Dionysus (Free)

The following is an excerpt from: Cults, Myths and Legends of Ancient Sicily (Author: Ignazio Caloggero – ISBN: 9788894321913)

Head of a young Dionysus. Hellenistic sculpture found near Rome. London, British Museum.

Origins of the myth

The cult of Dionysus is very old, his name is already found in a Cretan tablet of the second millennium BC.

Dionysus is probably seen as the "son of God". In the Thracian-Phrygian language "nusos", in fact, means "son" [1].

Caravaggio: Bacco (1595 ca. - Uffizi Gallery, Florence)

Dionysus was fundamentally the protector of vegetation, particularly of the vine and, therefore, of wine. Also called Bacchus , he was identified by the Romans with the Italic god Liber Pater, from whom he took the name Liber. His cult, like that of the Palici, was considered servile, and therefore popular.

Liber Pater Temple in Sabratha - Libya

His legend is quite complex, it is an intertwining, in fact, of Greek elements and elements of the neighboring countries of Greece such as Thrace and Phrygia [2]. Mount Nisa, where according to tradition Dionysus was born, is found in different countries: in Thrace, Arabia, India and Egypt; and cities with this name are remembered in Thrace, Euboea [3], Asia and Africa. [4]

There are several versions of the birth of Dionysus. According to one of these, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone . It is said, in fact, that Demeter hid her daughter Persephone in a cave in Sicily, entrusting her to the care of two serpents; Zeus, then, transformed himself into a serpent and managed to mate with Persephone, generating Dionysus who was born inside the same cave and had a head adorned with two horns. According to the second version, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and the Theban Semele[5]. During their lovemaking, Zeus presented himself to Semele in the guise of a common mortal. Hera, learning of her husband's latest betrayal, wanted revenge on her rival, who was already six months pregnant. She disguised herself as Semele's nurse, instilling in her the suspicion that her lover was not the god Zeus. She advised her, in order to accept him, to ask Zeus for an embrace in which he would appear in his true divine guise, and no longer in the guise of a common mortal. Semele, having fallen into the trap, asked Zeus to show himself to her in all his divine splendor, and the god, to please her, granted her wish. But at the sight of such splendor, poor Semele was struck by lightning. Zeus then removed the child Semele was carrying and, aided by Hephaestus (who had already had the opportunity to act as an obstetrician, at the birth of Athena), had the child sewn to his thigh, carrying the pregnancy to term himself. Thus was born Dionysus, the twice-born god.

A legend tells that Dionysus joined the Cretan Ariadne , the daughter of Minos who followed Theseus after he killed the Minotaur. Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos, where she was seen by Dionysus who fell in love with her and made her his wife after obtaining immortality for her from Zeus[6].

 Many travels are attributed to Dionysus. It is said that during one of these trips, he was kidnapped by the Etruscan pirates who wanted to sell him

as a slave in Asia. The god then transformed the pirate oars into snakes, covered the ship with ivy and made every point of it resound with music coming from invisible flutes and finally paralyzed the ship with garlands of vine. The sailors, maddened, threw themselves into the sea where they turned into dolphins. It is from this legend that the belief was born according to which dolphins are friends of men and try to save them from shipwrecks: they are the repentant pirates of the legend of Dionysus.

Dionysus's travels also took him to Sicily, where he encountered, or rather, clashed with, Alpo , a Sicilian giant. Alpo lived in the Peloritani Mountains. He had many arms, and his hair was made of a hundred vipers. His favorite pastime was to wait for travelers who got lost in the mountain gorges, crushing them by throwing large boulders, and finally devouring them. The mountain where the giant lived therefore remained deserted, as no one dared to venture there. This situation lasted until Dionysus, during one of his many travels, decided to stop by. As soon as Alpo saw him, he attacked him, using entire trees as weapons and a large boulder as a shield. To defend himself, Dionysus threw his thyrsus at him, which struck him straight in the gorge, killing him and thus freeing the mountain to be populated again.

