Thus must they vaunt; and therefore hath my rod On them first fallen, and stung them forth wild-eyed From empty chambers; the bare mountain side Is made their home, and all their hearts are flame. Yea, I have bound upon the necks of them The harness of my rites. And with them all The seed of womankind from hut and hall Of Thebes, hath this my magic goaded out. And there, with the old King's daughters, in a rout Confused, they make their dwelling-place between The roofless rocks and shadowy pine trees green.
So the first of the wild women in Dionysus/Bacchus' cult were his mother's family who shamed her and then blamed her for catching heaven (Hera's) fury, and this was not in guilt nor atoning for their sins of blasphemy that they became the hysterical dwellers of the wild places but as a curse from Bacchus himself, therefore, The Bacchae. (Mention of the wild rites and ceremonial rampages are detailed in Fraser's The Golden Bough)
