Ingesting wine in historical Greece was a divine however demanding enterprise
April 10, 2022 by Ancientfoods
Apollo-magizine.com
3 September 2021
A small cup, at the moment on show within the short-term exhibition ‘Ingesting with the Gods’ at La Cité du Vin in Bordeaux, held a small shock for any historical Greek who’d completed sipping their wine and peered with unhappiness into its dry, empty inside. A satyr is painted inside, his tail within the air as he dives head first right into a vat of wine, his personal tiny cup left beneath, untouched. Such behaviour was frowned upon in Greek society, I study, as a result of ingesting wine was a divine affair, involving the right rituals and respect for the gods, which separated the Greeks from the barbarians. The satyr, it appears, had forgotten his good manners. Fortunately for us fashionable wine-drinkers, there’s now not any danger of embarrassing ourselves like a drunken satyr, as a result of this intoxicating exhibition explains how we will keep away from insulting the Greek and Roman gods or showing like barbarians.
With round 50 artefacts on show, together with loans from the Louvre, ‘Ingesting with the Gods’ centres on the position of wine in Graeco-Roman tradition, with a big half devoted to Dionysus, the god who gave wine to people and – maybe extra importantly – taught us to make it ourselves. Early on, there’s a statue of the god carved into the marble leg of a banqueting desk. It exhibits Dionysus leaning in opposition to a pillar, bare, one arm over his head in a gesture of ecstasy (or presumably questioning the place he’d final seen his garments). Together with his different hand, he pours wine for his panther, his fixed companion, current in varied artefacts on show. Unmixed with water, the wine drank by panther and god alike was believed to drive mere mortals insane, the exhibition explains. That is helpful recommendation for the Greek-god-fearing amongst us. The right solution to drink wine is to combine it with water in a big vase known as a krater. Then, earlier than taking a cup, you make an providing from it to the gods and say a prayer.
As you discover the exhibition, there’s a bronze picture of Dionysus’s drunken mule (not a really environment friendly approach of getting round, I think about), and work and carvings of the satyrs that accompanied the god on his travels – males with goat or horse legs and animal ears. Ladies known as the maenads (‘the mad ones’) have been additionally a part of the divinity’s troupe, and have been believed to tear you aside for those who didn’t welcome Dionysus appropriately. It feels like fairly the occasion – as long as you adopted the proper rituals and survived the evening.
Additional characters from Dionysus’s myths and adventures are additionally current. The perimeters of 1 Greek vase from 490 BC present Dionysus and Heracles assembly for a ingesting competitors. Pan makes an look as a small bronze determine, and we meet a marble statue of the satyr Silenus, Dionysus’s tutor, carved holding a big goatskin of wine. Festivals of Dionysus are represented too, such because the three-day-long Anthesteria (‘Flower Competition’), celebrating the god’s return and new wine; a scene of girls providing to a statue of Dionysus throughout this pageant may be seen on a jug from 450–440 BC. The exhibition additionally explores the god of wine’s incarnation as Bacchus beneath the Roman Empire.
One spotlight is a duplicate of an enormous vase from the sixth century BC found in a Celtic princesses’ tomb in France. This might maintain 1,100 litres of wine and is seemingly the most important recognized vase from the traditional world – standing earlier than it, you possibly can fairly simply think about diving inside like an ill-mannered satyr. One other copy exhibits a mosaic of a skeleton holding wine jugs, meant to remind banqueters to take pleasure in their lives.
However there’s extra to the exhibition than the traditional artefacts. In a single space, you possibly can sit and take heed to tales of Dionysus, as advised by the slam artist and poet Maras, the phrases projected on to the partitions. A video exhibits a banqueting scene from Federico Fellini’s movie Satyricon (1969). Three fashionable installations have been created by avenue artists, impressed by the traditional myths. Atmospheric music drifts throughout the exhibition house. The imagery on one Italian situla, displaying King Maron internet hosting Dionysus and receiving a vine and ingesting vessel in return, has been replicated on a big scale in material, which makes its theme – the present of wine – a lot clearer, and makes you are feeling immersed within the scene.
The exhibition is moodily lit with spotlights, creating stark contrasts between darkish areas, the illuminated objects, and the green-themed info panels and labels, which current the objects and their backgrounds in a refreshingly clear, partaking and generally virtually conversational method. Attention-grabbing cultural particulars are included all through – amongst them, that throughout the Anthesteria, the Greeks held competitions during which folks tried to down their cups of wine in a single gulp.
All of which provides as much as a relatively scrumptious mix, mixing outdated flavours with one thing new. With the world now slowly opening up once more, if you may make it to Bordeaux, ‘Ingesting with the Gods’ is an exhibition that you need to pattern whilst you nonetheless have the prospect. And when having fun with a glass of wine afterwards, bear in mind to supply somewhat to Dionysus.
‘Ingesting with the Gods’ is at La Cité du Vin in Bordeaux, France, till 7 November.
