Women and night in greek rituals: the feminine followers of Dionysus in Athens

Abstract

Women are specially linked with rituals and myths of the night, and particularly with nocturnal Dionysus in many Greek places. In these pages we will focus on some of these feminine nocturnal rites devoted to Dionysus in Athens (Lenaia, Anthesteria and the ritual of Attic Thyades in Delphi), and we will essay to understand them in the contexts of civic developments of the polis linked with the control of feminine behaviour (and their nocturnal exits) in VI century BC.