The first day of the BACCHANALIA in ancient Rome. Introduced into Rome from lower Italy by way of Etruria (c. 200 BC), the bacchanalia were originally held in secret and only attended by women. The festivals occurred in the grove of Simila near the Aventine Hill on March 16 and March 17. Later, admission to the rites was extended to men, and celebrations took place five times a month. According to Livy, the extension happened in an era when the leader of the Bacchus cult was Paculla Annia — though it is now believed that some men had participated before that. In Empires of Trust: How Rome Built -- And America Is Building -- A New World by Thomas Madden, the author cites the words of the scandalized contemporary Roman investigative consul in his report to the Roman Senate: “there was no crime, no deed of shame, wanting.

More uncleanness was committed by men with men than with women. Whoever would not submit to defilement, or shrank from violating others, was sacrificed as a victim. To regard nothing as impious or criminal was the sum total of their religion. The men, as though seized with madness and with frenzied distortions of their bodies, shrieked out prophecies; the matrons, dressed as Bacchae, their hair disheveled, rushed down to the Tiber River with burning torches, plunged them into the water, and drew them out again, the flame undiminished because they were made of sulfur mixed with lime.

Men were fastened to a machine and hurried off to hidden caves, and they were said to have been taken away by the gods. These were the men who refused to join their conspiracy or take part in their crimes or submit to their pollution.”

In 1984 Gay philosopher, activist and historian, Arthur Evans directed a production of The Bacchae at the Valencia Rose Cabaret in San Francisco of his own new translation, from the ancient Greek, of Euripides' play, Bakkhai, dealing with the Greek god Dionysos. In 1988, this translation, together with Evans' commentary on the historical significance of the play for gay people and women, was published by St. Martin's Press in New York under the name of The God of Ecstasy [St. Martins Press  ISBN-10: 031202214X ISBN-13: 978-0312022143

I.A.R. WYLIE, Australian novelist, born (d: 1959); In 1940 I.A.R. (for Ida Alexa Ross Wylie, also Ida Alena Ross Wylie) Wylie published a book, now little read, called My Life With George. What was unusual about it was not merely its honest treatment of a life shared with someone other than a husband, a lover with whom she had lived for twenty years, but that “George” was in fact another woman – Dr. S. Josephine Baker, a pioneering public health specialist who was famous for having captured “Typhoid Mary.” Anyone interested in learning more about Wylie’s George, ironically, will have to look Dr. Baker up in old editions of American Men of Science. That’s right: Men. You’ve come a long way baby.

Wylie's writing career took off in the teens, and her novel, The Red Mirage, was brought to the screen in 1915 as The Unknown. Four more of her stories were turned into movies over the next five years, but she fully hit her stride in the decade that followed. In 1920, Wylie published her first major novel, Toward Morning, which dealt with life in Germany. One of her later books, To the Vanquished, was an account of the changes that took place in Germany during the Nazi occupation. She also traveled to the Soviet Union and later wrote Furious Young Man, which is the story of a British youth who is frustrated with the shortcomings of his homeland's society and embraces communism.

Nine movies based on her work (including a fresh adaptation of The Red Mirage as The Foreign Legion) were filmed during the '20s, and 10 more in the '30s. The most memorable screen adaptation of a Wylie novel, however, was of The Flame (1942), with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. The film is not a comedy, but one of the most sophisticated thrillers ever to come out of Hollywood -- a startling work issued from a major studio in wartime, dealing with the investigation of a deceased, wealthy and supposedly ultra-patriotic man whose unsavory secrets are revealed. The suspense elements in Keeper of the Flame rival the work of Alfred Hitchcock, and it contains political elements that seem almost subversive. It marked the peak of Wylie's influence as an author in Hollywood. Two more movies based on her work would follow in the '50s -- Phone Call From a Stranger (1952) and Torch Song (1953). She receded in prominence through the last years of her life.

