Bacchanal

Bacchanal pronounced (bah-kuh-nahl, bak-uh-nal, bak-uh-nl (noun) or bak-uh-nl (adjective))

(1) A follower of Bacchus.

(2) A drunken reveler.

(3) An occasion of drunken revelry; orgy; riotous celebration.

(4) Of or pertaining to Bacchus; bacchanalian.

1530-1540: From the Latin Bacchānālis (having to do with Bacchus) & Bacchānālia (feast of Bacchus), plural of Bacchānal (a place devoted to Bacchus), from Bacchus (the god of wine), from the Ancient Greek Βάκχος (Bákkhos).  By extension, the meaning "riotous, drunken roistering or orgy" dates from 1711.  Bacchus, known also as Dionysus (Διόνυσος) (Dionysos) was in Greek Mythology the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy.  In Antiquity, most attention focused on wine and given consumption was both high and enthusiastic, the worship of Bacchus became firmly established.  A quirk of Bacchus’ place in the pantheon of gods is that, uniquely, he was born of a mortal mother.  The Romans adopted the name bacchanal (a woman given to such things was a bacchante) and named the behavior of those who had taken too much strong drink: bakkheia.  Bacchanal is a noun & adjective, Bacchanalia is a noun; the noun plural is bacchanals.

Bacchus and Ariadne

Bacchus and Ariadne (1717) by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (1675-1741).

In Greek mythology, Ariadne was the clever, though perhaps naïve, daughter of King Minos of Crete and she aided the hero Theseus in his mission to slay the Minotaur.  To say naïve might be understating things: poor sweet Ariadne was an emo and a bit of a dill.  On the island of Crete, there was a great labyrinth that housed a fearsome beast, the Minotaur, half human, half bull.  King Minos, in retaliation for his son's death at the hands of an Athenian, required the people of Athens every nine years to send seven young men and seven young virgins to be sacrificed to the beast, the alternative the destruction of their city.  One year, Theseus volunteered to be sent to Crete as part of the awful pact, planning to kill the Minotaur and thereby release his people from their plight.  When he stepped ashore in Crete, Ariadne spotted him and at once fell in love, as emos often do; running to Theseus, she offered to help him defeat the monster if he would marry her.  Theseus naturally agreed so Ariadne gave him a sword and a ball of red thread with which to mark his path so he could find his way out of the labyrinth.  The plan worked to the extent that Theseus slayed the Minotaur but certainly had no intention of marrying Ariadne.  While the couple traveled to Athens, during a brief stop on the island of Naxos, he sailed away, abandoning her while she slumbered on the beach.  Ariadne may have been an emo but Theseus was a cad.  Distraught by being deserted by the one she loved, Ariadne was still sobbing on the shore Bacchus appeared with a procession of his followers.  They spoke a few words and within moments had fallen in love, soon to marry.  In some tellings of the myths, after their wedding, Bacchus placed Ariadne's sparkling diadem in the sky as the constellation Corona, thus making her immortal.

A bacchante illustrating the consequences of what the Ancient Romans called bakkheia: Lindsay Lohan in a Cadillac Escalade, resting after dinner, Los Angeles, May 2007.