Dionysus

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Dionysus
God of the Vine, Grape Harvest, Winemaking, Wine, Ritual Madness, Religious Ecstasy, and Theatre.
Dionysos Louvre Ma87 n2.jpg
Abode Mount Olympus
Symbol Thyrsus, grapevine, leopard skin, panther, tiger, cheetah
Consort Ariadne
Parents Zeus and Semele
Siblings Ares, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hebe, Hermes, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Hephaestus, Perseus, Minos, the Muses, the Graces
Children Priapus, Hymen, Thaos, Staphylus, Oenopion, Comus, Phthonus
Roman equivalent Bacchus, Liber
Etruscan equivalent Fufluns

Dionysus (/d.əˈnsəs/; Greek: Διόνυσος, Dionysos) is the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility,[2][3] theatre and religious ecstasy in Greek mythology. Alcohol, especially wine, played an important role in Greek culture with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style.[4] His name, thought to be a theonym in Linear B tablets as di-wo-nu-so (KH Gq 5 inscription),[5] shows that he may have been worshipped as early as c. 1500–1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks; other traces of the Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete.[6] His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek.[7][8][9] In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, "the god that comes", and his "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, and is included in some lists of the twelve Olympians. Dionysus was the last god to be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a mortal mother.[10] His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre. Modern scholarship categorises him as a dying-and-rising god.[11][12]

The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a fennel staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature describes him as womanly or "man-womanish".[13] In its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and bearded satyrs with erect penises. Some are armed with the thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a bearded, drunken Silenus. This procession is presumed to be the cult model for the human followers of his Dionysian Mysteries. In his Thracian mysteries, he wears the bassaris or fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.[14]

Also known as Bacchus (/ˈbækəs/ or /ˈbɑːkəs/; Greek: Βάκχος, Bakkhos), the name adopted by the Romans[15] and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also called Eleutherios ("the liberator"), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself.[16] His cult is also a "cult of the souls"; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead.[17]

In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, thus semi-divine or heroic: and as son of Zeus and Persephone or Demeter, thus both fully divine, part-chthonic and possibly identical with Iacchus of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Some scholars believe that Dionysus is a syncretism of a local Greek nature deity and a more powerful god from Thrace or Phrygia such as Sabazios or Zalmoxis.

Names

Etymology

Marble sarcophagus with the Triumph of Dionysos and the Seasons. Roman ca. AD 260–270

The dio- element has been associated since antiquity with Zeus (genitive Dios). The earliest attested form of the name is Mycenaean Greek 𐀇𐀺𐀝𐀰, di-wo-nu-so, written in Linear B syllabic script, presumably for /Diwo(h)nūsoio/. This is attested on two tablets that had been found at Mycenaean Pylos and dated to the 12th or 13th century BC, but at the time, there could be no certainty on whether this was indeed a theonym.[18][19] But the 1989–90 Greek-Swedish Excavations at Kastelli Hill, Chania, unearthed, inter alia, four artefacts bearing Linear B inscriptions; among them, the inscription on item KH Gq 5 is thought to confirm Dionysus's early worship.[5]

Later variants include Dionūsos and Diōnūsos in Boeotia; Dien(n)ūsos in Thessaly; Deonūsos and Deunūsos in Ionia; and Dinnūsos in Aeolia, besides other variants. A Dio- prefix is found in other names, such as that of the Dioscures, and may derive from Dios, the genitive of the name of Zeus.[20]

The second element -nūsos is associated with Mount Nysa, the birthplace of the god in Greek mythology, where he was nursed by nymphs (the Nysiads),[21] but according to Pherecydes of Syros, nũsa was an archaic word for "tree".[22]

R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name.[23]

The cult of Dionysus was closely associated with trees, specifically the fig tree, and some of his bynames exhibit this, such as Endendros "he in the tree" or Dendritēs, "he of the tree". Peters suggests the original meaning as "he who runs among the trees", or that of a "runner in the woods". Janda (2010) accepts the etymology but proposes the more cosmological interpretation of "he who impels the (world-)tree". This interpretation explains how Nysa could have been re-interpreted from a meaning of "tree" to the name of a mountain: the axis mundi of Indo-European mythology is represented both as a world-tree and as a world-mountain.[24]

Epithets

Dionysus was variably known with the following epithets:

Acratophorus, ("giver of unmixed wine"), at Phigaleia in Arcadia.[25]

Acroreites at Sicyon.[26]

Adoneus ("ruler") in his Latinised, Bacchic cult.[citation needed][27]

Aegobolus ("goat killer") at Potniae, in Boeotia.[28]

Aesymnetes ("ruler" or "lord") at Aroë and Patrae in Achaea.

Agrios ("wild"), in Macedonia.

