![\"Dionysus](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/02\/Exekias_Dionysos_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_2044.jpg\")
Dionysus sailing to Naxos, black-figure kylix, ca. 530 BCE (Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nSections & Primary Sources<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
Dionysus was a son of Zeus and one of the twelve Olympians. According to the Greek mythological tradition, he was created by the sexual union of Zeus and the mortal woman Semele who was the daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes. When Hera learned that Semele was pregnant with Zeus' child, out of jealousy she disguised herself as Semele's nurse and convinced her to make a demand of Zeus: she should make him promise to grant her any favour she might ask, and then she should ask him to appear to her as he did to his wife. Semele did so and Zeus complied. But when Zeus appeared to Semele in his true form, as the god of lightening and thunder, mortal Semele was not able to withstand his power and was burned up. As Semele was burning, Hermes rescued the unborn baby from her womb and sewed the child up in Zeus' thigh. When he was ready to be born, Dionysus emerged from his father's thigh.<\/p>\r\n
Where the ancient god Dionysus came from, historically speaking, is hard to say. His name appears in a Mycenaean inscription from around 1200-1000 BCE. The myths about him also suggest that he came from east of mainland Greece, from Thrace, or from Asia minor (modern-day Turkey).<\/p>\r\n
Dionysus, whose Roman name is Bacchus, was associated with wine, revelry, wildness, and ecstasy. His followers were called \"Maenads\" or \"Bacchae\": women who, possessed by the god, had left their homes and domestic duties to dance wildly in the mountains and glens. They would strip off their clothes, unbind their hair, and kill wild animals with their bare hands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Sections & Primary Sources<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
When Dionysus was born, Hermes spirited the child away to live with his mortal aunt Ino (one of his mother's sisters). Ino and her husband Athamas raised Dionysus as a girl to try to hide him from Hera's jealous wrath, but Hera was not fooled, and caused Ino to go mad. Ino's madness, along with Semele's demise, and other events, signaled the destruction of the house of Cadmus, the tragic dynasty of Thebes.<\/p>\r\n \r\n
[1] I will sing of Dionysus, the son of glorious [pb_glossary id=\"908\"]Semele[\/pb_glossary]. He appeared on a headland by the shore of the salty sea, looking like a young teenager: his long dark hair was flowing around him, and he wore a purple robe on his broad shoulders. Suddenly over the shimmering sea came Tyrrhenian pirates on a sturdy ship, led on by their own doom. When they saw him they signaled to one another and sprang out quickly to seize him, and brought him on board of their own ship triumphantly; for they thought he was the son of a God. They tried to bind him with crude ropes, but the bonds would not hold him, and the bindings fell down from his hands and feet, while he sat there with a smile in his dark eyes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
[58] Hail to you, child of radiant [pb_glossary id=\"908\"]Semele[\/pb_glossary]! He who forgets you can in no way command a sweet song.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.theoi.com\/Text\/HomericHymns3.html#7<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n Hera hated Dionysus and she drove him mad, causing him to run away and wander around the world until he came to Phrygia (in what is now central Turkey). Here he met Cybele, a Phrygian mother goddess whose worship had been accepted by the Greeks. Cybele cured him of his madness and Dionysus established his cult and rites of worship. Dionysus\u2019 rites were similar to those of Cybele, and they involved drinking, wild dancing, playing the tambourine, and a feeling of ecstasy, or divine possession. (\u201cEcstasy\u201d is from a Greek word, meaning \u201cto stand outside oneself.\u201d) Dionysus also gained a group of female followers, called Maenads (or Bacchae or Bacchants), who followed him around, singing, dancing, drinking, and playing the tambourine. Maenads (their name means \u201cmad women\u201d) are usually shown in a state of ecstasy.<\/p>\r\n \r\n Translated by A. S. Kline \u00a9\u00a0Copyright<\/a> 2001 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n Translated by A. S. Kline \u00a9\u00a0Copyright<\/a> 2003 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/a>Dionysus and Cybele<\/h2>\r\n
<\/a>Catullus,\u00a0Poems<\/em> 63, \"Of Berecynthia and Attis\" (trans. A.S. Kline, adapted by L. Zhang and P. Rogak)<\/h3>\r\n
Latin poem, 1st century BCE<\/h4>\r\n
[content warning for the following source: self harm, ableist language, trans- and intersex-phobic language]<\/h5>\r\n
<\/a>Bacchus and Liber<\/h2>\r\n
<\/a>Horace,\u00a0Odes<\/em>, Book 2 (trans. A. S. Kline, adapted by L. Zhang and P. Rogak)<\/h3>\r\n
Latin lyrical poem, 1st century BCE<\/h4>\r\n
<\/a>The Bacchae<\/em><\/h2>\r\n