Today is the birthday of American pianist and composer DAVID DEL TREDICI. Born as David Walter del Tredici in Cloverdale, California, he studied at Berkeley and Princeton.  In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, he has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and Woodrow Wilson fellowship, a Brandeis Creative Arts Award, a Friedheim Award, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and election to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Del Tredici’s works are regularly commissioned by major orchestras in America and abroad. His "On Wings of Song" was premiered in New York City in 2004 as part of the Riverside Opera Ensemble's 20th Anniversary Concert.  His notable students include John Adams, Richard St. Clair and Tison Street. 

On this date the American writer and Gay activist JACK NICHOLS was born (d. 2005); Born in Washington, DC as John Richard Nichols, Nichols was an early activist and with Franklin Kameny responsible for some of the first protests for Gay rights in the nation's capitol.

He co-founded the Washington, D.C. branch of the Mattachine Society in 1961 with Franklin E. Kameny and the Mattachine Society of Florida in 1965. The Mattachine Society of Washington was independent of the national Mattachine Society.  Beginning in 1963, he chaired the Mattachine Society of Washington's Committee on Religious Concerns, which later developed into the Washington Area Council on Religion and the Homosexual. This organization was pioneering in forging links between the Gay rights movement and the National Council of Churches.

Nichols led the first Gay rights march on the White House, in April 1965, and participated in the Annual Reminder pickets at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, held each July 4 from 1965 to 1969. He also successfully lobbied the American Psychiatric Association to rescind its definition of homosexuality as a form of mental illness.

In 1967, Mr. Nichols became one of the first Americans to talk openly about his homosexuality on national television when he appeared in "The Homosexuals," a CBS documentary. Though he allowed himself to be interviewed on camera, Mr. Nichols used the pseudonym "Warren Adkins" in the broadcast at the request of his father, an F.B.I. agent. In 1969, after moving to New York City, Nichols and his partner Lige Clarke founded GAY, the first weekly newspaper for Gay people in the US distributed on news stands.  From February 1997, Nichols was Senior Editor at GayToday.com, an online news magazine. He died on May 2, 2005, of complications from cancer.

His books include I Have More Fun with You than Anybody, Men's Liberation: A new definition of masculinity, The Gay Agenda: Talking back to Fundamentalists, and the great memoir The Tomcat Chronicles: Erotic Adventures Of A Gay Liberation Pioneer.

Activist and former bookstore owner, DEACON MACCUBBIN was born on this day. Well-known as the founder and owner of Lambda Rising Books, Maccubbin has also been a supporter or founder of many gay Washington, DC institutions including youth outreach, media, the annual Pride celebrations, community social and business organizations, and the Lambda Literary Awards.

While still in the Army, Maccubbin became a gay activist, joining the Gay Liberation Front-DC briefly. In 1971, he took over a craftshop at 1724 20th St NW, turning it into the Earthworks tobacco and headshop. On June 8, 1974, Earthworks’ shelves of magazines and books became the core stock for the new Lambda Rising, one of the nation’s largest and most successful groups of gay bookstores.

As leader of the Community Building (a nickname from antiwar and counterculture days), Maccubbin turned the building into an incubator and haven for many new and struggling community groups, including  the Gay Switchboard, gay youth groups, the Blade, off our backs, Roadwork, and many others.

Maccubbin was a founder and chair of the first major community group, the Washington Area Gay Community Council (WAGCC). In 1975 WAGCC launched the planning process for the second gay community center and published Just Us, the first guide to DC’s gay community.  That same year, Maccubbin organized the first official Gay Pride, held on 20th St NW in front of the building.

