Dionysos, God of the Vine

Welcome to September in Manitoba!

The weather is beginning to cool off, and the wasps are in full frenzy with the impending shippment of grapes that are heading into the province. If you're a wine maker, this is the busy time of year. And what better time than now to honour Dionysos, God of Grapes, Wine, Pleasure, Festivity, Madness and Ecstasy.

Dionysos is an interesting diety. He was depicted as either an older bearded god or a pretty effeminate, long-haired youth. His attributes included the thyrsos (a pine-cone tipped staff), drinking cup, leopard and fruiting vine. He was usually accompanied by a troop of Satyrs and Mainades (female devotees or nymphs).

Firstly, let's talk about the fact that Dionysos is not always considered to be a part of the Twelve Olympians. Some people substitute Hestia, Lady of the Hearth and Home in place of Dionysos. However, HoM believes that although Hestia's powers are unquestionably important to the strength of the family, home and community, she cannot easily be distinguished as an archetype of the human condition, while Dionysos, Lord of Firenze and Ecstasy most certainly can. 

Birth and Childhood

When discussing Dionysos' history and background, we find many conflicting stories, more so than any other Olympian. He has been credited as being the son of Zeus and Semele, the most popular, or by Zeus and either Demeter, Io, Dione, Arge, Persephone, or Iris. There are also diverse opinions regarding the birthplace of the God. Common tradition mentions Thebes, yet India, Libya, Crete, Naxos, and many more are also mentioned. It is because of this diversity in traditions that ancient writers were driven to the theory that there were originally several divinities which were afterwards identified under the one name of Dionysos. 

For sake of consistency, HoM uses the most popular story, which makes Dionysos a son of Semele by Zeus. As the tale goes, Hera, who was jealous of all of Zeus' mistresses, visited the pregnant Semele in the disguise of a friend, or an old woman, and persuaded her to request Zeus to appear to her in the same glory and majesty in which he was accustomed to approach his own wife Hera. After much pestering by Semele, Zeus finally complied, and appeared to her in thunder and lightning. Semele was terrified and overpowered by the sight, and being seized by the fire, she gave premature birth to a child, Dionysos. Zeus, or according to others, Hermes saved the child from the flames: it was sewed up in the thigh of Zeus, and thus came to maturity. Various epithets which are given to the god refer to that occurrence, such as purigenês, mêrorraphês, mêrotraphês and ianigena.

 

After the birth of Dionysos, Zeus entrusted him to Hermes, or, according to others, who took the child to Ino and Athamas at Orchomenos, and persuaded them to bring him up as a girl. Hera was now urged on by her jealousy to throw Ino and Athamas into a state of madness, and Zeus, in order to save his child, changed him into a ram, and carried him to the nymphs of mount Nysa, who brought him up in a cave, and were afterwards rewarded for it by Zeus, by being placed as Hyades among the stars. 

The traditions about the education of Dionysos, as well as about the personages who undertook it, differ as much as those about his parentage and birthplace. 

Mount Nysa, from which the god was believed to have derived his name, was not only in Thrace and Libya, but mountains of the same name are found in different parts of the ancient world where he was worshipped, and where he was believed to have introduced the cultivation of the vine. Hermes, however, is mixed up with most of the stories about the infancy of Dionysos, and he was often represented in works of art, in connexion with the infant god. 

Adulthood

When Dionysos had grown up, Hera threw him also into a state of madness, in which he wandered about through many countries of the earth. A tradition in Hyginus makes him go first to the oracle of Dodona, but on his way thither he came to a lake, which prevented his proceeding any further. One of two asses he met there carried him across the water, and the grateful god placed both animals among the stars, and asses henceforth remained sacred to Dionysus.

