Fine Arts--Theatre
Dionysus
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Terms

Dionysus (the Roman Bacchus)

          God of wine, nature god, born from Zeus' thigh after the untimely death of his mother before his birth, spends his life carrying the secrets of wine production. He is accompanied by satyrs,  centaurs  and wildly dancing young women.  As the god of agriculture and  fertility, he is  reborn each year, associated with rites designed to promote fertility  and with mystery religions which based their teachings on  the problems  of death, purgation, and re‑birth.     

The  5th century Athenian values were balance, wisdom, justice,  even‑mindedness; these values are  repeated in literature.  Athenian praises the golden mean‑- moderation  in all things.

However, Dionysus represents a different spirit, one of  ecstasy, of abandonment to emotion.  In myth and literature, Dionysus is represented as an outsider, not a traditional Athenian/Greek god of the original pantheon, but as an interloper, a new god demanding new fealty.

         Most anthropologists agree that Dionysus had to be a stranger /outsider because the ecstatic irresponsibility and release that he offered  to women was unique in Greek religion.

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