Briseus ("he who prevails") in Smyrna.[29][30]

Bromios ("Roaring" as of the wind, primarily relating to the central death/resurrection element of the myth,[31] but also to the god's famous transformations into lion and bull.[32] Also refers to the "boisterousness" of those who imbibe spirits, and is cognate with the "roar of thunder", although this aspect is corollary in that it is a reference to the god's parentage, not his innate qualities.)

Chthonios ("the subterranean")[33]

Dendrites ("he of the trees"), as a fertility god.

Dithyrambos, form of address used at his festivals, referring to his premature birth.

Eleutherios ("the liberator"), an epithet for both Dionysus and Eros.

Endendros ("he in the tree").[34]

Enorches ("with balls,"[35] with reference to his fertility, or "in the testicles" in reference to Zeus' sewing the baby Dionysus into his thigh, i.e., his testicles).[36] used in Samos and Lesbos.

Erikryptos ("completely hidden"), in Macedonia.

Euius (Euios), in Euripides' play, The Bacchae.

Iacchus, possibly an epithet of Dionysus and associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries. In Eleusis, he is known as a son of Zeus and Demeter. The name "Iacchus" may come from the Ιακχος (Iakchos), a hymn sung in honor of Dionysus.

Liknites ("he of the winnowing fan"), as a fertility god connected with the mystery religions. A winnowing fan was used to separate the chaff from the grain.

Lyaeus (Lyaios) ("he who unties") or releases from care and anxiety.

Melanaigis ("of the black goatskin") at the Apaturia festival.

Oeneus, as god of the wine press.

Pseudanor (literally "false man", referring to his feminine qualities), in Macedonia.

In the Greek pantheon, Dionysus (along with Zeus) absorbs the role of Sabazios, a Thracian/Phrygian deity. In the Roman pantheon, Sabazius became an alternative name for Bacchus.[37]

Mythology

Birth (and infant death and rebirth)

Birth of Dionysus, on a small sarcophagus that may have been made for a child (Walters Art Museum)[38]

Dionysus had a strange birth that evokes the difficulty in fitting him into the Olympian pantheon. His mother was a mortal woman, Semele, the daughter of king Cadmus of Thebes, and his father was Zeus, the king of the gods. Zeus' wife, Hera, discovered the affair while Semele was pregnant. Appearing as an old crone (in other stories a nurse), Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that Zeus was the actual father of the baby in her womb. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semele's mind. Curious, Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood.

Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he agreed. Therefore, he came to her wreathed in bolts of lightning; mortals, however, could not look upon an undisguised god without dying, and she perished in the ensuing blaze. Zeus rescued the unborn Dionysus by sewing him into his thigh. A few months later, Dionysus was born on Mount Pramnos in the island of Ikaria, where Zeus went to release the now-fully-grown baby from his thigh. In this version, Dionysus is born by two "mothers" (Semele and Zeus) before his birth, hence the epithet dimētōr (of two mothers) associated with his being "twice-born".

In the Cretan version of the same story, which Diodorus Siculus follows,[39] Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone, the queen of the Greek underworld. Diodorus' sources equivocally identified the mother as Demeter.[40] A jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending Titans to rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys. It is said that he was mocked by the Titans who gave him a thyrsus (a fennel stalk) in place of his rightful sceptre.[41] Zeus turned the Titans into dust with his thunderbolts, but only after the Titans ate everything but the heart, which was saved, variously, by Athena, Rhea, or Demeter. Zeus used the heart to recreate him in his thigh, hence he was again "the twice-born". Other versions claim that Zeus recreated him in the womb of Semele, or gave Semele the heart to eat to impregnate her.

The rebirth in both versions of the story is the primary reason why Dionysus was worshipped in mystery religions, as his death and rebirth were events of mystical reverence. This narrative was apparently used in several Greek and Roman cults, and variants of it are found in Callimachus and Nonnus, who refer to this Dionysus with the title Zagreus, and also in several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus.[citation needed]

The myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus by the Titans, is alluded to by Plato in his Phaedo (69d) in which Socrates claims that the initiations of the Dionysian Mysteries are similar to those of the philosophic path. Late Neo-Platonists such as Damascius explore the implications of this at length.[42]

Infancy at Mount Nysa

According to the myth, Zeus gave the infant Dionysus to the care of Hermes. One version of the story is that Hermes took the boy to King Athamas and his wife Ino, Dionysus' aunt. Hermes bade the couple to raise the boy as a girl, to hide him from Hera's wrath.[43] Another version is that Dionysus was taken to the rain-nymphs of Nysa, who nourished his infancy and childhood, and for their care Zeus rewarded them by placing them as the Hyades among the stars (see Hyades star cluster). Other versions have Zeus giving him to Rhea, or to Persephone to raise in the Underworld, away from Hera. Alternatively, he was raised by Maro.

