Dionysus: Feelings as They Are

Contrary to the commonplace notion of ancient Greek religion, the chief god was by no means Zeus. Yes, Zeus was the head of the pantheon, the father of the gods, and so forth. Yet the worship of Zeus was not religious in the modern sense; it was political, closer to paying taxes to the reigning ruler.

The Power that truly made the soul of the ancient Greek tremble, filling it with mystical awe, was Dionysus— a god almost forgotten in modern times, reduced to the patron of winemaking.

Dionysus was an ancient Thracian god. The Thracians were far less civilized than the Greeks, who regarded them as barbarians. Like all agrarian peoples, the Thracians had fertility cults and a god who sustained fertility —Dionysus.

The religion of Dionysus enjoyed colossal popularity прежде всего because it restored the intensity of feeling that prudence destroys: the world appears before him brimming with delight and beauty; imagination is suddenly released from the prison of everyday cares. The civilized city-dweller of Greece, wearied by reason, was no longer capable of intense experiences (and neither, incidentally, is the modern person). The spirit of the city-dweller — orderly and prudent — found its expression in the cult of Apollo, which we have already discussed.

The cult of Dionysus cast prudence aside. It gave rise to what is called “enthusiasm,” which etymologically means the indwelling of a god in the worshipper, who believes himself one with the god. This element of intoxication — a departure from prudence under the pressure of passion — appears in many of humanity’s greatest achievements. Without the Dionysian element, life becomes flat and insipid; with it, life becomes dangerous.

The cult of Dionysus, which came from Thrace and is mentioned by Homer only in embryo, contained a wholly different way of investigating the human being’s relation to the world. The Greeks saw in ecstasy confirmation that the soul is more than a paltry double of the “I,” and that only “outside the body” can the soul manifest its true nature.

“Dionysianism preached a fusion with nature, in which the human being surrenders himself to it wholly. When dancing among forests and valleys to the sounds of music brought the Bacchant into a state of frenzy, he bathed in the waves of cosmic rapture; his heart beat in unison with the whole world. Then the entire world — with its good and evil, beauty and ugliness — seemed intoxicating. Everything a person sees, hears, touches, and smells are manifestations of Dionysus. He is poured out everywhere. The smell of a slaughterhouse and of a sleepy pond, icy winds and enervating heat, tender flowers and a repulsive spider — within everything the divine is enclosed. Reason cannot come to terms with this: it condemns and approves, sorts and chooses. But what are its judgments worth when the ‘sacred madness of Bacchus,’ evoked by an intoxicating dance beneath the blue sky, or at night by the light of stars and fires, reconciles one with everything! The difference between life and death disappears. A person no longer feels torn away from the Universe; he has identified with it — and therefore with Dionysus.” (Alexander Men. “History of Religion.”)

The myth of Dionysus is two-part. As in many other cases, this god had two incarnations: the “elder” and the “younger.” The elder Dionysus — Dionysus Zagreus or Dionysus Sabazius (“Sabazius” probably means “savior,” also sharing a root with the Greek σέβειν, to revere) — was an ancient Phrygian deity.

At first he was called the “Lord of the universe.” Nevertheless, as with other peoples, this god of the Power of Life did not crown the pantheon, though he was revered deeply by the people.

Later myths relate that Zeus, passionately in love with his own mother, satisfied his desire by taking the form of a bull; then, in the guise of a repentant who had supposedly castrated himself, he placed a ram’s testicles into his mother’s womb, and Demeter gave birth to a daughter, Persephone. Zeus again flared with passion and, in the form of a serpent, united with his own daughter. The fruit of this union was a boy, Zagreus, with a bull’s head.

Dionysus, as a nature god, was subject to the primordial forces of Fate and Necessity.

