BAPTÆ, in antiquity, an effeminate, voluptuous kind of priests, at Athens, belonging to the goddess Cotytus; thus called from their flated dippings and washings, by way of purification. Their rites were performed in the night, and consisted chiefly of lascivious dances, and other abominations. Eupolis having composed a comedy to expose them, entitled Baptæ, they threw him into the sea, to be revenged; and the same fate is also said to have befallen Cratinus, another Athenian poet, who had written a comedy against the Baptæ, under the same title.