Dionysus in Greek mythology is a god of foreign origin, and while Mount Nysa is a mythological location, it is invariably set far away to the east or to the south. The Homeric hymn to Dionysus places it "far from Phoenicia, near to the Egyptian stream". Others placed it in Anatolia, or in Libya ("away in the west beside a great ocean"), in Ethiopia (Herodotus), or Arabia (Diodorus Siculus).

According to Herodotus:

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As it is, the Greek story has it that no sooner was Dionysus born than Zeus sewed him up in his thigh and carried him away to Nysa in Ethiopia beyond Egypt; and as for Pan, the Greeks do not know what became of him after his birth. It is therefore plain to me that the Greeks learned the names of these two gods later than the names of all the others, and trace the birth of both to the time when they gained the knowledge.

— Herodotus, Histories 2.146

The Bibliotheca seems to be following Pherecydes, who relates how the infant Dionysus, god of the grapevine, was nursed by the rain-nymphs, the Hyades at Nysa.

Childhood

Kylix (6th century BC) depicting Dionysus among the sailors transformed to dolphins after attempting to kidnap him

When Dionysus grew up, he discovered the culture of the vine and the mode of extracting its precious juice; but Hera struck him with madness, and drove him forth a wanderer through various parts of the earth. In Phrygia the goddess Cybele, better known to the Greeks as Rhea, cured him and taught him her religious rites, and he set out on a progress through Asia teaching the people the cultivation of the vine. The most famous part of his wanderings is his expedition to India, which is said to have lasted several years. According to a legend, when Alexander the Great reached a city called Nysa near the Indus river, the locals said that their city was founded by Dionysus in the distant past and their city was dedicated to the god Dionysus.[44] Returning in triumph he undertook to introduce his worship into Greece, but was opposed by some princes who dreaded its introduction on account of the disorders and madness it brought with it (e.g. Pentheus or Lycurgus).

North African Roman mosaic: Panther-Dionysus scatters the pirates, who are changed to dolphins, except for Acoetes, the helmsman. (Bardo National Museum)

Dionysus was exceptionally attractive. One of the Homeric hymns recounts how, while disguised as a mortal sitting beside the seashore, a few sailors spotted him, believing he was a prince. They attempted to kidnap him and sail him far away to sell for ransom or into slavery. They tried to bind him with ropes, but no type of rope could hold him. Dionysus turned into a fierce lion and unleashed a bear on board, killing those he came into contact with. Those who jumped off the ship were mercifully turned into dolphins. The only survivor was the helmsman, Acoetes, who recognized the god and tried to stop his sailors from the start.[45]

In a similar story, Dionysus desired to sail from Icaria to Naxos. He then hired a Tyrrhenian pirate ship. However, when the god was on board, they sailed not to Naxos but to Asia, intending to sell him as a slave. So Dionysus turned the mast and oars into snakes, and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes so that the sailors went mad and, leaping into the sea, were turned into dolphins.

Other stories

Midas

Dionysus discovered that his old school master and foster father, Silenus, had gone missing. The old man had been drinking, and had wandered away drunk, and was found by some peasants, who carried him to their king (alternatively, he passed out in Midas' rose garden). Midas recognized him, and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with politeness, while Silenus entertained Midas and his friends with stories and songs. On the eleventh day, he brought Silenus back to Dionysus. Dionysus offered Midas his choice of whatever reward he wanted.

Midas asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold. Dionysus consented, though was sorry that he had not made a better choice. Midas rejoiced in his new power, which he hastened to put to the test. He touched and turned to gold an oak twig and a stone. Overjoyed, as soon as he got home, he ordered the servants to set a feast on the table. Then he found that his bread, meat, and wine turned to gold. Later, when his daughter embraced him, she too turned to gold.

Upset, Midas strove to divest himself of his power (the Midas Touch); he hated the gift he had coveted. He prayed to Dionysus, begging to be delivered from starvation. Dionysus heard and consented; he told Midas to wash in the river Pactolus. He did so, and when he touched the waters the power passed into them, and the river sands changed into gold. This was an etiological myth that explained why the sands of the Pactolus were rich in gold.

Pentheus

Pentheus torn apart by Agave and Ino. Attic red-figure lekanis (cosmetics bowl) lid, c. 450-425 BC (Louvre)

In the play, The Bacchae, written by Euripides, Dionysus returns to his birthplace, Thebes, which is ruled by his cousin Pentheus. Dionysus wants to exact revenge on Pentheus and the women of Thebes (his aunts Agave, Ino and Autonoe) for not believing his mother Semele's claims of being impregnated by Zeus, and for denying Dionysus's divinity (and therefore not worshiping him).

Dionysus slowly drives Pentheus mad, lures him to the woods of Mount Cithaeron, and then convinces him to spy/peek on the Maenads (female worshippers of Dionysus, who often experienced divine ecstasy). The Maenads are in an insane frenzy when Pentheus sees them (earlier in the play they had ripped apart a herd of cattle), and they catch him but mistake him for a wild animal. Pentheus is torn to shreds, and his mother (Agave, one of the Maenads), not recognizing her own son because of her madness, brutally tears his limbs off as he begs for his life.