 Among the attributes associated with Dionysus is the rod. About this Diodorus Siculus [7] gives the following explanation:

 "When wine was first discovered it was not thought of mixing it with water, so the wine was drunk pure, but when some friends, gathered together, went mad because of the abundance of wine drunk pure, they used their wooden sticks to hit each other. Consequently, since some were injured and others received fatal wounds in vital points, Dionysus was offended by what had happened, and although he did not prescribe refraining from drinking pure wine in abundance, precisely because drinking was the fruit of pleasure, he ordered them to bring a rod and not wooden sticks ”.

Among the figures who often accompanied Dionysus, it is worth remembering: Silenus , his master and travelling companion, who rode a donkey because he was old and obese but above all because he was always drunk, the Satyrs[8] and the bacchantes or Maenads, as the women who took part in the orgiastic cult of Dionysus were called. These carried a long stick with a pine cone on the top, and, chewing ivy leaves, they entered into a state of fury; sometimes, having reached the height of their excitement, they tore apart a fawn, the incarnation of Dionysus, and ate its flesh raw.

Louvre Museum: statue of Silenus

In Greece, as well as in Italy, the cult of Dionysus took on the characteristics of a mysteriosophical religion, allowing the birth of links between Dionysus and other divinities including Cybele and Demeter, whose cults were based, in part, on the mysteries.

Festivals in honor of Dionysus were numerous, almost all of which were orgiastic in nature. The Bacchanalia were famous , during which the population (especially women), gripped by a mystical delirium, roamed the countryside shouting ritual cries. In Rome, due to their orgiastic nature, these festivals were banned by the Roman Senate in 186 BC. In Greece, they were called Agrionia and were characterized by extreme violence: the Bacchantes, in fact, seized by Dionysian fury, tore to pieces and devoured the animals they encountered along their path.

Baccanali

No less famous in Greece were the Nyctelia , during which people celebrated all night long with orgies and all kinds of noise.

Almost every month there was a festival dedicated to Dionysus.

In January, the Lenaia was celebrated in Athens, during which, in the temple consecrated to Dionysus and called Lenaeus, people would feast and attend theatrical performances.

In February, the Anthesteria were celebrated , lasting three days: on the first day, the barrels were opened and the new wine was drunk abundantly; the second day was the Feast of the Jugs (full of wine, of course), with competitions to see who could empty the most and a religious ceremony in honor of Dionysus; the third day was the Feast of the Pots, when various seeds were cooked in homes as offerings to Dionysus. For the entire duration of the Anthesteria, the temples remained closed and ceremonies were held to banish the spirits of the deceased, as it was believed that they roamed freely during those days.

In October the Oscophoria was celebrated , in which the god was thanked for the good harvest of olives and (above all) grapes.

Finally, in December, the Ascalie or wineskin festivals were celebrated, in which competitions were held between those who managed to leap over a wineskin filled with wine by jumping with just one leg.

 The dissent for the Dionysian religion did not take place only in Rome, therefore the need arose to defend the cult of Dionysus. In Greece, to this end, a whole series of legends and mythological tales are born about the punishments suffered by those who opposed the Dionysian religion.

Homer [9] speaks of a certain Lycurgus, king of Thrace, who chased the nurses of Dionysus attacking them with an axe and for this action was made blind by the gods.

The king of Thebes, Pentheus, opposed the introduction of Dionysian rites in Thebes and for this reason was torn to pieces by his mother Agave , who was gripped by Dionysian fury.

Penteo is quartered by the Bacchantes. House of the Vettii, Pompeii, Italy, XNUMXst century AD

When the three daughters of Proetus , king of Tiryns, refused to participate in the mysteries of Dionysus, the god punished them by driving them mad and making them wander the mountains in the throes of erotic frenzies.

Just as the Bacchantes adopted a rather bloody behavior, since often their victims, animals or men they were, ended up in pieces, also the initiation of the adepts to the Dionysian mysteries implied particularly difficult tests to overcome.

The sacrifices dedicated to Dionysus were often characterized by extreme violence, so much so that they included actual human sacrifices. Only in the annual festival of Orchomenus , dedicated to Dionysus, were the victims the Bacchae themselves, pursued by the priest, who had the right to kill the first one he could reach.

Despite the advent of the Christian religion, some bloody rites attributed to the adepts of the mysteries of Dionysus continued to remain. In Greece, near Thessaloniki, until some time ago, on the feast of the saints, Constantine and Helen, a rite was held, prohibited by the Orthodox church, which originates from the Dionysian initiation rites: some delirious people perform dances on the burning coals, waving crosses and prayer books [14].

