thiasus

thumb|250px|Dionysus and members of his thiasos on an Black-figure pottery#Attica|Attic black-figure [[krater-psykter (525–500 BCE, Louvre Museum)]]

In Greek mythology and religion, the thiasus was the ecstatic retinue of Dionysus, often pictured as inebriated revelers. Many of the myths of Dionysus are connected with his arrival in the form of a procession. The grandest such version was his triumphant return from "India", which influenced symbolic conceptions of the Roman triumph and was narrated in rapturous detail in Nonnus's Dionysiaca. In this procession, Dionysus rides a chariot, often drawn by big cats such as tigers, leopards, or lions, or alternatively elephants or centaurs.