As a result of their acts the women are banished from Thebes, ensuring Dionysus's revenge.

Lycurgus

When King Lycurgus of Thrace heard that Dionysus was in his kingdom, he imprisoned Dionysus' followers, the Maenads. Dionysus fled and took refuge with Thetis, and sent a drought which stirred the people into revolt. Dionysus then drove King Lycurgus insane and had him slice his own son into pieces with an axe in the belief that he was a patch of ivy, a plant holy to Dionysus. An oracle then claimed that the land would stay dry and barren as long as Lycurgus was alive. His people had him drawn and quartered. Following the death of the king, Dionysus lifted the curse. This story was told in Homer's epic, Iliad 6.136-7. In an alternative version, sometimes shown in art, Lycurgus tries to kill Ambrosia, a follower of Dionysus, who was transformed into a vine that twined around the enraged king and restrained him, eventually killing him.[46]

Prosymnus

A better-known story is that of his descent to Hades to rescue his mother Semele, whom he placed among the stars.[47] Dionysus feared for his mother, whom he had not seen since birth. He bypassed the god of death, known as Thanatos, thus successfully returning Semele to Mount Olympus. Out of the twelve Olympians, he was of the few that could restore the deceased from the underworld back to life.[48] He made the descent from a reputedly bottomless pool on the coast of the Argolid near the prehistoric site of Lerna. He was guided by Prosymnus or Polymnus, who requested, as his reward, to be Dionysus' lover. Prosymnus died before Dionysus could honor his pledge, so in order to satisfy Prosymnus' shade, Dionysus fashioned a phallus from an olive branch and sat on it at Prosymnus' tomb.[49] This story survives in full only in Christian sources whose aim was to discredit pagan mythology. It appears to have served as an explanation of the secret objects that were revealed in the Dionysian Mysteries.[50]

Ampelos

Another myth according to Nonnus involves Ampelos, a satyr, who was loved by Dionysus.[51] Foreseen by Dionysus, the youth was killed in an accident riding a bull maddened by the sting of an Ate's gadfly. The Fates granted Ampelos a second life as a vine, from which Dionysus squeezed the first wine.[52]

Chiron

Young Dionysus was also said to have been one of the many famous pupils of the centaur Chiron. According to Ptolemy Chennus in the Library of Photius, "Dionysus was loved by Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances, the bacchic rites and initiations."[53]

Secondary myths

When Hephaestus bound Hera to a magical chair, Dionysus got him drunk and brought him back to Olympus after he passed out.

A third descent by Dionysus to Hades is invented by Aristophanes in his comedy The Frogs. Dionysus, as patron of the Athenian dramatic festival, the Dionysia, wants to bring back to life one of the great tragedians. After a competition Aeschylus is chosen in preference to Euripides.

When Theseus abandoned Ariadne sleeping on Naxos, Dionysus found and married her. She bore him a son named Oenopion, but he committed suicide or was killed by Perseus. In some variants, he had her crown put into the heavens as the constellation Corona; in others, he descended into Hades to restore her to the gods on Olympus. Another different account claims Dionysus ordered Theseus to abandon Ariadne on the island of Naxos for he had seen her as Theseus carried her onto the ship and had decided to marry her.

Psalacantha, a nymph, failed at winning the love of Dionysus as his main love interest at the moment was Ariadne, and ended up being changed into a plant.

Callirrhoe was a Calydonian woman who scorned Coresus, a priest of Dionysus, who threatened to afflict all the women of Calydon with insanity (see Maenad). The priest was ordered to sacrifice Callirhoe but he killed himself instead. Callirhoe threw herself into a well which was later named after her.

Consorts and children

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  1. Aphrodite
    1. Charites (Graces)
      1. Pasithea
      2. Euphrosyne
      3. Thalia
    2. Priapus
    3. Hymenaios
  2. Ariadne
    1. Oenopion
    2. Staphylus
    3. Thoas
    4. Peparethus
    5. Phanus
    6. Eurymedon
    7. Euanthes
    8. Latramys
    9. Tauropolis
    10. Ceramus
  3. Circe
    1. Comus
  4. Aura
    1. Iacchus
    2. twin of Iacchus, killed by Aura instantly upon birth
  5. Nicaea
    1. Telete
  6. Araethyrea or Chthonophyle (or again Ariadne)
    1. Phlias
  7. Physcoa
    1. Narcaeus
  8. Pallene
  9. Carya
  10. Percote
    1. Priapus (possibly)[54]
  11. Chione, Naiad nymph
    1. Priapus (possibly)[55]
  12. Alexirrhoe
    1. Carmanor
  13. Alphesiboea
    1. Medus
  14. Nyx
    1. Phthonus
  15. Althaea
    1. Deianira
  16. unnamed
    1. Thysa[56]