The Myth of Dionysus in Sicily

SIRACUSA 

In Sicily the cult of Dionysus had, therefore, a certain affinity with that of Demeter and Persephone. It flourished mainly in Syracuse where, in one of its temples, there was a statue of Aristeo that was stolen by Verre [10].

Selinunte

Although in a minor form, the cult of Dionysus was present in the rest of the island; of the three temples of Selinunte , traditionally designated by the letters of the alphabet E, F, and G, the temple designated by the letter F is attributed to the cult of Dionysus[11], confirmed by the discovery, in Selinunte of a metope[12] depicting Dionysus, now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Palermo[13].

Religious syncretism

In Sicily, until a few years ago, in some religious festivals one could see traces of the bacchanalian forms. Famous was the " descent of drunkards " where the veterans of the festival of Sant'Alfio of Trecastagni , after having eaten, out of devotion to Sant'Alfio, roast mutton accompanied by abundant wine, put on a show during the return journey to the various municipalities of Etna from where they had departed. Pitrè, speaking about the descent of drunkards, said[15]:

 “You see how many it fits in a cart pulled by a poor donkey or a bolso mule! See how they play, sing, shout, beating cymbals, bumping tin plates, tearing violins and guitars, blowing against whistles and jars! Men are relieved of wine and sleep; their women more than them: and all with certain haunted faces, drooping and moving only to flounder in the air or to draw off words without meaning and construction ”.

In Gratteri , in the province of Palermo (not far from Cefalù), the patron saint of the grape harvest and the vine is St. James. During the patronal feast, the finest bunches of grapes were offered to the statue of St. James, tied to his silver staff. Abundant wine was also drunk during the procession and offered to the statue's bearers; the effects of the wine drunk in honor of the saint were quickly felt, thus characterizing the procession.

 Gratteri: Feast of San Giacomo

But the Christian saint who more than any other has taken the place of Dionysus as the protector of wine is undoubtedly St. Martin . The popular calendar celebrates this saint on November 11th, precisely during the period when new wine is enjoyed; it is no coincidence that the motto reads:

  In San Martino Every must is wine

 In Sicily a popular motto is even more explicit:

 Cui rises from vinu you say: long live Sammartinu!

During the popular Sicilian festivals in honor of St. Martin, barrels of new wine are opened and, again in his honor, glasses of wine are raised in competitions that resemble those once dedicated to Bacchus, with many similarities to the Greek Anthesteria.

[1] Ambrogio Donini: A brief history of religions. p.140.

[2] Phrygia is a region of Turkey, in the northwestern part of Anatolia.

[3] Euboea is an island in Greece, separated from the Balkan peninsula by the Talandi and Euripo channels.

[4] EWStoll: Handbook of Religions and Mythology of the Greeks and Romans. p.136.

[5] Diodorus lib IV.4

[6] Pausanias Lib. I, 20,3

[7] Diodorus Siculus Lib.IV.4

[8] In classical mythology, Satyrs were demons of nature. They were depicted in different ways: now the lower part of the body was that of a horse and, the upper part, starting from the waist, was that of a man; now their animality was that of a goat. In both cases, they were endowed with a long and broad tail similar to that of a horse, and a perpetually erect virile member of superhuman proportions.

[9] Iliad VI.130

[10] Cicero, Verrine II.IV 128.

[11] Filippo Coarelli and Mario Torelli: Sicily “Archaeological Guides Laterza” p.84.

[12] The metope is a smooth panel between two triglyphs, typical of Doric architecture. It consists of a large block of stone (terracotta or marble) inserted in lateral grooves. The triglyph is an architectural element of the Doric temple, it is composed of a quadrangular slab that reproduces the end of the beams resting on the architrave.

[13] Filippo Coarelli and Mario Torelli: Sicily “Archaeological Guides Laterza” p.26.

[14] Ambrogio Donini: A brief history of religions p.192

[15] Giuseppe Pitre: Patronal feasts in Sicily. p.239

Card insertion: Ignazio Caloggero

Photo: web, Ignazio Caloggero

Informational contributions : Ignazio Caloggero, Sicily Region

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