NICOPOLIS ad ISTRUM Roman Senate Dionysus Grapes Rare Ancient Coin i22598

Item: i22598

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Roman City of Nicopolis ad Istrum in Moesia Inferior

Bronze 14mm (2.02 grams) Autonomous Issue under the Romans, circa 100-200 A.D.

NEIKOΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ, Head of young member of Roman senate
or Dionysus right.

 ΠΡΟC ΙCΤΡOΝ, Bunch of grapes.

* Numismatic Note: This
autonomous issue may either pay tribute to young senators as in similar
portraiture to the autonomous issue of Pergamum, or possibly Dionysus. Either
way, this fantastic coin is very rare, and possibly unique or unpublished.

You are bidding on the exact

Guarantee of Authenticity.

Dionysus
or Dionysos (Greek
Διόνυσος) is the
ancient Greek

god
of the grape harvest,
winemaking
and
wine
, of ritual madness and
ecstasy
, was also the driving force
behind
Greek theater
. The god who inspires
joyful worship and
ecstasy
, festivals and celebration is a
major figure of
Greek mythology
and the
religion of ancient Greece
. He is
included as one of the


twelve
Olympians in some lists. Dionysus is typical of the god of
the epiphany
, “the god that comes”. He was
also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the
Romans
and the frenzy he induces,
bakkheia. Hailed as an Asiatic foreigner, he was thought to have had
strong ties to the East and to
Ethiopia
in the South. He was also
known as the Liberator (Eleutherios),
freeing one from one’s normal self, by madness, ecstasy or wine. The
divine mission of Dionysus was to mingle the music of the
aulos
and to bring an end to care and
worry. Scholars have discussed Dionysus’ relationship to the “cult of
the souls” and his ability to preside over communication between the
living and the dead.

In Greek mythology, Dionysus is made out to be a son of
Zeus
and the mortal
Semele
. He is described as being
womanly or “man-womanish”. The
retinue
of Dionysus was called the
thiasus
and was composed chiefly of
maenads
and
satyrs
. Dionysus is a god of
mystery religious rites
. In the
Thracian
mysteries, he wears the
bassaris or fox
-skin, symbolizing new life. His own
rites, the
Dionysian Mysteries
practiced by
maenads
and others, were the most
secret of all. Many 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
.

Contradictions in Dionysus’ origin suggest to some that we are
dealing not with the historical memory of a cult that is foreign, but
with a god in whom foreignness is inherent. 
Karl Kerenyi
traces him to
Minoan Crete
, where his Minoan name is
unknown but his characteristic presence is recognizable. Clearly,
Dionysus had been with the Greeks and their predecessors a long time,
and yet always retained the feel of something alien.

Names

Etymology

Dionysian procession on a marble sarcophagus,
possibly indicating that the deceased was an initiate into Dionysian
mysteries

The dio- element
has been associated since antiquity with Zeus (genitive Dios).
The earliest attested form of the name is Mycenaean
Greek di-wo-nu-so, written
in Linear
B syllabic script, presumably for /Diwo(h)nūsos/,
found on two tablets at Mycenaean Pylos and
dated to the 12th or 13th century BC

Later variants include Dionūsos and Diōnūsos in
Boeotia; Dien(n)ūsos in
Thessaly; Deonūsos and Deunūsos in
Ionia; and Dinnūsos in
Aeolia, besides other variants. A Dio- prefix
is found in other names, such as that of the Dioscures,
and may derive from Dios, the
genitive of the name of Zeus.

The second element -nūsos is
associated with Mount Nysa,
the birthplace of the god in Greek mythology, where he was nursed by nymphs (the Nysiads), but
according to Pherecydes
of Syros,nũsa was
an archaic word for “tree.”

The cult of Dionysus was closely associated with trees, specifically the fig
tree, and some of his bynames exhibit
this, such as Endendros “he
in the tree” or Dendritēs,
“he of the tree.” Peters suggests the original meaning as “he who runs among the
trees,” or that of a “runner in the woods.” Janda (2010) accepts the etymology
but proposes the more cosmological interpretation of “he who impels the
(world-)tree.” This interpretation explains how Nysa could
have been re-interpreted from a meaning of “tree” to the name of a mountain: the axis
mundi of Indo-European
mythology is represented both as
a world-tree and
as a world-mountain.