Parallels with Christianity

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The earliest discussions of mythological parallels between Dionysus and the figure of the Christ in Christian theology can be traced to Friedrich Hölderlin, whose identification of Dionysus with Christ is most explicit in Brod und Wein (1800–1801) and Der Einzige (1801–1803).[57]

Theories regarding such parallels were popular in the 19th century. Some modern scholars such as Martin Hengel, Barry Powell, Robert M. Price, and Peter Wick, among others, argue that Dionysian religion and Christianity have notable parallels. They point to the symbolism of wine and the importance it held in the mythology surrounding both Dionysus and Jesus Christ;[58][59] though, Wick argues that the use of wine symbolism in the Gospel of John, including the story of the Marriage at Cana at which Jesus turns water into wine, was intended to show Jesus as superior to Dionysus.[60]

Scholars of comparative mythology identify both Dionysus and Jesus with the dying-and-returning god mythological archetype.[12] There are differences in the details of the event while the resurrection of Christ was placed in a specific historical and geographical context. Moreover, it has been noted that the details of Dionysus death and rebirth are starkly different both in content and symbolism from Jesus, with Dionysus being (in the most common myth) torn to pieces and eaten by the titans and "eventually restored to a new life" from the heart that was left over.[61][62] Other elements, such as the celebration by a ritual meal of bread and wine, also have parallels.[63] Powell, in particular, argues precursors to the Catholic notion of transubstantiation can be found in Dionysian religion.[63]

Another parallel can be seen in The Bacchae where Dionysus appears before King Pentheus on charges of claiming divinity which is compared to the New Testament scene of Jesus being interrogated by Pontius Pilate.[60][63][64] However several scholars dispute this parallel, since while Jesus, during the trial before Pilate, did not affirm openly he was a god nor asked for any honor, Dionysus was arrested by Pentheus after making the women of Thebes mad and complaining about the fact that the city of Thebes, and its king, have refused to honor him. Moreoever, the confrontation of Dionysus and Pentheus also ends with Pentheus dying, torn into pieces by the mad women, including his mother. The details of the story, including its resolution, make the Dionysus story radically different than the one of Jesus, except for the parallel of the arrest, which is a detail that appears in many biographies as well.[65]

Few sources reject some of the parallels between the cult of Dionysus and Christ, asserting that the similarities are superficial, often general and universal parallels found in many stories, both historical and mythical, and that the symbolism represented by the similar themes are radically different.[62][66][67][68]

Symbolism

Satyr giving a grapevine to Bacchus as a child; cameo glass, first half of the 1st century AD; from Italy

The bull, serpent, tiger, ivy, and wine are characteristic of Dionysian atmosphere. Dionysus is also strongly associated with satyrs, centaurs, and sileni. He is often shown riding a leopard, wearing a leopard skin, or in a chariot drawn by panthers, and may also be recognized by the thyrsus he carries. Besides the grapevine and its wild barren alter-ego, the toxic ivy plant, both sacred to him, the fig was also his symbol. The pinecone that tipped his thyrsus linked him to Cybele. Dionysus had two extreme natures to his personality. For instance, he could shift from bringing bliss and relaxation, which then often transitioned into bitterness and fury. Dionysus personified the nature of wine. When used reasonably it can be pleasant, however, if misused it can provoke negative effects.[69] The Dionysia and Lenaia festivals in Athens were dedicated to Dionysus. On numerous vases (referred to as Lenaia vases), the god is shown participating in the ritual sacrifice as a masked and clothed pillar (sometimes a pole, or tree is used), while his worshipers eat bread and drink wine. Initiates worshipped him in the Dionysian Mysteries, which were comparable to and linked with the Orphic Mysteries, and may have influenced Gnosticism[citation needed]. Orpheus was said to have invented the Mysteries of Dionysus.[70]

Dionysus was another god of resurrection and he was strongly linked to the bull. In a cult hymn from Olympia, at a festival for Hera, Dionysus is invited to come as a bull; "with bull-foot raging." Walter Burkert relates, "Quite frequently [Dionysus] is portrayed with bull horns, and in Kyzikos he has a tauromorphic image," and refers also to an archaic myth in which Dionysus is slaughtered as a bull calf and impiously eaten by the Titans.[12] In the Classical period of Greece, the bull and other animals identified with deities were separated from them as their agalma, a kind of heraldic show-piece that concretely signified their numinous presence.[12]

Bacchus and the Bacchanalia

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Bronze head of Dionysus, 50 BC -50 AD, in the British Museum[71]

A mystery cult to Bacchus was brought to Rome from the Greek culture of southern Italy or by way of Greek-influenced Etruria. It was established c.200 BC in the Aventine grove of Stimula by a priestess from Campania, near the temple where Liber Pater ("The Free Father") had a State-sanctioned, popular cult. Liber was a native Roman god of wine, fertility, and prophecy, patron of Rome's plebeians (citizen-commoners) and a close equivalent to Bacchus-Dionysus Eleutherios.