Hardly having appeared in the world, Dionysus sat upon the throne of his father Zeus and, receiving the scepter from Zeus, began to shake worlds and hurl thunderbolts with his own hand. Hera’s fury ignited. She persuaded the Titans to kill Dionysus. They attacked the divine child as he gazed into a mirror. Hera bribed the guards away and, with rattles and a mirror, lured the infant from the throne.  For some time Dionysus escaped his pursuers, transforming in turn into Zeus, then Cronus, then a youth, then a lion, then a horse, then a serpent. But when Dionysus took the form of a bull, the Titans caught him and tore him to pieces, smearing his face with white honey. Seven pieces of his body they placed in a tripod vessel, boiled them, roasted them, and ate them.

The tearing apart of a wild animal and the devouring of its raw flesh by Bacchants was later regarded as a reenactment of what the Titans did to Dionysus himself, and the animal, in a certain sense, served as an embodiment of the god. The Titans were of deep, chthonic birth; but after they ate the god, they became possessors of a divine spark.

Athena saved only the heart, still quivering, and brought it to Zeus. He passed it to the mortal woman Semele, from whom Dionysus was born — another, young Zagreus. Zagreus is the constant epithet of the “first” Dionysus: the son of Zeus and the Queen of the Underworld, torn to pieces by the Titans immediately after his birth. Zeus burned the Titans to ashes, and from the ash — made of the bodies of the Titans and Zagreus — humans were created.

Having swallowed the heart of his son, Zeus again begets Dionysus by Semele (daughter of the Theban king Cadmus). At the instigation of jealous Hera, Semele asked Zeus to appear to her in all his majesty. He appeared in the flash of lightning and burned the mortal Semele and her tower with fire. Zeus snatched the prematurely born Dionysus from the flames and sewed him into his thigh. In due time Zeus gave birth to Dionysus, loosening the seams in his thigh, and then, through Hermes, gave Dionysus to be raised by the Nysaean nymphs or by Semele’s sister Ino. Possibly the word “Dionysus” means “the limp of Zeus,” for the god, it seems, limped while carrying the child in his thigh. Hermes played the role of midwife in this unusual birth.

The nymphs raised Dionysus in the cave of Nysa (hence another version of the origin of the name Dionysus: “Divine Nysa”).

There, Dionysus’s mentor Silenus revealed to him the secrets of nature and taught him the making of wine. Silenus is usually depicted as an elderly, good-natured, and slightly tipsy old man with a horse’s tail and hooves.

This “new” god went from Hellas through Syria to India, and back through Thrace to Hellas. According to the myths, Dionysus not only traversed the whole earth — he descended into Hades.

When the young Dionysus wished to bring his mother out of Hades, a certain Prosymnus showed him the entrance to the realm of the dead, demanding payment: pleasure from Dionysus’s body. This entrance lay by the Alcyonian swamp. Dionysus agreed, but when he returned, Prosymnus was already dead. Then Dionysus cut a branch from a fig tree, shaped it into a male member, and sat upon it. According to Clement of Alexandria, in memory of this the phalloi of Dionysus were erected, and each year at night on the shores of the Alcyonian swamp festivals of Dionysus were held. From Hades he led out his mother Semele, who became the goddess Thyone. In addition, there was a tradition that the ancient Zagreus existed as a phantom in Hades until Dionysus reunited with him during his descent, so that the purpose of this descent was the attainment of the fullness of Dionysus’s nature.

Madness was Dionysus’s constant companion. Thus, according to one version of the myth, King Lycurgus, who rejected Dionysus, in a fit of madness killed his son with an axe, convinced he was cutting down Dionysus’s vine. The daughters of Minyas went mad as well, and King Pentheus was torn apart by frenzied Bacchants. The mother of the unfortunate king herself was among these women: she fixed her son’s bloodied head upon a thyrsus, convinced it was the head of a lion cub. In Argos, Dionysus likewise drove women mad. They fled into the mountains with nursing infants in their arms and began to devour their flesh.

Similar horrors struck women who rejected Dionysus: the daughters of the kings Proetus and Minyas, driven mad, tore their own sons to pieces.

When Dionysus returned from India, the goddess Cybele (or Rhea; both are pre-Olympian Great Mother goddesses) purified him of the killings committed during fits of madness and — most importantly — instructed him in her mysteries and initiation rites. Thus Dionysus not only was a god himself, but also served as a priest of the Great Goddess.