In the 1973, he was arrested with Cade Ware and Bill Bricker from Gay Activists Alliance at a sit-in protesting police entrapment. His protests and civil disobedience continued during the 1980's in response to federal inaction on AIDS research and funding with an arrest at the White House, and in the 1990's in response to Clinton's signing the Defense of Marriage Act, as well as additional arrests at protests against apartheid at the South African Embassy and against the Pope at Catholic University.  Maccubbin has played important roles in the reform of D.C.'s sodomy law, passage of the D.C. Human Rights Act, and in responding to Bible-based attacks on homosexuality.  In 1982, he and his life partner, Jim Bennett, were among the first to celebrate a Holy Union and they were the second couple to be registered as Domestic Partners in the District of Columbia.

In 2003, Deacon saved the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York City (which had inspired him to launch Lambda Rising) from closing. Maccubbin commented, "The store never closed its doors.  It was open right on through. Historically, that's important to me."  In 2006, the bookstore was sold to a local manager.

Canadian film, stage and television actor and singer VICTOR GARBER was born on this date. Garber is known for playing Jesus in Godspell, John Wilkes Booth in Assassins, Jack Bristow in the television series, Alias, Max in Lend Me A Tenor, Thomas Andrews in Titanic and most recently, the Canadian ambassador, Ken Taylor in Argo. Garber came out as Gay in 2013. He lives in New York with his companion of thirteen years, Rainer Andreesen.

AUBREY BEARDSLEY, English illustrator and author, died (b: 1872): Aubrey Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and the grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. Some of his drawings, inspired by Japanese shunga, featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic illustrations were on themes of history and mythology, including his illustrations for Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Oscar Wilde’s Salome.

Beardsley was a public character as well as a private eccentric. He said, "I have one aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing." Wilde said he had "a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair." Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties; yellow gloves. He would appear at his publisher's in a morning coat and patent leather pumps.

Although Beardsley was aligned with the Gay clique that included Oscar Wilde and other English aesthetes, the details of his sexuality remain in question. He was generally regarded as asexual—which is hardly surprising, considering his chronic illness and his devotion to his work. Speculation about his sexuality include rumors of an incestuous relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried.

The Swedish writer and Nobel Laureate in Literature SELMA LAGERLÖF died on this date (b. 1858). Born as Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf in Östra Ämtervik (Värmland), Lagerlöf worked as a country schoolteacher in Landskrona for nearly ten years while honing her story-telling skills, with particular focus on the legends she had learned as a child.

Through her studies at the Royal Women's Superior Training Academy in Stockholm, Lagerlöf reacted against the realism of contemporary Swedish-language writers such as August Strindberg. She began her first novel, Gösta Berling's Saga, while working as a teacher in Landskrona. Her first break as a writer came when she submitted the first chapters to a literary contest, and won a publishing contract for the whole book.

In 1894 she met Sophie Elkan, also a writer, who became her friend and companion, and, judging from the letters between them that survive, with whom she fell deeply in love. Over many years, Elkan and Lagerlöf critiqued each other's work. Lagerlöf wrote of Elkan's strong influence on her work, often disagreeing sharply with the direction Lagerlöf wanted to take in her books. By 1895, she gave up her teaching to devote herself to her writing.

She and Elkan traveled to Italy where she wrote her novel, Antikrists mirakler, exploring the interplay between Christian and socialist moral systems.  She moved in 1897 to Falun, and there met Valborg Olander, who became her literary assistant, friend, and associate. Elkan's jealousy of Olander was a complication in the relationship. Olander, a teacher, was also active in the growing woman suffrage movement in Sweden.

In 1909 Selma Lagerlöf won the Nobel Prize "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings". In 1914 she also became a member of the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the Nobel Prize. At the start of World War II, she sent her Nobel Prize medal and gold medal from the Swedish Academy to the government of Finland to help raise money to fight the Soviet Union. The Finnish government was so touched that it raised the necessary money by other means and returned her medal to her. Her portrait is on the Swedish 20 Kronen banknote.

Former Pope John Paul II asks God for forgiveness for the inactivity and silence of some Roman Catholics during the Holocaust. I guess that takes care of that. What's next?