MAENADES

the priestesses of Dionysus, who at the celebration of his festivals gave way to expressions of frenzied enthusiasm, as if they were under the spell of some demonic power.

The Maenads' secret female mysteries may indicate older rituals of ecstatic human sacrifice.

"The god Dionysus, the 'twice-born', the god of the vine. The son of Jupiter-Zeus and Semele. His worship was celebrated with orgiastic rites borrowed from Phrygia. His female followers are the Maenades. He carries the thyrsus, a wand tipped with a pine-cone, the Maenads and Satyrs following him carrying ivy-twined fir branches as thyrsi. He was equated by the Romans with Liber the fertility god. Also called Lenaeus, 'of the winepress'."

From Fasti By Ovid