Dionysus.

    The youngest of the twelve Olympian deities, Dionysus was the son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Theban King Cadmus’s daughter Semele. He was the god of wine and mystic ecstasy. Dionysus appears on Linear B tablets, suggesting that he was worshiped even in Mycenaean times (c. 1580—1120 BCE). The Dionysiac cult was widespread in Thrace and Macedonia and may have been brought to Attica from these northern areas. Some ancient authors, however, attribute its origins to Phrygian roots; the name Bacchus, by which the god was known even to the Greeks, is thought to have come from Lydia.
     Among Dionysus’s epithets are “bull” and “bullhorned”; the bull mask is a common attribute of the god. He is also recognized as a god of fertility, especially for fruits of the tree and vine (hence his close association with grapes and wine), and thus he is often accompanied by sileni and satyrs with distended phalluses. Dionysus is often described as the god of the irrational, in contrast to the rational Apollo.
    On reaching manhood and discovering wine, Dionysus was driven mad by Hera, to roam through Egypt and Syria. When he reached Phrygia, Cybele welcomed him and cured his madness. In Thrace Lycurgus tried to imprison him, along with his women followers (maenads), but Thetis hid him beneath the sea; Lycurgus was finally drawn and quartered by his own subjects.
    Dionysus traveled to India, where he conquered as a god driven by panthers and bedecked in ivy. Returning to Greece and Thebes, he introduced the Dionysia (Bacchanalia), rites marked by frenzied dancing and revelry. This ceremony was responsible for the gruesome death of Pentheus at the hands of Agave, his maddened mother.
    The Bacchus of Roman mythology is borrowed almost entirely from the Greek tradition. A native Italian wine god, Liber, was worshiped in Republican Rome, with a temple dedicated to him (along with Libera and Ceres, goddesses of agriculture). Bacchus, however, was an almost entirely Hellenized deity whose rites, including the Bacchanalia, owed more to Dionysus than to Liber.
    Dionysus is a common figure in ancient Greek vase painting from the sixth century BCE onward. He is shown with grape vines or drinking wine, either alone or with satyrs and maenads (bacchantes). Post-classical representations focus gready on his role as wine god, with scenes involving barrels of wine and revelers. He is also seen as a personification of autumn (the harvest) and of vice combatted by virtue.

Listings are arranged under the following headings:
Dionysus Infancy; Dionysus and the Pirates; Dionysus and Ariadne
See also: Aphrodite, Venus Frigida; Bacchanalia; Erigone; Gods and Goddesses; Midas; Pan; Pentheus; Satyrs and Fauns; Semele; Silenus; Titans and Giants