In Livy's account, the new Bacchic mysteries were originally restricted to women and held only three times a year; but were corrupted by the Etruscan-Greek version, and thereafter drunken men and women of all ages and social classes cavorted in a sexual free-for-all five times a month. Livy relates their various outrages against Rome's civil and religious laws and morality; a secretive, subversive and potentially revolutionary counter-culture. The cult was suppressed by the State with great ferocity; of the 7,000 arrested, most were executed. Modern scholarship treats much of Livy's account with skepticism; more certainly, a Senatorial edict, the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus was distributed throughout Roman and allied Italy. It banned the former Bacchic cult organisations. Each meeting must seek prior senatorial approval through a praetor. No more than three women and two men were allowed at any one meeting, Those who defied the edict risked the death penalty.

Bacchus was conscripted into the official Roman pantheon as an aspect of Liber, and his festival was inserted into the Liberalia. In Roman culture, Liber, Bacchus and Dionysus became virtually interchangeable equivalents. Bacchus was euhemerised as a wandering hero, conqueror and founder of cities. He was a patron deity and founding hero at Leptis Magna, birthplace of the emperor Septimius Severus, who promoted his cult. In some Roman sources, the ritual procession of Bacchus in a tiger-drawn chariot, surrounded by maenads, satyrs and drunks, commemorates the god's triumphant return from the conquest of India, the historical prototype for the Roman Triumph.

In art

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"Bacchus" by Michelangelo (1497)

Classical

The god appeared on many kraters and other wine vessels from classical Greece. His iconography became more complex in the Hellenistic period, between severe archaising or Neo Attic types such as the Dionysus Sardanapalus and types showing him as an indolent and androgynous young man and often shown nude (see the Dionysus and Eros, Naples Archeological Museum). The 4th-century Lycurgus Cup in the British Museum is a spectacular cage cup which changes colour when light comes through the glass; it shows the bound King Lycurgus being taunted by the god and attacked by a satyr.

Elizabeth Kessler has theorized that a mosaic appearing on the triclinium floor of the House of Aion in Nea Paphos, Cyprus, details a monotheistic worship of Dionysus.[72] In the mosaic, other gods appear but may only be lesser representations of the centrally imposed Dionysus.

Modern views

Dionysus has remained an inspiration to artists, philosophers and writers into the modern era. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proposed that a tension between Apollonian and Dionysian aesthetic principles underlay the development of Greek tragedy; Dionysus represented what was unrestrained chaotic and irrational, while Apollo represented the rational and ordered. Nietzsche claimed that the oldest forms of Greek Tragedy were entirely based on suffering of Dionysus. In Nietzsche's 1886 work Beyond Good and Evil, and later works The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist and Ecce Homo, Dionysus is conceived as the embodiment of the unrestrained will to power.

In The Hellenic Religion of the Suffering God (1904), and Dionysus and Early Dionysianism (1921), the poet Vyacheslav Ivanov elaborates the theory of Dionysianism, tracing the origins of literature, and tragedy in particular, to ancient Dionysian mysteries.

Károly Kerényi characterizes Dionysus as representative of the psychological life force (Greek Zoê).[73] Other psychological interpretations place Dionysus' emotionality in the foreground, focusing on the joy, terror or hysteria associated with the god.[74][75][76][77][78]

Walt Disney uses a modernised version of Silenus, Dionysus or Bacchus in the "Pastoral" segment of the animated film Fantasia.

Bacchus by Paulus Bor.

In CS Lewis' Prince Caspian (part of The Chronicles of Narnia), Bacchus is a dangerous-looking, androgynous young boy who helps Aslan awaken the spirits of the Narnian trees and rivers. Rick Riordan's series of books Percy Jackson & The Olympians presents Dionysus as an uncaring, childish and spoiled god.[citation needed]

Names originating from Dionysus

  • Dion (also spelled Deion, Deon and Dionne)
  • Denise (also spelled Denice, Daniesa, Denese, and Denisse)
  • Dennis, Denis or Denys (including the derivative surnames Denison and Dennison), Denny, Dennie
  • Denis (Croatian), Dionis, Dionisie (Romanian)
  • Dénes (Hungarian)
  • Dionisio/Dyonisio (Spanish), Dionigi (Italian)
  • Διονύσιος, Διονύσης, Νιόνιος (Dionysios, Dionysis, Nionios Modern Greek)
  • Deniska (diminutive of Russian Denis, itself a derivative of the Greek)
  • Dionísio (Portuguese)
  • Dionizy (Polish)
  • Deniz (Turkish)
  • Dzianis (Belarusian)
Argive genealogy in Greek mythology
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Gallery

