dionysus or dionysos
•latin: bacchus

•greek mythology

•The god of wine, revelry, mystic ecstasy and fertility 
(especially of vegetation)

•attributes: usually bearded and cloaked, 
holding a kantharos or rhyton filled with 
wine, is often shown with grape vines and/or 
ivy, and with panthers. He may be alone, or 
together with his thiasos: satyrs and maenads (bacchantes).

•the contrast between apollo (god of the sun, music, poetry, 
prophecy, and medicine) and 
dionysus has been discussed by friedrich 
nietzsche in the birth of tragedy

apollo represents the orderly, the rational, 
and the shining... 

dionysus represents the ecstatic, emotional, 
and the dark.

•dionysus-'who was without any images, 
primordial pain and its primordial 
re-echoing'

•dionysus, the son of zeus and semele, was 
reared in women's quarters, disguised as a 
girl to hide him from an ever jealous hera. 
but even when he grew into manhood, hera 
recognized him as zeus's son despite the 
effeminacy caused by his upbringing, and 
caused him to become mad.

he wandered around asia accompanied by a wild group of 
satyrs and maenads involving himself in bizarre events. 
he flayed alive the king of damascus, and chased the 
amazons to ephesus where some of them took refuge in the 
temple of artemis.

next, dionysus returned to europe and his 
grandmother rhea purified him of the murders 
he had committed during his madness and 
initiated him in to her mysteries.

he then visited thebes and there invited the 
women to join his revels. pentheus, king of 
thebes, arrested him and all his maenads, but 
went mad and locked up a bull instead of the 
god. the maenads escaped and went raging up 
in the mountains. pentheus tried to stop the 
frenzy, but wild with religious ecstasy and 
wine they tore pentheus limb from limb.

finally, having established his worship 
dionysus ascended to heaven and joined zeus 
and the other olympians.