Bacchus is Jupiter’s son. Usually shown with grapes (he rules wine) and a leopardskin draped on his person, he is a symbol of rock’n’roll (1950’s rock’n’rollers also being draped in leopardskin) and hedonism.
In your chart by sign and house he shows where you give pleasure and like to receive it. If you have exact (zero to one degree orb) aspects to Bacchus in your horoscope then the pleasure principle will rule your life. You may be a brothel madam or run a vineyard.
Less obviously, Bacchus by sign and house shows you where you very specifically indulge yourself and other people. It may have nothing to do with alcohol or ‘Bacchanalia’ (the wild Roman parties that took their name from the god).
If you have Bacchus in Taurus in the Second House then you may work in a bank, distributing credit cards so people can spend themselves into debt in order to have a good time, all the time (and you can too, because you make commission).
As with all astrology you have to put this asteroid in context. He was found in 1977, the year that punk rock broke. In the middle of hard economic times, Bacchus appeared to create a movement that revolved around beer and 1950’s iconography, thanks to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. Vivienne’s shop SEX on the Kings Road in Chelsea became the centre of punk.
The Roman Bacchanalia was associated with the sexual excess of the empire and sculpture we have of Bacchanalian processions in the British Museum shows the followers of Bacchus drunk, or high, and certainly in abandonment.
A maenad and two satyrs in a Dionysiac procession, Roman, about AD 100 reminds us that the Greek predecessor of Bacchus was Dionysus.
Astrology is Roman, not Greek, so we use the Italian names and archetypes.
The symbolism is developed from Greece and in modern astrology we acknowledge where the image of Bacchus comes from (Dionysus) but still use the developed Roman idea.
The British Museum sculpture from The Townley Collection shows what it calls ‘an ecstatic procession’ and the drug ecstasy is associated with Bacchus. So is the British new wave band XTC who rose to fame shortly after 1977.
Wild felines like the leopard but also the panther are Bacchus symbols. You don’t get that kind of detail unless you use asteroids, which is why modern astrologers enjoy using them. They enrich and explain a chart.
The Romans painted the eyes of their sculptures to make them seem alive – as if the gods were real – and you can see that here in the front and rear view of Dionysus/Bacchus, the Greek god adopted by the Romans. I took this photograph in Rome, partly to show his red lips. He may as well be wearing rock-star lipstick!
Bacchus has a very particular feel in a chart. Look at your own horoscope by sign, house and aspect (the patterns Bacchus makes).
You can almost guess who would have a ‘strong Bacchus’ in the world of the famous. By strong, I mean, Bacchus makes more than one exact aspect in a chart and so different bits and pieces of a personality and destiny are always pulled into that symbol. Hedonism or indulgence follow one round.
Images in article: Jessica Adams
Feature Image: Rene Bernal