Epithets

Dionysus was variably known with the following epithets:

Acratophorus, (“giver of unmixed wine”), at Phigaleia in Arcadia.

Acroreites at Sicyon.

Adoneus (“ruler”) in his
Latinised, Bacchic cult.

Aegobolus (“goat killer”) at
Potniae, in Boeotia.

Aesymnetes (“ruler” or
“lord”) at Aroë and Patrae in Achaea.

Agrios (“wild”), in Macedonia.

Briseus (“he who prevails”) in Smyrna.

Bromios (“Roaring” as of the
wind, primarily relating to the central death/resurrection element of the myth,^[28] but
also to the god’s famous transformations into lion and bull. Also
refers to the “boisterousness” of those who imbibe spirits, and is cognate with
the “roar of thunder”, although this aspect is corollary in that it is a
reference to the god’s parentage, not his innate qualities.)

Dendrites (“he of the trees”),
as a fertility god.

Dithyrambos, form of address used at his festivals, referring to his
premature birth.

Eleutherios (“the liberator”),
an epithet for both Dionysus and Eros.

Endendros (“he in the tree”).

Enorches (“with balls,” with
reference to his fertility, or “in the testicles” in reference to Zeus’ sewing
the baby Dionysus into his thigh, i.e., his testicles). used
in Samos and Lesbos.

Erikryptos (“completely
hidden”), in Macedonia.

Eviüs, in Euripides’
play, The
Bacchae.

Iacchus, possibly an epithet of Dionysus and associated with the Eleusinian
Mysteries. In Eleusis,
he is known as a son of Zeus and Demeter.
The name “Iacchus” may come from the Ιακχος (Iakchos), a hymn sung in
honor of Dionysus.

Liknites (“he of the winnowing
fan”), as a fertility god connected with the mystery
religions. A winnowing fan was used to separate the chaff from the grain.

Lyaeus (“he who unties”) or
releases from care and anxiety.

Melanaigis (“of the black
goatskin”) at the Apaturia festival.

Oeneus, as god of the wine
press.

Pseudanor (“false man”), in Macedonia.

In the Greek pantheon,
Dionysus (along with Zeus)
absorbs the role of Sabazios,
a Thracian/Phrygian deity.
In the Roman
pantheon, Sabazius became an alternate name for Bacchus.

Mythology

Birth

Birth of Dionysus, on a small sarcophagus that may have been made
for a child (Walters
Art Museum)

Dionysus had a strange birth that evokes the difficulty in fitting him into the Olympian
pantheon. His mother was a mortal woman, Semele,
the daughter of king Cadmus of Thebes,
and his father was Zeus,
the king of the gods. Zeus’ wife, Hera,
discovered the affair while Semele was pregnant. Appearing as an old crone (in
other stories a nurse), Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that Zeus
was the actual father of the baby in her womb. Hera pretended not to believe
her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semele’s mind. Curious, Semele demanded of
Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood.

Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he agreed. Therefore
he came to her wreathed in bolts of lightning; mortals, however, could not look
upon an undisguised god without dying, and she perished in the ensuing blaze.
Zeus rescued the fetal Dionysus by sewing him into his thigh. A few months
later, Dionysus was born on Mount Pramnos in the island of Ikaria,
where Zeus went to release the now-fully-grown baby from his thigh. In this
version, Dionysus is born by two “mothers” (Semele and Zeus) before his birth,
hence the epithet dimētōr (of
two mothers) associated with his being “twice-born.”

In the Cretan version of the same story, which Diodorus
Siculus follows, Dionysus
was the son of Zeus and Persephone,
the queen of the Greek
underworld. Diodorus’ sources equivocally identified the mother as Demeter. A
jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending Titans to
rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys. It is said that he was
mocked by the Titans who gave him a thyrsus (a fennel stalk) in place of his
rightful sceptre. Zeus turned the
Titans into dust with his thunderbolts, but only after the Titans ate everything
but the heart, which was saved, variously, byAthena, Rhea,
or Demeter.
Zeus used the heart to recreate him in his thigh,
hence he was again “the twice-born.” Other versions claim that Zeus recreated
him in the womb of Semele, or gave Semele the heart to eat to impregnate her.

