Pompeii, discovered a new great fresco on the cult of Dionysus

The frieze shows the procession of Dionysus, god of wine: pods represented as dancers, but also as ferocious hunters, with a kid slammed on the shoulders or with a sword and the interiors of an animal in the hands; Young satyrs with pointed ears playing the double flute, while another performs a sacrifice of acrobatic wine sacrifice (libar), pouring a jet of wine behind your shoulders from a polo horn (used to drink) in a patera (cup low).

At the center of the composition there is a woman with an old Silenus who holds a torch: it is an initial, namely a deadly woman who, through a night ritual, is about to have started in the mysteries of Dionysus, the god who dies And it is reborn, promising the same to her followers. Archaeologists baptized the home with the “Casa del Tiaso” frieze, with reference to the procession of Dionysus. In ancient times there were a series of cults, including that of Dionysus, which were accessible only to those who made a ritual of initiation, as suggested in the frieze of Pompeii. These cults were called “mystery”, because only the initiates could know their secrets. Often they were linked to the promise of a new blessed life, both in this world and in that of the underworld.

The discovered frieze in Pompeii is attributable to the II style of Pompeian painting, which dates back to the 1st century. AC more precisely, the frieze can be dated to the 1940s AC this means that at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius, which buried Pompeii in 79 AD under Lapilli and ashes, the Dionysian frieze was already about a century old. The only other example of a megalography with representations of similar rituals is the frieze called “of the mysteries” in the homonymous villa outside the doors of Pompeii, also in the Pompeian style. The new frieze found in Pompeii, compared to the villa of the Mysteries, adds another theme to the imagination of the initiatory rituals of Dionysus: the hunting, which is evoked not only by the packed hunters, but also by a second, smaller frieze that runs beyond Above the one with packets and satirians: here live and dead animals are depicted, including a fawn and a newly gutted boar, roosters, various birds, but also Fish and molluscs.