Bassareus

Name

Greek origins

According to the explanations of the Greeks, the name "Bassareus" is derived from bassara or bassaris (βασσάρα or βασσαρίς), the long robe which the god himself and the Maenads used to wear in Thrace, where the Maenads were themselves often called bassarae or the bassarides, as in the lost play of Aeschylus, Bassarae.{{cite journal

The name of this garment seems to be connected with, or rather the same as, the Lydian word bassaris (βασσαρίς), meaning "fox", probably because it was originally made of fox-skins.

Several scholars have pointed out the fact that foxes eat grapes, and are in fact one of the chief pests of vineyards, and are called out as such many times in ancient literature, thereby making a connection of fox-robed Dionysus as the protector of vineyards.{{cite journal | editor-last=Frothingham Jr. | editor-first=Arthur L. | editor-last=van der Graaf | editor-first=Cornelis

Semitic language origins

Others derive the name Bassareus from a Semitic word, bāșar, which could mean "flesh", often referring to an unripe grape, according to which its meaning would be the same as the Greek protrygis (προτρύγης), that is, the precursor of the vintage.{{cite book

Archaeology

The 19th-century French archaeologist François Lenormant claimed to have assembled a series of ancient Lydian coins, including many with an incuse of a fox, and suggested they were part of a series of coins bearing the symbol of Dionysus Bassareus. Other scholars disputed whether the coins in question bear any imprint of a fox at all.{{cite journal

At least one other archaeologist claimed to have unearthed fox coins depicting Dionysus Bassareus in Cyzicus, though some numismatists consider their identification with Bassareus to be dubious.{{cite journal | author-link=Barclay V. Head

Cult

While strongly associated with Lydian tradition, scholars have connected the fox symbolism of Bassareus with cultic Dionysus art discovered as far away as Cologne.{{cite book

Discoveries of altars on Milos suggest a cult of Bassareus on that island dates to the 5th century BCE, brought by colonists from Athens.{{cite journal

We elsewhere have evidence of cult ceremonies in which "many knobbed" cakes (, or popana polyomphala) were placed in a mystic cista for Dionysus Bassareus.{{cite journal

References

References

1. [[Horace]], ''[[Odes (Horace). Odes]]'' 1.18. 11
2. [[Macrobius]], ''[[Saturnalia (Macrobius). Saturnalia]]'' i. 18
3. [[Hesychius of Alexandria]], ''Alphabetical Collection of all Words'' s.v. βασσάραι
4. [[Pausanias (geographer). Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'' ix. 19. 1
5. [[François Lenormant]], ''Monnaies royales de la Lydie''. Paris, 1876
6. [[Clement of Alexandria]], ''[[Protrepticus (Clement). Protrepticus]]'' 2.22.4