The rebirth in both versions of the story is the primary reason why Dionysus was
worshipped in mystery
religions, as his death and rebirth were events of mystical reverence. This
narrative was apparently used in several Greek and Roman cults, and variants of
it are found in Callimachus andNonnus,
who refer to this Dionysus with the title Zagreus,
and also in several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus.

The myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus by the Titans, is alluded to by Plato in
his Phaedo (69d)
in which Socrates claims that the initiations of the Dionysian Mysteries are
similar to those of the philosophic path. Late Neo-Platonists such as Damascius explore
the implications of this at length.

Infancy at Mount Nysa

Hermes and the Infant Dionysus by Praxiteles,
(Archaeological
Museum of Olympia).

According to the myth Zeus gave the infant Dionysus into the charge of Hermes.
One version of the story is that Hermes took the boy to King Athamas and
his wife Ino,
Dionysus’ aunt. Hermes bade the couple raise the boy as a girl, to hide him from
Hera’s wrath. Another version is that
Dionysus was taken to the rain-nymphs of Nysa,
who nourished his infancy and childhood, and for their care Zeus rewarded them
by placing them as the Hyades among
the stars (see Hyades
star cluster). Other versions have Zeus giving him to Rhea, or to Persephone
to raise in the Underworld, away from Hera. Alternatively, he was raised by Maro.

Dionysus in Greek mythology is a god of foreign origin, and while Mount Nysa is
a mythological location, it is invariably set far away to the east or to the
south. The Homeric
hymn to Dionysus places it “far
from Phoenicia, near to the Egyptian stream.” Others placed it in Anatolia, or
in Libya (‘away
in the west beside a great ocean’), in Ethiopia (Herodotus), or Arabia (Diodorus
Siculus).

According to Herodotus:

As it is, the Greek story has it that no sooner was Dionysus born than
Zeus sewed him up in his thigh and carried him away to Nysa in
Ethiopia beyond Egypt;
and as for Pan,
the Greeks do not know what became of him after his birth. It is
therefore plain to me that the Greeks learned the names of these two
gods later than the names of all the others, and trace the birth of both
to the time when they gained the knowledge.

—Herodotus, Histories 2.146

The Bibliotheca seems
to be following Pherecydes, who relates how the infant Dionysus, god of the
grapevine, was nursed by the rain-nymphs, the Hyades at
Nysa.

Childhood

Kylix (6th century
BC) depicting Dionysus among the sailors transformed to dolphins
after attempting to kidnap him

When Dionysus grew up, he discovered the culture of the vine and the mode of
extracting its precious juice; but Hera struck him with madness, and drove him
forth a wanderer through various parts of the earth. In Phrygia the
goddess Cybele,
better known to the Greeks as Rhea, cured him and taught him her religious
rites, and he set out on a progress through Asia teaching the people the
cultivation of the vine. The most famous part of his wanderings is his
expedition to India,
which is said to have lasted several years. Returning in triumph he undertook to
introduce his worship into Greece, but was opposed by some princes who dreaded
its introduction on account of the disorders and madness it brought with it
(e.g. Pentheus or Lycurgus).

North African Roman mosaic: Panther-Dionysus scatters the pirates,
who are changed to dolphins, except for Acoetes,
the helmsman. (Bardo
National Museum)

Dionysus was exceptionally attractive. One of the Homeric
hymns recounts how, while
disguised as a mortal sitting beside the seashore, a few sailors spotted him,
believing he was a prince. They attempted to kidnap him and sail him far away to
sell for ransom or into slavery. They tried to bind him with ropes, but no type
of rope could hold him. Dionysus turned into a fierce lion and unleashed a bear
on board, killing those he came into contact with. Those who jumped off the ship
were mercifully turned into dolphins. The only survivor was the helmsman, Acoetes,
who recognized the god and tried to stop his sailors from the start.

In a similar story, Dionysus desired to sail from Icaria to Naxos.
He then hired a Tyrrhenian pirate
ship. However, when the god was on board, they sailed not to Naxos but to Asia,
intending to sell him as a slave. So Dionysus turned the mast and oars into
snakes, and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes so that the
sailors went mad and, leaping into the sea, were turned into dolphins.

