One of the most mysterious deities of the Hellenic pantheon is Dionysus. He’s the God of wine, ecstasy, fertility, hilarity and many other things we can connect with the orgiastic and ecstatic side of his personality, but also with his role of a God who gives to people and inspires them with many trades and skills like arts and viticulture. His uniqueness and paradoxical nature is difficult to explain fully, especially with only one text, nonetheless we’ll try to do this now. Dionysus was of a mortal woman born, the Theban princess Semele and Zeus himself, which made him the only God on Olympus whose origin is not completely divine. But, Dionysus is not a demigod; Dionysus is an absolute deity who presented himself in human form to humans, or in the form of his favourite animals – a bull, a snake or leopard, or even in the form of plants, first of all the grape vine. He was personified as a gentle, feminized youth, but also as a phallic deity representing male potency. At the same time he is a wild God of the mountains, feared by mortal men, because he’s always accompanied by demons, but also a God revered by artists, peasants and kings, because of his splendid gifts to humanity. It seems all spheres of life were manifested in Dionysus: from the wild and natural, through human and finally the divine. But, all in its time.

The Myth of His Birth

When Zeus spotted Semele, a beautiful Theban princess, he decided to visit her and enjoy her beauty. As every time he went visiting people, he took a human form, hiding his divine appearance, the sight of which was lethal for mortals. He seduced her and left her pregnant. But, his jealous wife Hera did not miss this, and she plotted her revenge. She tricked Semele into making Zeus reveal his true form; he did it, since he previously promised that he will grant her one wish. The very moment she saw him, Semele burst into flames and burned in the divine light, and her foetus, i.e. Dionysus, who had horns and a crown of snakes, was found in the grape vine that shot out of the ground at that moment to protect him. Zeus took up his son and put him in his side from whence he was later born. For this reason they called Dionysus twice born. But the Orphics added a third birth, preceding the above mentioned two. According to them, Dionysus was first born as Zagreus, the son of Zeus and Persephone, the queen of Hades. The child-God Zagreus was put on the throne to rule the world, but the Titans found and devoured him. Then the Titans were killed, but the heart (or phallus) of the devoured Zagreus was saved from their ashes, and later it grew in Semele into the shape of Dionysus. When he was a child, on Zeus’ orders Hermes took him to Semele’s sister Ino, who shielded him from Hera’s revenge by dressing and raising him as a girl. But, Ino and her husband were consumed by madness and they killed all their children. After that, Ino jumped into the sea and became the sea Goddess Leucothea, and Hermes took the child-God Dionysus, who was in the form of a he-goat, to the mountain of Nysa, where he was raised by nymphs and trained by the drunken satyr Silenus.

The myth about the birth of Dionysus and his development represents a collection of motifs and characteristics that will become typical of his own cult later on. The grape vine, changing shapes, the madness that follows him and seizes people around him, violence and death, wilderness, nymphs and satyrs… all of this, as we shall see, can be found in later myths about Dionysus, with the addition of some new, maybe even more famous aspects, like orgiastic rituals &c. The Orphics consider Dionysus to be an indestructible God who rules over life and death, seeing how he survived the death of the very Titans that devoured him, grew from their ashes and, once again, survived the death of his second mother Semele; all of this speaks greatly to Dionysus’ indestructibility and his triumphant character. We should also note that the Orphics teaching says that humanity was created from the ashes of the fallen Titans as well, i.e. that every one of us contains the divine spark represented by Dionysus himself.

Growing Up and the Travels of Dionysus. The Cult.

