Dionysus (Bacchus): Greek God of Wine, Ecstasy, and Rebirth

Artist: Jan Erasmus Quellinus (1634–1715) [wikidata:Q2446857] or Erasmus Quellinus II (1607–1678) [wikidata:Q625228] | Title: Zeus, Semele and Hera | Date: Third quarter of the 17th century | Medium: Painting | Current Location: Unknown | Source/Photographer: Own work

The Pirate Ship Miracle: Dionysus Reveals His Divinity

Everywhere he taught the people the culture of karma and the secrets of his worship, and everywhere they accepted him as a god until he came close to his own country

One day over the sea near Greece, a pirate ship sailed ashore and on the shore they saw a handsome young man whose black hair fell over a purple cloak that covered his strong shoulders. He looked like the son of a king, a young man whose parents could afford to pay a large ransom. The sailors rushed ashore and grabbed him. 

On the deck of the ship they brought rough ropes to tie him up, but to their surprise they could not tie him up, for the ropes would not hold together and would break when they touched his hands or feet. He sat looking at them with a smile in his black eyes.

The ship's captain alone among them understood and shouted that this must be a god and should be released at once or they would be mortally wounded. But the captain mocked him as a silly fool and ordered the sailors to hurry up and hoist the sail. The wind filled it and the men pulled on the taut sails, but the ship did not move. Then wonder after wonder happened. Fragrant wine flowed in streams on the deck; a vine with many clusters spread over the sail; a dark green ivy plant wrapped around the mast like a hoop, with beautiful flowers and fruits.

The terrified pirates ordered the helmsman to head for land. But it was too late: while they were talking, their captive had transformed into a lion, roaring and roaring terribly. The pirates jumped into the sea and immediately turned into dolphins, all but the good helmsman. The god was merciful to him. He grabbed him and told him to take heart, for he had found favor with the one who was already a god - Dionysus.

The Procession of Bacchus Fights Against Sea Creatures | Description: Roman pavement mosaic at the Bardo Museum, Tunis, 2nd century A.D. | Date: 7 June 2007 (Exif data) | Source: Own work | Author: Giorces

Defying Kings: Dionysus and the Fall of Lycurgus

When he passed through Thrace on his way to Greece, the god was insulted by one of its kings, Lycurgus, who strongly objected to this new worship. Dionysus retreated before him and even hid from him in the depths of the sea. He later returned, conquered him and punished him for his wickedness by imprisoning him in a rocky grotto.

But the other gods were not so kind, and Zeus struck Lycurgus, who was blinded and died shortly thereafter.

Ariadne and Dionysus: Love, Rescue, and a Starry Crown

On one of his wanderings, Dionysus came across the princess of Crete, Ariadne, in utter despair after the Athenian prince Theseus left her on the shore of Naxos and saved her life. Dionysus took pity on her. He saved her and eventually loved her. When she died, Dionysus took the crown he had given her and placed it among the stars.

Into the Underworld: Dionysus Saves His Mother

He didn't forget his mother, whom he never saw. He missed her so much that he finally dared to make the terrible descent into the underworld to search for her. When he found her, he challenged the power of death to keep her away from him; death gave up. Dionysus took her away, but not to live on earth. He took her to Olympus where the gods agreed to accept her as one of their own, mortal indeed, but the mother of a god and therefore fit to dwell with the immortals.

Two Faces of Dionysus: Gentle Liberator or Mad Destroyer?

The god of wine can be kind and gentle. He could also be cruel and drive men to frightening acts. He often made them insane. The Maenads or Bacchantes, as they were also called, were women who were crazy about wine. They would rush through the forests and over the mountains, letting out shrill screams, waving pine cone-tipped sticks, swept up in a violent euphoria. Nothing could stop them. They would tear the wild creatures they encountered to shreds and devour their bloody remains. They sang,

Bacchic Procession | Description: Marble relief depicting Dionysos, a satyr, and a maenad, Augustan-Tiberian period. | Date: Augustan-Tiberian period | Medium: Marble | Location: Colosseum, Rome | Source: Photo by Szilas, 2013-03-04

Maenads in Frenzy: Wild Worship of Dionysus in Nature

The gods of Olympus loved order and beauty in their offerings and temples. The mad women, the Minades, did not have temples. They went into the wilderness to worship, into the deepest mountains and the deepest forests, as if they were preserving the customs of ancient times before humans thought of building houses for their gods. They left the crowded, dusty city and returned to the pristine purity of the hills and virgin forests.

Sacred Freedom: Living Wild Under Dionysus’s Blessing

There Dionysus offered them food and drink: Herbs, berries, and wild goat's milk. They slept on the soft grass of the meadow, under the densely leafed trees, where the pine leaves fell year after year. They woke up with a sense of peace and heavenly freshness; they bathed in a clear creek. There was so much that was beautiful, good and liberating about this worship under the open sky and the ecstasy of joy it brought in the beauty of the wild world. Yet always present, too, was the terrible, bloody feast.

Ecstasy & Terror: The Dual Power of Dionysian Rites

The cult of Dionysus was centered on these two divergent ideas - the idea of freedom and ecstatic joy and the idea of cruel brutality. The god of wine could grant either to his worshippers. Throughout the story of his life he was sometimes a blessing to man and sometimes his ruin. Of all the atrocities attributed to him, the worst was in Thebes, his mother's city.

