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Describes an excess of pleasure, usually used in association with drinking sessions and orgies. It derives from the Greek God Dyonisus, who must have had a whale of a time as he is the god of ecstasy, drinking, winemaking and general madness. His Roman equivalent is Bacchus, from whom we get the word ‘Bacchanalian’. It should be noted that, before it became a byword for drunken excess, Bacchanalia was the Latin term for a specific religious festival imported to the city of Rome before 200BC and which, at first, involved only women. Men eventually became involved, however, and by the year 186BC the festivals had become an excuse for mass licentiousness and the Senate banned them.