BACCHANTES BACCIOOHI 193 ed the secret initiation, which was held by night, and tlie society became so dangerous, that in 186 B. C. the consuls, by the authority of the senate, issued a proclamation command- ing that no Bacchanalia should be held either in Rome or in Italy. After this decree the I.iberalia, the festival of Liber, a similar but more moderate rite, was celebrated annuVilly on the 16th of March, and on that day the young men assumed the toga virilis. BACCHANTES, in early antiquity, those wo- men who took part in the secret festivities in honor of Bacchus; subsequently, when males were also admitted, the term was applied to all those initiated into the Bacchanalia. In the slang of mediaeval university students, the name was given to those who had not yet com- pleted their first year's studies, and under im- posing rites and plausible pretexts were taxed for drinking purposes and initiated in debauch- eries by the seniors. Later the name was ap- plied to idle students who led a dissipated life, begging under the pretence of collecting the means for future studies. They were organized into bodies with constitution and rituals, and in many cities public boarding houses were established for them. Sometimes they man- aged to become teachers, and it was a recom- mendation for a high school to have many such scholars. For heavy fees in drink they gave instruction in the tricks of their wandering life to younger students, who, under the name of Tirones, acted as their servants, stole and begged for them, and were harshly treated. There exist in German two autobiographies of such Bacchantes, Burkard Lingg and Thomas Plater. The reformation stopped these prac- tices ; but traces of them lingered in Germany and England down to the 19th century. BACCHIGL10NE, a river of northern Italy, in Venetia, about 90 in. long, which rises in the Alps, N. W. of Vicenza, flows past that city and Padua, and empties into the lagoon of Venice near Chioggia. Large boats ascend it to Vicenza. K.U'CIII S, in classical mythology, the god of wine, known among the Greeks as Dionysus, and often called by the Romans Liber. He was the son of Jupiter and Semele, the daugh- ter of King Cadmus. Juno avenged herself by visiting Semele in disguise, and inducing her to demand of Jupiter that he should appear before her clothed in the attributes of his majesty. No mortal could bear this sight, and Semele was destroyed. Jupiter, however, preserved the still-born child, enclosed him in his own thigh until the proper period for birth, and gave him to the sister of Semele and her hus- band, and, when Juno persecuted these, to the nymphs, for education. The nymphs brought him up at Nysa in Thrace, where Silenus also assisted in teaching him. Bacchus taught men the cultivation of the vine and the art of wine- making. He collected bands of worshippers, principally women, and surrounded by these, and seated in a chariot drawn by panthers or leopards, he passed through many countries, and even penetrated to India. His followers, maddened with wine and license, and carrying the thyrsus, a hollow wand twined with ivy and vine leaves, attacked those even of their own families who resisted the introduction of the new religion. Pentheus of Thebes was thus killed by his own mother, who was among the Bacchantes. The Greek legends of the adven- tures of the god were almost innumerable. lie flayed Damascus alive, who opposed him in Sy- ria; visited Lycurgus, king of the Edones, with madness in which he killed his own son ; and after the king again became sane, caused him to be torn in pieces by wild horses. He over- came the Amazons. Carried off to sea while he slept by a party of sailors who purposed selling him as a slave in Egypt, he caused the vessel to stand still while vines and ivy grew around the mast and spars, and wine flowed from the deck ; then he assumed the form of a lion, and afterward of a bear, killed the cap- tain, and changed the seamen into dolphins, preserving only the pilot, who had warned the crew against molesting the god. The tra- ditions concerning him are very differently given by different authors. Even concerning his birth the legends were contradictory, while the methods of his worship in different coun- tries were widely at variance. He was repre- sented in some works of art as an infant, but generally by the Greeks as a beautiful boy ; while in the East he was pictured as a mini of middle age and majestic figure, clothed in long robes. His festivals and religious rites, which, originating in Thrace, became wild orgies and scenes of license in Greece and Rome (see BACCHANALIA), and were finally suppressed in the latter city, were probably originally simple ceremonies in honor of the rich and productive power of nature, which he, as god of wine, undoubtedly represented. Among the powers which were attributed to Bacchus were those of prophecy, of healing certain diseases, and of increasing the produc- tiveness of the earth. BACCHYLIDES, a Greek poet, born at lulis in the island of Ceos about 512 B. C. ; the period of his death is uncertain. He was a nephew of Simonides and a contemporary of Pindar, and passed most of his life at the court of Hiero of Syracuse. Fragments of his works were published by Neue of Berlin in 1822. They are also found in Bergk's Poetce Lyrici Grceci (2d ed., Leipsic, 1 853). The most recent edition is by Hartung, with a German version (in the Griechische Lyriker, 6 vols., 1857). BACCIO DELLA PORTA. See BAKTOLOMMEO. BACCIOCHI, Napolcone Elisa, a Bonaparte prin- cess, cousin of Napoleon III., only daughter of Elisa, the eldest sister of Napoleon I., princess of Lucca and Piombino, and afterward grand duchess of Tuscany, and of Prince Felice Pas- quale Bacciochi, a Corsican nobleman (see BO- NAPARTE), born in Italy, June 3, 1806, died in her chateau Kour-el-Ouet, Brittany, Feb. 3 or
