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Analytics Analytics. Zeus and Persephone In orphic. Like All the Twelve Olympians, dionysus was a immortal and powerful God. Special powers of making wine, making wishes come true and causing vines to grow he could also transform himself into animals such as a bull or a lion one of his special powers was the ability to drive mortals insane Look up Pentheus.
Greek Mythology Wiki Explore. Bureaucrats Messenger of Heaven. Register Don't have an account? View source. History Talk 0. We've moved! Patron of Arts. Mount Olympus.
Categories Gods Olympians Immortals Deities. Fan Feed 1 Zagreus 2 Hades 3 Kronos. He now traversed all Asia. He did not in those distant regions meet with a kindly reception everywhere, for Myrrhanus and Deriades, with his three chiefs Blemys, Orontes, and Oruandes, fought against him. Dionysus also visited Phrygia and the goddess Cybele or Rhea, who purified him and taught him the mysteries, which according to Apollodorus 27 took place before he went to India.
With the assistance of his companions, he drove the Amazons from Ephesus to Samos, and there killed a great number of them on a spot which was, from that occurrence, called Panaema.
On his passage through Thrace he was ill received by Lycurgus , king of the Edones, and leaped into the sea to seek refuge with Thetis , whom he afterwards rewarded for her kind reception with a golden urn, a present of Hephaestus.
The country of the Edones thereupon ceased to bear fruit, and Lycurgus became mad and killed his own son, whom he mistook for a vine, or, according to others 32 he cut off his own legs in the belief that he was cutting down some vines.
When this was done, his madness ceased, but the country still remained barren, and Dionysus declared that it would remain so till Lycurgus died. The Edones, in despair, took their king and put him in chains, and Dionysus had him torn to pieces by horses.
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, endeavored 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 Dionysus 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. 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.
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. Various mythological beings are described as the offspring of Dionysus; but among the women, both mortal and immortal, who won his love, none is more famous in ancient history than Ariadne.
The extraordinary mixture of traditions which we have here had occasion to notice, and which might still be considerably increased, seems evidently to be made up out of the traditions of different times and countries, referring to analogous divinities, and transferred to the Greek Dionysus. After the time of Alexander's expedition to India, the celebration of the Bacchic festivals assumed more and more their wild and dissolute character.
As far as the nature and origin of the god Dionysus is concerned, he appears in all traditions as the representative of some power of nature, whereas Apollo is mainly an ethical deity. Dionysus is the productive, overflowing and intoxicating power of nature, which carries man away from his usual quiet and sober mode of living.
Thus, it is said, that he had as great a share in the Delphic oracle as Apollo, 45 and he himself had an oracle in Thrace. The notion of his being the cultivator and protector of the vine was easily extended to that of his being the protector of trees in general, which is alluded to in various epithets and surnames given him by the poets of antiquity, 50 and he thus comes into close connexion with Demeter.
In the earliest times the Graces, or Charites , were the companions of Dionysus, 55 and at Olympia he and the Charites had an altar in common. Sileni , Pans, satyrs, centaurs , and other beings of a like kind, are also the constant companions of the god. The temples and statues of Dionysus were very numerous in the ancient world. Among the sacrifices which were offered to him in the earliest times, human sacrifices are also mentioned.
The earliest images of the god were mere Hermae with the phallus, 62 or his head only was represented. On the numerous depictions of Dionysus on Greek vases he is portrayed as a bearded, elderly man. A bowl by Execias ca. An amphora by Amasis ca. In front of him are two dancing maenads. Also in older Greek sculptures the god is depicted as a majestic figure, for example the Sardanapallus Statue at the Vatican Museum. Starting with the fourth century BCE, the god has a more youthful appearance, often with almost feminine features, such as the nude Dionysus at the Louvre.
Dionysus appears on numerous coins among which from Naxos , gem stones, mosaics, and frescoes. This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith, which is in the public domain.
Send comments , cite this article. Article created on Monday, March 3, Dionysus The youthful, beautiful, but effeminate god of wine. A song sung in honor of Dionysus is called a dithyramb. Iconography The earliest images of the god were mere Hermae with the phallus, 62 or his head only was represented.
As a manly god with a beard, commonly called the Indian Bacchus. His hair sometimes floats down in locks, and is sometimes neatly wound around the head, and a diadem often adorns his forehead. The youthful or so-called Theban Bacchus, was carried to ideal beauty by Praxiteles.
The form of his body is manly and with strong outlines, but still approaches to the female form by its softness and roundness. The expression of the countenance is languid, and shews a kind of dreamy longing; the head, with a diadem, or a wreath of vine or ivy, leans somewhat on one side; his attitude is never sublime, but easy, like that of a man who is absorbed in sweet thoughts, or slightly intoxicated.
He is often seen leaning on his companions, or riding on a panther, ass, tiger, or lion. The finest statue of this kind is in the villa Ludovisi Bacchus with horns, either those of a ram or of a bull.
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