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object

Thyrsus

Objects · Rituals · Myth & story

A fennel staff tipped with ivy or pine-cone in Dionysian procession. Not Caduceus the twinned-snake wand, and not a generic staff.

Also known as Thyrsos

Hellenic religion

  • Thyrsus appears in Hellenic religion.

    Pausanias describes the thyrsus in Dionysiac procession, a fennel staff of that cult as a visitor saw it. A named wand in that travel narrative, not Caduceus the twinned-snake staff and not Agamemnon’s sceptre.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

Roman religion

  • Thyrsus appears in Roman religion.

    Virgil’s Aeneid Book 7 seats the thyrsus among Amata’s feigned Bacchic frenzy that stirs the Latin women. A named thyrsus in that epic, not drum as the tympanum beside it and not a wine-festival dump alone.

    from Virgil · Aeneid, 19 BCE (unfinished at the poet’s death)

    appears in · sourced · documented

sources