See also

Notes

  1. Another variant, from the Spanish royal collection, is at the Museo del Prado, Madrid: illustration.
  2. Hedreen, Guy Michael. Silens in Attic Black-figure Vase-painting: Myth and Performance. University of Michigan Press. 1992. ISBN 9780472102952. page 1
  3. James, Edwin Oliver. The Tree of Life: An Archaeological Study. Brill Publications. 1966. page 234. ISBN 9789004016125
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  6. Kerenyi 1976.
  7. Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought, Allsworth press, 2002, pp. 118–121. Google Books preview
  8. Reginald Pepys Winnington-Ingram, Sophocles: an interpretation, Cambridge University Press, 1980, p.109 Google Books preview
  9. Zofia H. Archibald, in Gocha R. Tsetskhladze (Ed.) Ancient Greeks west and east, Brill, 1999, p.429 ff.Google Books preview
  10. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. Dionysus, greekmythology.com
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion, 1985 pp. 64, 132
  13. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. Gods of Love and Ecstasy, Alain Danielou p.15
  15. In Greek "both votary and god are called Bacchus". Burkert, Greek Religion 1985:162. For the initiate as Bacchus, see Euripides, Bacchantes 491. For the god, who alone is Dionysus, see Sophocles, Oedipus the King 211 and Euripides, Hippolytus 560.
  16. Sutton, p.2, mentions Dionysus as The Liberator in relation to the city Dionysia festivals. In Euripides, Bacchae 379–385: "He holds this office, to join in dances, [380] to laugh with the flute, and to bring an end to cares, whenever the delight of the grape comes at the feasts of the gods, and in ivy-bearing banquets the goblet sheds sleep over men." [1]
  17. Xavier Riu, Dionysism and Comedy, Rowman and Littlefield, 1999, p.105
  18. John Chadwick, The Mycenaean World, Cambridge University Press, 1976, 99ff: "But Dionysos surprisingly appears twice at Pylos, in the form Diwonusos, both times irritatingly enough on fragments, so that we have no means of verifying his divinity."
  19. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. This is the view of Garcia Ramon (1987) and Peters (1989), summarised and endorsed in Janda (2010:20).
  21. Fox, p. 217, "The word Dionysos is divisible into two parts, the first originally Διος (cf. Ζευς), while the second is of an unknown signification, although perhaps connected with the name of the Mount Nysa which figures in the story of Lykourgos: (...) when Dionysos had been reborn from the thigh of Zeus, Hermes entrusted him to the nymphs of Mount Nysa, who fed him on the food of the gods, and made him immortal."
  22. Testimonia of Pherecydes in an early 5th-century BC fragment, FGrH 3, 178, in the context of a discussion on the name of Dionysus: "Nũsas (acc. pl.), he [Pherecydes] said, was what they called the trees."
  23. R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 337.
  24. see Janda (2010), 16-44 for a detailed account.
  25. Pausanias, 8.39.6.
  26. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Ακρωρεία
  27. Ausonius, Epigr. xxix. 6.
  28. Pausanias, ix. 8. § 1.
  29. Aristid.Or.41
  30. Macr.Sat.I.18.9
  31. For a parallel see pneuma/psuche/anima The core meaning is wind as "breath/spirit"
  32. Bulls in antiquity were said to roar.
  33. Kerenyi, C. (1967). Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01915-0; Kerenyi 1976). Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton University Press.
  34. Janda (2010), 16-44.
  35. Kerenyi 1976:286.
  36. Jameson 1993, 53. Cf.n16 for suggestions of Devereux on "Enorkhes,"
  37. Rosemarie Taylor-Perry, The God Who Comes: Dionysian Mysteries Revisited. Algora Press 2003, p.89, cf. Sabazius.
  38. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. Diorodus V 75.4, noted by Karl Kerényi, Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life (Princeton University Press) 1976, "The Cretan core of the Dionysos myth" p 110 note 213 and pp 110-114.
  40. Diodorus III 64.1, also noted by Kerény (110 note 214.)
  41. Damascius, Commentary on the Phaedo, I, 170, see in translation Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Plato's Phaedo, vol. II (The Prometheus Trust, Westbury) 2009
  42. Damascius, Commentary on the Phaedo, I, 1-13 and 165-172, see in translation Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Plato's Phaedo, vol. II, The Prometheus Trust, Westbury, 2009
  43. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes. ISBN 0-674-99135-4, ISBN 0-674-99136-2
  44. Arrian, Anabasis, 5.1.1-2.2
  45. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  47. Hyginus, Astronomy 2.5.
  48. "Dionysus-the Collected Myths,"[2], Carnaval Travel Presents: Roots of Greco-Roman Bacchanalia website, 2005. Retrieved on 11 November 2012.
  49. Clement of Alexandria, Protreptikos, II-30 3-5
  50. Arnobius, Against the Gentiles 5.28 (Dalby 2005, pp. 108–117)
  51. Ovid, Fasti 3. 407 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry 1st century BC to 1st century AD): "[The constellation] Grape-Gatherer (Vindemitor) . . . Its cause, too, takes a moment to teach. Beardless Ampelos, they say, a Nympha’s and a Satyrus’s son, was loved by Bacchus [Dionysos] on Ismarian hills [in Thrake]. quoted at theoi.com
  52. Nonnus, Dionysiaca (X.175-430; XI; XII.1-117); (Dalby 2005, pp. 55–62).
  53. Photius, Library; "Ptolemy Chennus, New History"
  54. Hesychius of Alexandria s. v. Priēpidos
  55. Scholia on Theocritus, Idyll 1. 21
  56. Strabo, Geography, 10.3.13, quotes the non-extant play Palamedes which seems to refer to Thysa, a daughter of Dionysus, and her (?) mother as participants of the Bacchic rites on Mount Ida, but the quoted passage is corrupt.
  57. The mid-19th-century debates are traced in G.S. Williamson, The Longing for Myth in Germany, 2004.
  58. Pausanias, Description of Greece 6. 26. 1 - 2
  59. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 2. 34a
  60. 60.0 60.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  61. Detienne, Marcel. Dionysus Slain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1979.
  62. 62.0 62.1 Evans, Arthur. The God of Ecstasy. New York: St. Martins' Press, 1989
  63. 63.0 63.1 63.2 Powell, Barry B., Classical Myth Second ed. With new translations of ancient texts by Herbert M. Howe. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1998.
  64. Studies in Early Christology, by Martin Hengel, 2005, p.331 (ISBN 0567042804)
  65. Dalby, Andrew (2005). The Story of Bacchus. London: British Museum Press.
  66. Heinrichs, Albert. "He Has a God in Him": Human and Divine in the Modern Perception of Dionysus."
  67. Sandmel, S (1962). "Parallelomania". Journal of Biblical Literature 81 (1): 1–13.
  68. Gerald O'Collins, "The Hidden Story of Jesus" New Blackfriars Volume 89, Issue 1024, pages 710–714, November 2008
  69. Nick Pontikis. "Myth Man's Dionysus Homework Help," [3] Thanasis Olympic Greek website,1999. Retrieved on 11 November 2012.
  70. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Library and Epitome, 1.3.2. "Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces by the Maenads he is buried in Pieria."
  71. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  72. Kessler, E., Dionysian Monotheism in Nea Paphos, Cyprus,
  73. Kerenyi, K., Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life (Princeton/Bollingen, 1976).
  74. Jeanmaire, H. Dionysus: histoire du culte de Bacchus, (p.106ff) Payot, (1951)
  75. Johnson, R. A. 'Ecstasy; Understanding the Psychology of Joy' HarperColling (1987)
  76. Hillman, J. 'Dionysus Reimagined' in The Myth of Analysis (pp.271-281) HarperCollins (1972); Hillman, J. 'Dionysus in Jung's Writings' in Facing The Gods, Spring Publications (1980)
  77. Thompson, J. 'Emotional Intelligence/Imaginal Intelligence' in Mythopoetry Scholar Journal, Vol 1, 2010
  78. Lopez-Pedraza, R. 'Dionysus in Exile: On the Repression of the Body and Emotion', Chiron Publications (2000)

