across three walls of a large banquet hall, the frieze depicts a secretive initiation rite for followers of Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine, fertility, theatre, and religious ecstasy. The vivid scenes belong to the Second Style of Pompeian fresco painting. Popular from about 80 to 15 BCE, the Second Style employed relative perspective to create a realistic architectural effect.

The residence in which the Dionysian frieze was found has been named the House of Thiasus. The word “thiasus” refers to the ecstatic procession of Dionysus’s followers, often depicted as wild and inebriated. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, emphasized the dual nature of the frescoes, saying they hold “a profoundly religious meaning” and were “also designed to decorate areas for holding banquets and feasts.”

Frescoes Depict Bacchantes, Satyrs, and a Religious Initiate

Ecastatic figures dance across the walls of the Pompeian banquet hall in what is called a “megalography”—a Greek term meaning “grand painting.” Some are bacchantes, female followers of Dionysus, who appear as hunters and dancers. Among them, satyrs play flutes and drink wine. The central figure of the procession is a woman wielding a torch. She is likely a new initiate into the ancient Cult of Dionysus. The woman is accompanied by Silenus, a companion and mentor to Dionysus. According to Zuchtriegel, the frieze references The Bacchae, an ancient Greek play written by Euripides in 405 BCE.

These frescoes reveal rare insights into the Dionysian Mysteries, religious initiation rites practiced by the Cult of Dionysus in ancient Greece and Rome. Prospective members had to be initiated to join the sect. The exact details of these rituals were closely guarded for centuries. The Cult of Dionysus eventually faded into obscurity with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism. As such, discoveries like the Dionysian frescoes at Pompeii are particularly informative and interesting. This example illustrates the use of dance, music, and intoxication to induce religious ecstasy during the Dionysian Mysteries.

“The megalography found in insula 10 of Region IX provides another glimpse into the rituals of the Mysteries of Dionysus,” said Alessandro Giuli, Italy’s Minister of Culture, in a statement. “It is an exceptional historical document and, together with the fresco of the Villa of the Mysteries, is one-of-a-kind, making Pompeii an extraordinary testimony to an aspect of life in classical Mediterranean life that is largely unknown.”