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Dionysus

Not to be confused with Dionysius.
This article is about the deity. For other uses, see Dionysos (disambiguation).
"Bacchus" redirects here. For other uses, see Bacchus (disambiguation).
"Bachus" redirects here. For other uses, see Bachus (disambiguation).
Dionysus
(Bacchus)
God of wine, vegetation, fertility, festivity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre
Member of the Twelve Olympians
Second-century Roman statue of Dionysus, after a Hellenistic model (ex-coll. Cardinal Richelieu, Louvre).[1]
AbodeMount Olympus
AnimalsBull, panther, tiger or lion, goat, snake
SymbolThyrsus, grapevine, ivy, theatrical masks, phallus
FestivalsBacchanalia (Roman), Dionysia
Genealogy
Parents
SiblingsSeveral paternal half-siblings
ConsortAriadne
ChildrenPriapus, Hymen, Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, Comus, Phthonus, the Graces, Deianira
Equivalents
Roman equivalentBacchus, Liber
Egyptian equivalentOsiris
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Dionysus (/daɪ.əˈnaɪsəs/; Ancient Greek: Διόνυσος Dionysos) is a Thracian-Greek god of wine-making, vegetation, fertility, festivity, religious ecstasy, and theatre.[4][5] Dionysus was originally a Thracian god that was later adopted by the ancient Greeks as their own god. [6][7] He was also known as Bacchus (/ˈbækəs/ or /ˈbɑːkəs/; Ancient Greek: Βάκχος Bacchos) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia.[8] As Dionysus Eleutherius ("the liberator"), his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful.[9] His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents.[10] Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.[11]

According to ancient Greek sources, such as Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Dionysus was of Thracian origin.[12] Most ancient accounts say he was born in Thracia, traveled abroad, and arrived in Greece as a foreigner. His attribute of "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults, as he is a god of epiphany, sometimes called "the god who comes".[13] However, most historians nowadays seldomly mention Dionysus' Thracian origins and only refer to him as a Greek god.[14][15][16]

Wine was a religious focus in the cult of Dionysus and was his earthly incarnation.[17] Wine could ease suffering, bring joy, and inspire divine madness.[18] Festivals of Dionysus included the performance of sacred dramas enacting his myths, the initial driving force behind the development of theatre in Western culture.[19] The cult of Dionysus 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.[20] He is sometimes categorised as a dying-and-rising god.[21]

Romans identified Bacchus with their own Liber Pater, the "Free Father" of the Liberalia festival, patron of viniculture, wine and male fertility, and guardian of the traditions, rituals and freedoms attached to coming of age and citizenship, but the Roman state treated independent, popular festivals of Bacchus (Bacchanalia) as subversive, partly because their free mixing of classes and genders transgressed traditional social and moral constraints. Celebration of the Bacchanalia was made a capital offence, except in the toned-down forms and greatly diminished congregations approved and supervised by the State. Festivals of Bacchus were merged with those of Liber and Dionysus.

  1. ^ Another variant, from the Spanish royal collection, is at the Museo del Prado, Madrid: illustration.
  2. ^ Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2), p. 118
  3. ^ Rosemarie Taylor-Perry, 2003. The God Who Comes: Dionysian Mysteries Revisited. Algora Press.
  4. ^ Hedreen, Guy Michael. Silens in Attic Black-figure Vase-painting: Myth and Performance. University of Michigan Press. 1992. ISBN 9780472102952. p. 1
  5. ^ James, Edwin Oliver. The Tree of Life: An Archaeological Study. Brill Publications. 1966. p. 234. ISBN 9789004016125
  6. ^ Fol, Alexander; Marazov, Ivan (1977). Thrace & the Thracians. New York City: St. Martin's Press. p. 17-36. ISBN 978-0-304-29880-8.
  7. ^ Fol, Alexander; Tacheva, Margarita; Venedikov, Ivan; Marazov, Ivan (1998). Marazov, Ivan (ed.). Ancient Gold: The Wealth of the Thracians: Treasures from the Republic of Bulgaria. New York City: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. p. 13-31. ISBN 978-1-882-50706-1.
  8. ^ In Greek "both votary and god are called Bacchus". Burkert, p. 162. For the initiate as Bacchus, see Euripides, Bacchae 491. For the god, who alone is Dionysus, see Sophocles, Oedipus Rex 211 and Euripides, Hippolytus 560.
  9. ^ Csapo, Eric (2016-08-03). "The 'Theology' of the Dionysia and Old Comedy". In Eidinow, Esther (ed.). Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-1-316-71521-5.
  10. ^ Olszewski, E. (2019). Dionysus’s enigmatic thyrsus. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 163(2), 153–173.
  11. ^ 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."
  12. ^ Fol, Alexander; Marazov, Ivan (1977). Thrace & the Thracians. New York City: St. Martin's Press. p. 32-71. ISBN 978-0-304-29880-8.
  13. ^ Rosemarie Taylor-Perry, 2003. The God Who Comes: Dionysian Mysteries Revisited. Algora Press.
  14. ^ Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought, Allsworth press, 2002, pp. 118–121. Google Books preview
  15. ^ Reginald Pepys Winnington-Ingram, Sophocles: an interpretation, Cambridge University Press, 1980, p. 109 Google Books preview
  16. ^ Zofia H. Archibald, in Gocha R. Tsetskhladze (Ed.) Ancient Greeks west and east, Brill, 1999, pp. 429 ff.Google Books preview
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference julian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference iconography was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference Brockett was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Riu, Xavier (1999). Dionysism and Comedy. Rowman and Littlefield. p. 105. ISBN 9780847694426.
  21. ^ Corrente, Paola. 2012. Dioniso y los Dying gods: paralelos metodológicos. Tesis doctoral, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

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