Dionysus is the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in Greek mythology. Alcohol, especially wine, played an important role in Greek culture with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style. His name, thought to be a theonym in Linear B tablets as di-wo-nu-so (KH Gq 5 inscription), shows that he may have been worshipped as early as c. 1500–1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks; other traces of the Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, “the god that comes”, and his “foreignness” as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, and is included in some lists of the twelve Olympians. Dionysus was the last god to be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre. Modern scholarship categorises him as a dying-and-rising god.

The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a fennel staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature describes him as womanly or “man-womanish”. In its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and bearded satyrs with erect penises. Some are armed with the thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a bearded, drunken Silenus. This procession is presumed to be the cult model for the human followers of his Dionysian Mysteries. In his Thracian mysteries, he wears the bassaris or fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.

Also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also called Eleutherios (“the liberator”), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself. His cult is also a “cult of the souls”; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead.

In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, thus semi-divine or heroic: and as son of Zeus and Persephone or Demeter, thus both fully divine, part-chthonic and possibly identical with Iacchus of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Some scholars believe that Dionysus is a syncretism of a local Greek nature deity and a more powerful god from Thrace or Phrygia such as Sabazios or Zalmoxis.

A kantharos or cantharus is a type of Greek pottery used for drinking. In its iconic “Type A” form, it is characterized by its deep bowl, tall pedestal foot, and pair of high-swung handles which extend above the lip of the pot. The Greek words kotylos (κότῦλος, masculine) and kotyle (κοτύλη, feminine) are other ancient names for this same shape.

The kantharos is a cup used to hold wine, possibly for drinking or for ritual use or offerings. The kantharos seems to be an attribute of Dionysos, the god of wine, who was associated with vegetation and fertility.

It may not be a banquet-cup, but rather a vessel used in pagan cult as a symbol of rebirth or resurrection, the immortality offered by wine, “removing in moments of ecstasy the burden of self-consciousness and elevating man to the rank of deity.”

Mende (Greek: Μένδη) was an ancient Greek city located on the western coast of the Pallene peninsula in Chalkidiki, facing the coast of Pieria across the narrow Thermaic Gulf and near the modern town of Kalandra.

Ancient History

Mende was probably built during the 9th century BC by Eretrian colonists. The city owes its name to the minthe plant, a species of mint that still sprouts in the area. Mende’s abundant lumber resources and possession of silver, gold and lead mines led to its rapid development. From the 6th century BC, it was one of the cities that controlled trade routes along the coast of Thrace; there were even confirmed dealings with the Greek colonies in Italy, especially concerning the export of the famous local wine Mendaeos oinos.

During the 5th century BC, Mende became one of the most important allies of Athens and joined the Delian League, paying a tax that varied from six up to fifteen Attic talents per year. However, in 423 BC, it managed to revolt against Athenian rule, a situation that did not last long as the Athenians quickly suppressed the revolt (Thuc. iv. 121). During the Peloponnesian War, Mende, Toroni and Skione were the main regional goals of the two combatants, Athens and Sparta, specially after Brasidas,the Spartan general, raised an army of allies and helots and went for the sources of Athenian power in north Greece in 424. After the end of the war, Mende regained its independence.

The city tried to avoid Olynthian rule in the 4th century BC, when the Chalkidician League was established; later it tried to avoid rule by the Macedonian hegemony, but in 315 its population, along with other Chalkidicians, was forced to resettle in Cassandreia, after this new city was built by king Cassander on the site of the former town of Poteidaea.

The sculptor Paeonius, who made the statue of Nike that was put on top of the victory pillar in Olympia – and is shown in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia – was born in Mende.

Topography and archaeology

The location of Mende was identified with the area of the modern town of Kalandra by William Martin Leake in 1835. Systematic excavational research was conducted from 1986 to 1994 by the XVI Ephorate of Classical Antiquities.

The main archaeological area covers an area of 1200 by 600 meters and lies to the open and flat place of a hill by the sea. It was continuously inhabited from the 9th to the 4th century. The acropolis of the city is located to the south uppermost point of the hill, where large storage buildings among with pottery dated from the 11th to the 4th century, were found.

The Proasteion (Suburb) of the city, which is also mentioned by Thucydides, occupied the waterfront area between the beach and the hill of the main city, where the harbour was located. Excavations revealed part of the main avenue, paved with pebbles, along with foundations of buildings with storage pottery, possibly shops or harbour buildings.

The settlement’s Necropolis was found south of the city, near a modern hotel. Excavations were made in 241 tombs that mainly revealed burials of children inside engraved ceramic vases.

Those excavations are considered important mainly because they proved that a heavy Euboean influenced settlement was established already from the 11th century.

See also

• Olynthus