Dionysus

The Giants attacked the Olympian gods, urged on by Gaia. The battle took place on the plain of Phlegra. Zeus and the Olympians fought to overthrow the old order represented by the Giants, a race of immense strength and aggression. Dionysus joined them, using his divine power and his savage attendants against the enemy.

The fighting took different forms. Athena advanced against Enceladus with her gorgon shield. Zeus burned Mimas with a thunderbolt that blazed at both ends. Dionysus killed an unnamed Giant with his ivy staff. Heracles also fought among the gods and shot Giants with his arrows. Tiresias foretold that he would kill them beneath his rushing arrows, and Pindar called him the slayer of the Giants.

Other gods met other opponents. Apollo overcame Porphyrion, whom Pindar called the king of the Giants. In another account, Porphyrion attacked Heracles and tried to rape Hera during the battle. Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt, and Heracles killed him with an arrow. The Giants were defeated, and the Olympians retained their rule.

The battle also produced local traditions. Poseidon pursued Polybotes, broke off part of Kos with his trident, and threw it at him. The fragment became the island of Nisyros, and the Giant lay beneath it. Some said that Polybotes lay beneath Kos instead. At Phanagoreia, another story made Aphrodite call Heracles to her aid against the Giants, hide him in a cave, and admit the attackers one by one so that he could kill them.

Hermes carried the child Dionysus away after Semele perished in the flames. Hera’s anger made his life unsafe. Hermes entrusted him to Ino, Semele’s sister, but Hera drove Ino’s husband Athamas mad. Dionysus was then taken to the nymphs of Mount Nysa. They concealed him and cared for him there. Silenus, an aged satyr and son of Pan, became his guardian and teacher.

Dionysus grew up among woodland country. Nymphs, satyrs, and shepherds surrounded him. During one wandering, he found a wild plant bearing cool fruit. This was the vine. He learnt to draw its juice and make a drink from it. His companions tasted the drink and felt a new pleasure spread through them. They shouted, sang, and danced. Others gathered to share it and honour the divinity whom they believed had given it to them.

Dionysus saw the effect of his discovery and decided to give it to mankind. He understood that wine could bring enjoyment when used in moderation. He therefore became the god of the vine and wine. His early life at Nysa remained connected with the nymphs who had raised him, the satyrs and shepherds who accompanied him, and Silenus, who had guided his youth.

Dionysus wandered through woodland country with nymphs, satyrs, and shepherds. During one journey, he found a vine growing wild. Its fruit was cool and refreshing. He learnt to extract its juice and gave the drink to his companions.

Those who drank it felt unfamiliar pleasure and excitement. They shouted, sang, and danced. Others soon gathered. They wanted to taste the new beverage and honour the divinity to whom they owed it. Dionysus saw the effect of the drink on his followers and decided to extend his discovery to mankind.

Dionysus came to Aetolia, where King Oeneus welcomed him. Dionysus gave Oeneus a grapevine and taught him how to cultivate it. Oeneus then established the growing of vines in the land. The people could extract juice from the fruit and make wine, the beverage that had first delighted Dionysus’s companions.

The vine therefore passed from Dionysus’s woodland discovery into human cultivation in Aetolia. Oeneus became the first human ruler in this account to receive the plant and the knowledge needed to grow it. Dionysus’s gift gave the king a means of producing the drink that had already caused such pleasure among the god’s companions. The story places the transfer of the vine from the god to human society in Oeneus’s kingdom.

Zeus came secretly to Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, and she became pregnant. Hera learned of the affair and disguised herself as Semele’s old nurse. She made Semele doubt that her lover was truly Zeus. Hera advised her to ask him to appear in the same form and power that he had shown when he came to Hera.

When Zeus next visited, Semele asked him to grant a request. He promised to give her whatever she desired, and could not withdraw the promise. She then asked him to reveal his full divine glory. Zeus appeared as the god of storms, surrounded by lightning. Semele caught fire and died. Another account says that she died of fright when Zeus arrived with thunder and hurled a thunderbolt.

Zeus saved the unborn child from the fire. He sewed the infant into his thigh and kept him there until the time for birth. When that period ended, he opened the stitches and Dionysus was born. He then handed the child to Hermes. Hermes took Dionysus to Ino and Athamas, who were persuaded to bring him up as a girl.

After Semele’s death, her sisters spread a different story. They said that she had slept with a mortal, falsely blamed Zeus, and was struck down by a thunderbolt because of the lie. In this version, their story denied that she had been the mother of a god.

Hephaestus made a golden throne with secret springs and gave it to Hera. When she sat down, the throne held her fast. She could not rise. The gods tried to free her, but their efforts failed. Hephaestus had made the throne to punish his mother for the cruelty she had shown towards him because of his lack of comeliness and grace.

Dionysus then intoxicated Hephaestus and persuaded him to return to Olympus. Hephaestus came back while Hera remained trapped in the throne he had devised. He released the queen of heaven from her humiliating position. After this, he became reconciled to his parents.

Hephaestus built a palace for himself on Olympus. It was made of shining gold. He also constructed dwellings for the other deities. Two female statues of pure gold assisted him in his work. He had formed them himself, and they possessed the power of movement. The surviving passage ends before describing that power further.

