Campanica | Monitoring Italy's Campania region around Naples

AN INVITATION TO POMPEIAN PARTY. THE WILDEST ONE! A thiasus, a procession of followers of the wine god, Dionysus. Gazing out at the diners from the center of the back wall was a cloaked woman preparing to be initiated into the god’s mystery cult. She was led by an elderly, torch-bearing silenus, a woodland deity who had educated Dionysus in his youth. For a few of the guests, this scene—and the wine that had already begun to take effect—must have conjured joyful yet hazy memories of their own initiations. Pompeii Wildest Party | Archaeology Magazine