According to the common tradition, Dionysos first wandered through Egypt, where he was hospitably received by King Proteus. He thence proceeded through Syria, where he flayed Damascus alive, for opposing the introduction of the vine, which Dionysos was believed to have discovered. He now traversed all Asia. When he arrived at the Euphrates, he built a bridge to cross the river, but a tiger sent to him by Zeus carried him across the river Tigris. The most famous part of his wanderings in Asia is his expedition to India, which is said to have lasted three, or, according to some, even 52 years. Dionysus also visited Phrygia and the goddess Cybele or Rhea, who purified him and taught him the mysteries, which according to Apollodorus, took place before he went to India. 

Proving His Divinity

One of the most interesting aspects of Dionysos is that he seems to be the only Olympian that has had to prove his divinity. While the other Olympians are able to transform and hid their divinity, take Zeus and all of his disguises in order to seduce mortal women, there is no question that they are gods. However, Dionysos it seems is constantly being questioned, and having to prove himself.

On his worldly travels, he did not in those distant regions meet with a kindly reception everywhere, for Myrrhanus and Deriades, with his three chiefs, fought against him. But Dionysos and the host of Pans, Satyrs, and Bacchic women, by whom he was accompanied, conquered his enemies, taught the Indians the cultivation of the vine and of various fruits, and the worship of the gods; he also founded towns among them, gave them laws, and left behind him pillars and monuments in the happy land which he had thus conquered and civilized, and the inhabitants worshipped him as a god.

After then proceeding through Thrace without meeting with any further resistance, he returned to Thebes, where he compelled the women to quit their houses, and to celebrate Bacchic festivals on mount Cithaeron, or Parnassus. Pentheus, who then ruled at Thebes, endeavoured to check the riotous proceedings, and went out to the mountains to seek the Bacchic women; but his own mother, Agave, in her Bacchic fury, mistook him for an animal, and tore him to pieces. 

After Dionysos had thus proved to the Thebans that he was a god, he went to Argos. As the people there also refused to acknowledge him, he made the women mad to such a degree, that they killed their own babes and devoured their flesh. According to another statement, Dionysos with a host of women came from the islands of the Aegean to Argos, but was conquered by Perseus, who slew many of the women. Afterwards, however, Dionysus and Perseus  reconciled, and the Argives adopted the worship of the god, and built temples to him. One of these was called the temple of Dionysus Cresius, because the god was believed to have buried on that spot Ariadne, his beloved, who was a Cretan. 

The last feat of Dionysus was performed on a voyage from Icaria to Naxos. He hired a ship which belonged to Tyrrhenian pirates; but the men, instead of landing at Naxos, passed by and steered towards Asia to sell him there. The god, however, on perceiving this, changed the mast and oars into serpents, and himself into a lion; he filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes, so that the sailors, who were seized with madness, leaped into the sea, where they were metamorphosed into dolphins. In all his wanderings and travels the god had rewarded those who had received him kindly and adopted his worship : he gave them vines and wine.

A God of the Mysteries

After he had thus gradually established his divine nature throughout the world, he led his mother out of Hades, called her Thyone, and rose with her into Olympus. There are also tales that Dionysos ventured into Hades to retrieve his bride, Araidne. As well, there is a mystical story, that the body of Dionysos was cut up and thrown into a cauldron by the Titans, and that he was restored and cured by Rhea or Demeter. 

Herodotus, a Greek historian from the 5th century BCE, wrote:

"The Egyptians say that Demeter [Isis] and Dionysos [Osiris] are the rulers of the lower world. The Egyptians were the first who maintained the following doctrine, too, that the human soul is immortal, and at the death of the body enters into some other living thing then coming to birth; and after passing through all creatures of land, sea, and air, it enters once more into a human body at birth, a cycle which it completes in three thousand years. There are Greeks who have used this doctrine [the Orphics], some earlier and some later, as if it were their own; I know their names, but do not record them."

More questions than answers appear as one dives into the mythos of Dionysos. In the modern age, it is easy to see similarities between Dionysos and Christ, what with stories of wandering through Asia, teaching and learning, proving his divinity, and associations with death and rebirth.


More will be posted about this fascinating God as the month progresses. 

Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, via Theoi.com