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Dionysian imagery in fifth-century Athens
Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century Athens is a response to the question, 'What can surviving visual sources reveal about fifth-century Attic perceptions of Dionysos?'. In this sequel to his book Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art (1986), Thomas Carpenter defines a methodology for using ancient Greek imagery as evidence for cultural and religious activity based on an empirical rather than theoretical approach. Red-figure vases provide the richest source for Dionysian iconography, but the significant volume of evidence supplied by architectural sculpture, coins, and the theatre also demands attention. The conclusions that Carpenter draws from his extensive study challenge commonly-held views about the meaning of Dionysian imagery: women depicted with the god in red-figure vase scenes are demonstrated to be semi-divine nymphs rather than human 'maenads' and cannot be seen as...
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