The most significant members of the thiasus were the human female devotees, the maenads, who gradually replaced immortal nymphs. In Greek vase-paintingsorbas-reliefs, lone female figures can be recognized as belonging to the thiasus by their brandishing the thyrsos, the distinctive staff or rod of the devotee.
Other regulars of the retinue were various nature spirits, including the sileni (or human dancers costumed as such), phalluses much in evidence, satyrs, and Pan. The ithyphallic sileni are often shown dancing on vase paintings.[5] The tutor of Dionysus is represented by a single aged Silenus. The retinue is sometimes shown being brought before a seated recipient: the tragic human welcomer of the gift of wine, IkariosorSemachos, and his daughter, Erigone.[6] In the triumphal form of procession, Ariadne sometimes rides with Dionysus as his consort. Heracles followed the thiasus for a short while following his loss of a drinking contest to Dionysus.
A marine thiasos (or sea thiasos) is a term for a group like the Dionysian thiasos, except with the chief god replaced by Poseidon or some other sea deity.[8][9] Lattimore while insisting that the chief god must be Poseidon in a strict sense, includes examples where Poseidon is completely absent in the composition, which most frequently figure Tritons and Nereids as marine retinues.[8]
An original work of Scopas on this theme was taken to Rome and described by Pliny, but is now lost.[10][9] Still, the theme is well represented in surviving works of Roman art, from tiny decorative reliefs and large sarcophagus panels to extensive mosaics.
Even in the Skopas example, the main theme was the deliverance of the slain AchillestoElysium, attended by his mother Thetis (though Poseidon is present as well),[9] and examples of Thetis's retinue have been described as marine thiasos.[11]
The marine thiasos could otherwise be the retinue for Oceanus,[12] or to Venus Marina.[13]
^Karl Kerenyi, Dionysos: Archetypal image of indestructible life 1976:123, observes that "the ecstatic band of bacchantes and agitated male nature gods in a state of heightened zoë ... is not reflected in Minoan art."
^Motto Anna Lydia; Clark, John R.; Byrne, Shannon N.; Cueva, Edmund P. (January 1999). Veritatis Amicitiaeque Causa: Essays in Honor of Anna Lydia Motto and John R. Clark. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. p. 249. ISBN9780865164543.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Kondoleon, Christine (1994). Domestic and Divine: Roman Mosaics in the House of Dionysos. Cornell University Press. p. 194. ISBN9780801430589.
^For example the thiasos in Athens examined by Marcus N. Tod, "A Statute of an Attic Thiasos", The Annual of the British School at Athens13 (1906/07):328-338).
^Karl Kerenyi (Dionysos: Archetypal image of indestructible life 1976), selects as an example a 6th-century vase, figs 39/A and B.
^See Kerenyi 1976, ch. iv. "The Myths of Arrival".
^ abLattimore, Steven (1976). The Marine Thiasos in Greek Sculpture. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles. p. 1. ISBN9780917956027. The term 'marine thiasos' might be defined.. most correctly [as] a marine group.. attending the marine god, Poseidon, however.. may not always be depicted.