Thebes Embraces Dionysus: Birth of a Cult and Chaos

Dionysus came to Thebes to establish his cult there. He was accompanied, as was his custom, by a caravan of women dancing and singing joyful songs, wearing antelope skins over their robes, waving ivy-covered sticks. They seemed mad with joy. They sang

O Bacchanals, come, Oh, come. Sing Dionysus, Sing to the timbrel, The deep-voiced timbrel. Joyfully praise him, Him who brings joy. Holy, all holy Music is calling. To the hills, to the hills, Fly, O Bacchanal Swift of foot. On, O joyful, be fleet.

Pentheus vs Dionysus: Hubris, Madness, and Divine Revenge

Pentheus Torn Apart by Agave and Ino | Description: Attic red-figure lekanis lid, 5th century BC, clay, H. 8.6 cm; D. 25.4 cm. Depicts Pentheus torn apart by Agave and Ino. | Collection: Louvre Museum, Room 39, Case 7 (G 445, S 1456) | Origin: Classical Athens; discovered in Central Italy. | History: Campana Collection, 1861. | Source: Jastrow (2007)

Wine’s Double Edge: Joy and Madness in Dionysus’s Realm

But the truth is that both ideas arose very simply and plausibly from the fact that he is the god of wine. Wine is as bad as it is good. It cheers and warms people's hearts, and it also gets them drunk. The Greeks were a people who saw the facts very clearly. They could not close their eyes to the ugly and degrading side of drinking wine and saw only the joyful side.

Dionysus was the god of wine, so it was a power that sometimes-made men commit horrible, horrible crimes. No one could defend it; no one could defend the fate that Pentheus suffered. But the Greeks said to each other: Such things really do happen when people are drunk with drink. This fact did not blind them to the other truth, that wine was a “merrymaker,” lighting up men's hearts, bringing them ease, fun, and joy.

Ephemeral Ecstasy: Transformation Through Dionysus

Under his influence, courage accelerated, and fear faded, for now anyway. He elevated his servants and made them feel that they could do what they thought they couldn't. All this happy freedom and self-confidence was of course fleeting, as they would either sober up or get drunk, but as long as that was the case, it was like having a power greater than themselves. 

This is how people felt about Dionysus like they felt about no other god. He wasn't just outside of them, he was inside of them. They could be transformed by him and become like him. The momentary sense of euphoric power that drinking wine could give was only a sign to show that humans had more within them than they knew; “they could become a god themselves.”

From Drunken Joy to Divine Inspiration: Dionysus’s Rise

Thinking this way was a far cry from the traditional idea of worshipping a deity by drinking enough wine to get drunk. There were followers of Dionysus who didn't drink wine at all. It is not known when the great change occurred that elevated the god who freed humans for a moment through drunkenness to the god who freed them through inspiration, but one very remarkable result of this made Dionysus, in all ages to come, the most important god of Greece.

Dionysus and the Eleusinian Mysteries: Promise of Life After Death

The Eleusinian secrets, which were always mainly Demeter's, were indeed of great value. They helped people for hundreds of years, as Cicero said: “to live with joy and die with hope.” But their influence didn't last, likely because no one was allowed to teach their ideas publicly. In the end, only a faint memory remained. It was quite the opposite with Dionysus. What was done at his great festival was open to the whole world, an influence that continues to this day. No other festival in Greece can compare to it.

Spring Festivals of Dionysus: Theater, Freedom, and Joy

 It was held in the springtime when the vine was just beginning to put out its branches, and it lasted for five days. They were days of complete peace and enjoyment. All the business of ordinary life came to a standstill. No one could be put in prison; prisoners were released so that they could participate in the public rejoicing. 

But the place where people gathered to honor the deity was not a terrifying barren wilderness, nor was it even a temple with arranged sacrifices and priestly ceremonies. It was a theater; the ceremony was a performance. The greatest poetry in Greece was written for Dionysus. 

The poets who wrote the plays and the actors and singers who participated in them were all considered servants of the god. The performances were sacred; along with the writers and performers, they participated in an act of worship. Dionysus himself was supposed to be present; his priests occupied the seat of honor.

The Birth of Greek Theater: Tragedy & Comedy for Dionysus

It is clear, then, that the idea of a holy god of inspiration who could fill people with his spirit to write gloriously and act gloriously became far more important than previous ideas about him. The first tragedies, some of the best and most unparalleled plays in existence, were produced in the theater of Dionysus. Comedies were also produced there, but tragedies were far outnumbered, and there was a reason for that.

Dying and Rising God: The Suffering & Rebirth of Dionysus

This strange god, the merry reveler, the cruel hunter, was also in pain. He, like Demeter, was in pain not because he was grieving for others, as she was, but because of his own pain. He was the vine that is always pruned as nothing else bears fruit; every branch is cut off, during the winter a dead thing to look at, an old trunk that seems incapable of producing leaves again. Like Persephone, Dionysus died with the coming of the cold. Unlike her, his death was horrible: He was torn to pieces, in some accounts by the Titans, in others by Hera's order. He always came back to life again; he died and rose again.

Immortality and the Soul: Dionysus’s Lasting Gift to Greece

His worshippers believed that his death and resurrection showed that the soul lives forever after the death of the body. This belief was part of the Eleusis Mysteries. At first it centered around Persephone, who rose from the dead every spring. But as the queen of the dark underworld, she remained, even in the bright world above, suggestive of something strange and terrible. On the contrary, Dionysus was never thought to have power in the realm of the dead. There are many stories about Persephone in the underworld; only one about Dionysus - he saved his mother from him. He, not Persephone, became the center of the belief in immortality.