Hera still managed to get to Dionysus, and sick madness on him, like she did with other of Zeus’ children with mortal women, like Heracles. And so the young Dionysus, just after developing the art of viticulture, started to roam the world in a state of madness. He went to Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, India (these travels will later inspire Alexander the Great who emulated him to a great extent, seeing that Dionysus was claimed as an ancestor on his mother’s side); he roamed thus, until in a completely bewildered state of delirium he finally came across the Phrygian Goddess Cybele, the Great Mother. She initiated him into her secret rites and healed him. After this, Dionysus gathered a group of his followers and continued travelling with the intention of creating his own cult. His followers to a great extent imitated the followers of the Goddess Cybele: both would loudly beat on drums, dance and sing in a state of trance and engaged in orgiastic rituals. Going from town to town, Dionysus was met with a great difference of attitudes. While some would welcome him with open arms, others would mock his orgiastic and wild rituals, which would enrage him greatly. He’d make his revenge in a most terrible fashion, sending madness to people and making them do horrible things.
Superficial myth interpreters explain all these myths as metaphors for the bad influence wine has on man. But, Dionysus was naturally more than just a personification of wine for the Greeks. He was a mystical, terrifying and powerful deity whose presence was strongly felt. He came to people most often in the shape of a handsome youth, with long black curls that brushed his shoulders, pleasant and peaceful looking, sometimes even quite feminine. He’d be draped in leopard or panther skin, and sometimes in very elegant cloaks. He wore a crown of ivy and grape vine, he always carried with him a staff, or a plant stalk with a pine-cone on top, which can be interpreted as a phallic symbol. He often held a wine-filled chalice, and was sometimes painted dancing. In his travels he would often ride on a leopard or a panther’s back, clearly his favourite animal, or even harness them to a gig.

Behind this seemingly peaceful image hides a terrible and vengeful deity – Dionysus was often depicted in Hellenic art as devouring raw animal meat  and dance with their detached limbs, followed by satyrs, partly human and partly animal creatures (mostly goat), forest and mountain dwellers, very lively, petulant and lustful. His women followers are Maenads: women obsessed with this deity, following him in a state of trance; dancing and singing to loud music, they follow him everywhere he goes. In this ecstatic state, these women are filled with divine power and act as Dionysus himself: they’re capable of tearing apart any animal with their bare hands and eat its raw flesh, while they are maternal with cubs, feeding and nursing them with their own breast-milk.
The Dionysian cult truly had the ritual of eating raw meat in its early days, mostly bull’s meat. The so-called bacchanalia, as the rites of Dionysus’ followers were later called in ancient Rome, were banned by a resolution of the Senate in the second century B.C., allegedly because of the immoral behaviour of the participants and the omphagogy, i.e. the ritual eating of raw meats, as well as alleged cannibalism, even though it was not a part of the actual rites, just the myth. The Senate’s resolution was clearly politically motivated, which is even more probable if we take into consideration the moral state of the Roman people at that time – orgies, similar to the Dionysian ones, were often practiced in Rome and it’s difficult to believe that Dionysus’ cult was considered immoral, at least to the majority of the population.
At any case, the cult was widespread and popular all over the Mediterranean, and the practice of eating raw meat was considered sacred. The ritual animal was considered to be a manifestation of the God himself, who has ritually taken over the animal and filled it with his essence. The devotees would then rip apart the sacrificial animal and by eating that flesh, they would actually be eating the flesh of the God himself. Later this will be replaced by just drinking wine, which was considered the blood of Dionysus. All the time the cult’s adherents, mostly women, would fall into trance with unremitting dancing, singing and music playing, this way transporting themselves in a state that enables them contact with the deity. Consequently the very purpose of the ritual was an absolute fusion with Dionysus.
Through the myths we discover that Dionysus descended into Hades and raised his mother Semele up to the ranks of the Goddesses. Her sister Ino, also seized by madness in the vicinity of Dionysus, leaped into the sea and became a Goddess. Dionysus visits Ariadne, after Theseus leaves her alone on the island of Naxos, he initiates her into his cult which made her his bride. Upon her death, Dionysus raises her among the Goddesses as well. What can we deduce from these examples? Mortal women in contact with Dionysus and are turned into Goddesses after death, actually depict the state of women in the Dionysian cult: dedicated to him, through ecstasy and ceremony, these women reach an elevated state in which they’re made equal with the deity.

Connecting Dionysus to the feminine principle is not coincidental. Women have always been connected with the mystical, seeing that with the patriarchal system man has the leading role in the advancement of civilization. Women did not participate in building, politics and other main structures of life. For this reason they turned to the mystical. Earth itself has a feminine genus; life is born from a woman’s body and dies in the woman’s body, i.e. the Earth. Because of all of this, this principle is connected to the line between life and death, and in mythology, women are most often the ones who bridge the gap between the two worlds, regardless of the myth’s national origin. Women are the ones prophesying, like Germanic volvas, or the Greek prophetess Pythia in Delphi, because they gain their knowledge by contacting with the other world. And Dionysus, as we’ve mention, manifests the wild side of nature, its anger but also its fertility, as a ruler over life and death.