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DIONYSUS "GOD OF WINE "

Son of Zeus and Semele and god of wine, vegetation, fertility and often celebrated at theaters. He surrounded himself with maenads (orgiastic women) and satyrs, and held constant festivities in the forests. Anyone who angered him was struck with madness.

In art, Dionysus was depicted wearing a wreath of vineleaves, and holding the so called thyrsos rod in his hand. Dionysus was also connected with the seasons and the death- and resurrection beliefs of ancient times. His worshippers tried to reach a point of extasis (to stand out of ones body) and wine was an important factor in his rituals and the achievement of exctasy. He was often depicted on the Greeks sarcophaguses, and he was connected to the belief in immortality. Dionysus was a foreign god from the East, and came to Greece through Thrace. In mythology, his birth is quite remarkable, since Semele died before she gave birth to him. Zeus took the embryo out of its dying mothers womb, and put it in his thigh. After Dionysos was born out of Zeus leg, Hermes took the baby to nymphs on the mountain Nysa that brought him up. This scene can be seen in the famous statue of Hermes and the baby Dionysus in Olympia. Dionysus was often celebrated at the harvests of the grapes, and each village would have annual Dionysus festivities. He was strongly connected to the island Naxos, since he was said to have come across the by Theseus abandoned Ariadne and to then have married her.

Dionysos was also the god of drama, especially tragedy, since this theatre was said to have been invented by the satyrs. They would sing and play roles, and the very word tragedy means "goat song". Dionysos' drunken party that followed him around was called Komos, and from that we have the word comedy, which means "song by drunken party". The Great Dionysia were annual festivals in Athens where dramatists competed with their plays. The god was also connected to the orphicism, again a mystery cult having to do with immortality and resurrection

Dionysus winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy, and was also the driving force behind Greek theater. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was already worshipped by Mycenean Greeks, but his more distant origins are obscure. This god who inspires joyful worship and ecstasy, wine festivals, and celebration is a major figure of Greek mythology and the religion of ancient Greece. He is included as one of the twelve Olympians in some lists. Dionysus is typical of the god of the epiphany, "the god that comes". He was also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. Hailed as an Asiatic foreigner, he was thought to have had strong ties to the East and to Ethiopia in the South. He was also known as the Liberator (Eleutherios), freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy or wine. The divine mission of Dionysus was to mingle the music of the aulos and to bring an end to care and worry. Scholars have discussed Dionysus' relationship to the "cult of the souls" and his ability to preside over communication between the living and the dead.

In Greek mythology, Dionysus is made out to be a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. He is described as being womanly or "man-womanish". The retinue of Dionysus was called the thiasus and was composed chiefly of maenads and satyrs. Dionysus is a god of mystery religious rites. In the Thracian mysteries, he wears the bassaris or fox-skin, symbolizing new life. His own rites, the Dionysian Mysteries practiced by maenads and others, were the most secret of all. Many 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.

Contradictions in Dionysus' origin suggest to some that we are dealing not with the historical memory of a cult that is foreign, but with a god in whom foreignness is inherent. Karl Kerenyi traces him to Minoan Crete, where his Minoan name is unknown but his characteristic presence is recognizable. Clearly, Dionysus had been with the Greeks and their predecessors a long time, and yet always retained the feel of something alien.