THYRSUS

in Greek religion, staff carried by Dionysus, the wine god, and his votaries (Bacchae, Maenads). In early Greek art the Bacchae were usually depicted as holding branches of vine or ivy, but after 530 BC the staff to which the name thyrsus properly applied began to be shown as a stalk of giant fennel (narthex) segmented like bamboo, sometimes with ivy leaves inserted in the hollow end. Bacchae were depicted and described using them as weapons. Scholars differ on the extent to which these staffs can be explained as symbols of fertility.