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Bacchus and a Panther

Italian; 16th–17th century

Bronze

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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On Dionysian cult in Roman Britain and Northern Western Europe

@imperturbitude Material available on the topic exists but is getting a bit old. Unfortunately, the main thesis about the topic is out of stock and nowhere to be found on the Internet. Maybe you can find it in a libary though: Valerie J. Hutchinson, Bacchus in Roman Britain, Volumes i and ii: The Evidence for His Cult, Oxford: BAR Publishings, 1986.

There is another study that is now unfindable and probably never translated from French that you can also try to find: Isabelle Tassignon, Iconographie et religion dionysiaques en Gaule Belgique et dans les deux Germanies, Geneva: Droz, 1996. This last one focused on the dionysiac iconography found in the Belgium and German area. I found a peer-review of that study that highlights its flaws, but what we can take from it is that, we find in this area dionysiac iconography, which was probably brought by the thousands of Roman veterans in the Rhine area but doesn't necessarily mean that the cult was widespread outside of this demographic.

When it comes to Roman Britain, thankfully, other authors were able to cite Hutchinson’s work, so we can catch snippets here and there. I recommend you check "Religion in Roman Britain" by Martin Henig (1984) and "Religion in Late Roman Britain" by Dorothy Watts (1998), which are the books I have complete access to and are my sources for the summarization I am about to give.

Henig tells us that "Bacchus was much better known to Romans and to most Romanised Britons" compared to the other oriental cults that were gaining in popularity during this period (mainly Isis, Cybele and especially Mithra). There is indeed plenty of iconographic representations that focus either on Bacchus or on a dionysiac retinue (maenads, Silenus and satyrs). Watts tells us that:

"Bacchus [...] had a wider following and he may have been a relatively early import to Britain: Dionysius ‘Periegetes’, writing around the time of the Emperor Hadrian (AD 117–38), tells of islands near Jersey and Guernsey where the rites of Bacchus were performed."

While it is true that Bacchus-Dionysus has a secure place in the Greco-Roman pantheon, we need to consider his cult in Roman Britain (and other romanized areas, especially along the limes) as linked to the popularity of Oriental cults as a whole. In this context, Dionysus is a savior god who comes from the East, and particularly from India (an idea we also find in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca).

Hening explains it better than I do:

[...] the Walbrook Mithraeum was probably taken over by his [Bacchus] followers in the fourth century. The little statuary group showing Bacchus with a serpent, a Satyr, a Silenus, and a Maenad with its inscribed base acclaiming the god as the giver of (eternal) life to wandering men has been dated as early as the third century AD, but its archaeological context at any rate is later and like the statuette of Bacchus from a grave at the Spoonley Wood villa [...]

The Dionysiac cult performed in late-Antiquity Britain doesn't seem to be official cultus but is linked to mystery cults instead, which would explain both the emphasis on the savior aspect and the presence of Dionysiac cult in a Mithraeum. Hening also exposes to us elements that further lead towards this conclusion:

A marble figurine of Bacchus was buried with one of the owners(?) of the Spoonley Wood villa, while the lead coffin from Holborough near Snodland, Kent, is ornamented with the figures of a maenad and a satyr.Here a large Y is shown on the lid of the coffin, which may be an Orphic symbol denoting moral choice in life. Pecten-shells, also included in the composition, symbolise the soul’s journey to the Blessed Isles. Jocelyn Toynbee has noted of this coffin that ‘once the interment had taken place, the decoration could have no effect on any living persons’. Thus the motifs were designed for the benefit of the dead and express the beliefs of the relatives who were ‘if not members of a Bacchic sect, at least conversant with the common stock of doctrines and picture symbols of Bacchic other-worldly theology.

Another interesting point is raised by Watts, where she notes the virtual absence of oriental and mystery cults in the most rural areas of Britain. I don’t think it’s far-fetched to think that this was predominantly an urban phenomenon and in this case, it would follow the pattern of the long tradition of Dionysiac associations.