The account therefore places Dionysus’s intervention between Hera’s imprisonment and Hephaestus’s return. Hephaestus freed Hera after coming back to Olympus. He then resumed his work there and built his own palace, together with dwellings for the other deities.

Ivy and vine tendrils coiled around the looms as the daughters of Minyas worked indoors. Serpents appeared among the wool baskets. Drops of wine and milk fell from the roof. Leukippe, Arsippe and Alkithoe had refused to join the dances and worship of Dionysus. They remained at their looms, competing earnestly in the service of Athena Ergane. Dionysus grew angry at their refusal.

The sisters then cast lots into a pitcher. Leukippe drew the marked lot. She vowed aloud to make a sacrifice to Dionysus. With the help of Arsippe and Alkithoe, she seized Hippsasos, her own son, and tore him to pieces. The mother’s part was turned against her child. The women were driven from their looms and shuttles in a frenzy caused by Dionysus.

They rushed out of their closed apartments and went to the mountains to join the other maenads. Their refusal to take part in the god’s worship had ended in madness and the killing of one of their own children. In Orchomenos, their story showed the dangerous force of Dionysus when his worship was rejected.

Pentheus, king of Thebes, ordered his guards to seize Dionysus and the women who followed him. Pentheus disliked the god’s appearance and rejected his worship. Dionysus was the son of Semele, Pentheus’ aunt, though Pentheus did not know that the leader of the strange, excited women was his cousin. The prophet Teiresias warned him that Dionysus was a new god and Semele’s child, rescued by Zeus. Pentheus ignored the warning and forbade the women of Thebes to celebrate the god’s rites.

Dionysus answered by sending Pentheus’ mother Agave, her sisters Ino and Autonoë, and the other women of Thebes into a Bacchic frenzy. They went to Mount Cithaeron, where they joined the worshippers of the wine-god. These rites were performed by women, and no man was allowed to attend. Pentheus tried to suppress them. In one account, he arrested Dionysus and the Maenads, then went mad and fastened a bull in place of the god. The women escaped and went into the mountains, where they tore young cattle apart.

Pentheus decided to see the rites for himself. He went to Mount Cithaeron and concealed himself behind a tree. Dionysus caused him to be mistaken for a wild animal. The Bacchants discovered his hiding-place and dragged him out. Agave and her two sisters, still driven by their frenzy, attacked him with the other women. They tore Pentheus to pieces, and Agave killed her own son without recognising him. When the frenzy passed, the horror of what she had done became clear.

The shepherds drank the wine that Icarius had made after receiving a vine cutting and instruction in wine-making from Dionysus. They drank it without mixing it with water. Soon they saw everything double. They believed that Icarius had bewitched or poisoned them. They killed him in the Marathonian woods beneath Mount Pentelicus.

When the shepherds had sobered, they buried Icarius, according to one account beneath a pine tree. His dog, Maera, watched them. The dog later led Erigone to the place. In another account, Dionysus led her to her father’s body. A further version says that she found it in a fountain.

Erigone grieved over Icarius’s death. She hanged herself from the pine tree and prayed that the daughters of Athens should suffer the same fate while her father remained unavenged. The gods heard her prayer. The shepherds responsible for the killing fled overseas. Athenian maidens then began to hang themselves from the pine tree, one after another.

The Delphic Oracle explained that Erigone demanded their lives. The guilty shepherds were sought out, but the surviving passage does not state what happened to them. Dionysus later led Erigone and Icarius into a starry transformation.

The story was connected with Dionysus’s cult and with rites involving pine trees, masks, and hanging figures. One explanation links it with an annual sacrifice made by the shepherds of Marathon when the Lesser Dog-star rose. Another connects it with masks of Dionysus hung from a pine tree in a vineyard. They turned with the wind and were thought to bring fruitfulness to the vines.

The story was associated with the Anthesteria festival. Its wine-making and drinking recalled Icarius’s death, Erigone’s sacrifice, and the blood of the vine. The accounts differ over Icarius’s burial and over whether Maera or Dionysus brought Erigone to him.

At Deium in Macedonia, Dionysus set the Maenads against Orpheus. Orpheus had gone among the men of Thrace, preaching the Dionysian mysteries and condemning sacrificial murder. They listened to him with respect. Each morning, he climbed Mount Pangaeum to greet the dawn. There he preached that Helius, whom he called Apollo, was the greatest of all the gods. Dionysus was angered by Orpheus’s neglect of his rites.

The Maenads waited until the husbands of Deium had entered Apollo’s temple, where Orpheus served as priest. They seized the weapons that had been left outside and forced their way into the temple. They killed their husbands, then attacked Orpheus and tore him limb from limb. His severed head was thrown into the river Hebrus. It did not sink. Still singing, it floated down the river to the sea and was carried to the island of Lesbos.

The Muses gathered Orpheus’s scattered limbs and buried them at Leibethra, below Mount Olympus. The nightingales there were said to sing more sweetly than anywhere else. The Maenads then tried to cleanse themselves of Orpheus’s blood in the river Helicorn. The River-god dived beneath the ground and disappeared. One account also says that Zeus made Orpheus’s lyre into a constellation in the sky.