References

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  • Farnell, Lewis Richard, The Cults of the Greek States, 1896. Volume V, cf. Chapter IV, Cults of Dionysos; Chapter V, Dionysiac Ritual; Chapter VI, Cult-Monuments of Dionysos; Chapter VII, Ideal Dionysiac Types.
  • Fox, William Sherwood, The Mythology of All Races, v.1, Greek and Roman, 1916, General editor, Louis Herbert Gray.
  • Janda, Michael, Die Musik nach dem Chaos, Innsbruck 2010.
  • Jameson, Michael. "The Asexuality of Dionysus." Masks of Dionysus. Ed. Thomas H. Carpenter and Christopher A. Faraone. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. ISBN 0-8014-8062-0. 44-64.
  • Kerényi, Karl, Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, (Princeton: Bollingen) 1976.
  • Pickard-Cambridge, Arthur, The Theatre of Dionysus at Athens, 1946.
  • Powell, Barry B., Classical Myth, 5th edition, 2007.
  • Ridgeway, William, Origin of Tragedy, 1910. Kessinger Publishing (June 2003). ISBN 0-7661-6221-4.
  • Ridgeway, William, The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of non-European Races in special reference to the origin of Greek Tragedy, with an appendix on the origin of Greek Comedy, 1915.
  • Riu, Xavier, Dionysism and Comedy, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers (1999). ISBN 0-8476-9442-9.
  • Seaford, Richard. "Dionysos", Routledge (2006). ISBN 0-415-32488-2.
  • Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870, article on Dionysus
  • Sutton, Dana F., Ancient Comedy, Twayne Publishers (August 1993). ISBN 0-8057-0957-6.

Further reading

External links