Baptae
Baptae is a comedy by Eupolis which focuses on a cult that formed around the Thracian goddess Cotyto or Kotys. Eupolis wanted to make a statement about how the goddess had sprung up as a bit of a fad, with prominent people in Athens and her cult performing a number of strange rituals. The term Baptae referred to the followers of Kotys either because there was a bathing ritual involved, or because the devotees would baptize their garments in expensive dyes. Perhaps the part of the cult that appealed the most to Eupolis as a play was the fact that the followers of Kotys were all men and they showed their devotion by dressing as the goddess.
The play only exists in fragments, but what is obvious is that it pokes fun of this cult and the men who were willing to go along with the bizarre rituals. The play features the followers of Baptae hiring a female to be their Kotys surrogate during their ritual. One of the rituals followed by members of the cult involved men drinking from penis-shaped goblets and then dancing suggestively while staring up at the Kotys surrogate.
The crux of the play centers around the hired surrogate being the real Kotys. She has come to punish the Baptae for distorting her rites of worship and creating these bizarre ceremonies. The men fail to realize that their surrogate is the real goddess. Their rituals, dancing, and behavior only anger the goddess further as the play progresses but the men remain oblivious.
One of the most famous scenes of the play comes when Kotys finally reveals herself. She takes one of the men (the one portraying a celebrity of the period) and dunks him in a tub a dye. The play actually became a bit of a cultural phenomenon in that any unusual sect from then on would be referred to as Baptae. The play lightheartedly poked fun at transvestites and homosexuality, none of which was meant to instill hostility, but just meant as fodder for comedy.