Such epithets were applied to the god as “born of a cow,” “bull,” “bull-like,” “bull-faced,” “bull-browed,” “bull-horned,” “horn-bearing,” “two-horned.” In Athens and in the Argolid city of Hermione there existed a cult of Dionysus “who wears the hide of a black goat.” And in the myth of Dionysus’s upbringing by Ino, Zeus turned the young god into a kid (sometimes a lamb is mentioned) to save him from Hera’s fury. The connection with the goat — as with generative power and nature — is underscored by Dionysus’s constant companions: the satyrs.

Besides the bull, the animal most closely tied to Dionysus, the myths associated with this god also feature predatory cats such as cheetahs and lions, bears, and serpents.

Dionysus was also identified with plants — especially the grape as the raw material for wine — and with trees. Almost all Greeks offered sacrifices to Dionysus of the Tree. One of the nicknames the Boeotians gave the god was Dionysus-in-the-Tree. He was often depicted as a pillar draped in a cloak, his face a bearded mask wreathed with leafy shoots.

According to the myth, once during a hunt Dionysus saw a very beautiful satyr, skillfully playing a shepherd’s pipe. The satyr’s name was Ampelos. Dionysus was taken with him and made him his devoted friend and companion. But once Ampelos fell from a cliff and was dashed to pieces. The god wept long over his grave and began to implore his father Zeus to restore his friend to life. Zeus took pity and turned the dead satyr into a grapevine, which began to bear fruit whose taste resembled nectar. Within the fruit was the juice of the earth, born of sunlight, moisture, and fire. It was in память of this that Dionysus began to wander the world and teach people to cultivate the grapevine, from whose fruit one could make a divine drink — wine — granting freedom to feelings. From the name of the satyr Ampelos came the Greek name for grape — ampelos.

Wine is an attribute of Dionysus, as are the thyrsus, kantharos, ivy, grape, serpent, a retinue of animals, satyrs and maenads, and the general image of freedom, irresponsibility, abundance, happiness, and equality — or the narcotic intoxication that ranges from a light “merry buzz” to ecstasy and violent insanity.

Traditionally, what distinguished Dionysus and his retinue from other deities and people was ivy, which in Greece in winter (during the festivals of Dionysus) does not shed its leaves.

The Roman name of Dionysus —Bacchus— cannot be explained from Greek. The place of Dionysus’s upbringing — Nysa — was placed sometimes in Egypt, sometimes in India; throughout Europe, cities appeared with this root (for example, Nice). The name of Dionysus’s garment — bassara — is not of Greek origin. The name of Dionysus has been read on a tablet from Pylos dated to the second millennium BCE.

In the ecstatic procession of Dionysus participated Bacchants, satyrs, maenads, or bassarids (one of Dionysus’s nicknames is Bassareus) with thyrsi (staves) entwined with ivy. Girt with serpents, they shattered everything in their way, seized by sacred madness. With cries of “Bacchus, Evoe” they glorified Dionysus — Bromius (“the boisterous,” “the noisy”). They beat on tympana, got drunk on the blood of torn wild beasts, struck honey and milk from the earth with their thyrsi, tore trees up by the roots, and drew after themselves crowds of women and men.

When the god Dionysus suddenly appeared before his followers, a monstrous шум would rise — then collapse into a dead silence, packed with the deepest sorrow, when he vanished just as suddenly. At his appearance, the maenads entered rapture and ecstasy, began to dance madly, and fell into unbridled fury.

On Parnassus, every two years orgies were held in honor of Dionysus, attended by the thyiads — Bacchants from Attica. In Athens, solemn processions were arranged in honor of Dionysus, and the sacred marriage of the god with the wife of the archon basileus was enacted.

In Rome Dionysus was revered under the name Bacchus (hence Bacchants, Bacchanalia) or Bachus. Later he was identified with Osiris, Serapis, Mithras, Adonis, Amon, Liber.

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