Fragment of a marble relief with dancing maenads
Adaptation of work attributed to Kallimachos
Adaptation of a Greek relief of about 425–400 B.C. attributed to Kallimachos
In myth and art the wine god, Dionysos, is accompanied by dancing women known as maenads. The most famous description of them comes from The Bacchae, a play by Euripides produced in Athens in the late fifth century B.C. The most famous representations are from a relief of dancing maenads carved at the same time. This small relief is a reduced copy dating from the Roman period.