Other stories

Midas

Once, Dionysus found his old school master and foster father, Silenus,
missing. The old man had been drinking, and had wandered away drunk, and was
found by some peasants, who carried him to their king (alternatively, he passed
out in Midas’ rose garden). Midas recognized
him, and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with
politeness, while Silenus entertained Midas and his friends with stories and
songs. On the eleventh day, he brought Silenus back to Dionysus. Dionysus
offered Midas his choice of whatever reward he wanted.

Midas asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold. Dionysus
consented, though was sorry that he had not made a better choice. Midas rejoiced
in his new power, which he hastened to put to the test. He touched and turned to
gold an oak twig and a stone. Overjoyed, as soon as he got home, he ordered the
servants to set a feast on the table. Then he found that his bread, meat,
daughter and wine turned to gold.

Upset, Midas strove to divest himself of his power (the Midas
Touch); he hated the gift he had coveted. He prayed to Dionysus, begging to
be delivered from starvation. Dionysus heard and consented; he told Midas to
wash in the river Pactolus.
He did so, and when he touched the waters the power passed into them, and the
river sands changed into gold. This was an etiological
myth that explained why the sands
of the Pactolus were rich in gold.

Pentheus

Pentheus torn apart by Agave and Ino. Attic red-figure lekanis(cosmetics
bowl) lid, c. 450-425 BCE (Louvre)

Euripides composed a tragedy
about the destructive nature of Dionysus in The
Bacchae. Since Euripides wrote this play while in the court of King Archelaus of Macedon,
some scholars believe that the cult of Dionysus was malicious in Macedon but
benign in Athens.

In the play, Dionysus returns to his birthplace, Thebes,
which is ruled by his cousin Pentheus.
Dionysus wants to exact revenge on Pentheus and the women of Thebes (his aunts Agave, Ino and Autonoe)
for not believing his mother Semele’s claims of being impregnated by Zeus, and
for denying Dionysus’s divinity (and therefore not worshiping him).

Dionysus slowly drives Pentheus mad, lures him to the woods of Mount
Cithaeron, and then convinces him to spy/peek on the Maenads (female
worshippers of Dionysus, who often experienced divine ecstasy). The Maenads are
in an insane frenzy when Pentheus sees them (earlier in the play they had ripped
apart a herd of cattle), and they catch him but mistake him for a wild animal.
Pentheus is torn to shreds, and his mother (Agave, one of the Maenads), not
recognizing her own son because of her madness, brutally tears his limbs off as
he begs for his life.

As a result of their acts the women are banished from Thebes, ensuring
Dionysus’s revenge.

Lycurgus

When King Lycurgus of Thrace heard
that Dionysus was in his kingdom, he imprisoned all the followers[Maenads] of
Dionysus; the god fled, taking refuge with Thetis,
and sent a drought which stirred the people into revolt. Dionysus then made King
Lycurgus insane, having him slice his own son into pieces with an axe, thinking
he was a patch of ivy, a plant holy to Dionysus. An oracle then
claimed that the land would stay dry and barren as long as Lycurgus was alive,
so his people had him drawn
and quartered; with Lycurgus dead, Dionysus lifted the curse. This story was
told in Homer’s epic, Iliad 6.136-7.
In an alternative version, sometimes shown in art, Lycurgus tried to kill
Ambrosia, a follower of Dionysus, who was transformed into a vine that twined
around the enraged king and restrained him, eventually killing him.

Prosymnus

A better-known story is that of his descent to Hades to rescue his mother Semele,
whom he placed among the stars. Dionysus
feared for his mother, whom he had not seen since birth. He bypassed the god of
death, known as Thanatos, thus successfully returning Semele to Mount Olympus.
Out of the twelve Olympians, he was of the few that could restore the deceased
from the underworld back to life. He
made the descent from a reputedly bottomless pool on the coast of the Argolid near
the prehistoric site of Lerna.
He was guided by Prosymnus or
Polymnus, who requested, as his reward, to be Dionysus’ lover. Prosymnus died
before Dionysus could honor his pledge, so in order to satisfy Prosymnus’ shade,
Dionysus fashioned a phallus from
an olive branch and sat on it at Prosymnus’ tomb. This story survives in full
only in Christian sources whose aim was to discredit pagan mythology. It appears
to have served as an explanation of the secret objects that were revealed in the Dionysian
Mysteries.

Ampelos

Another myth according to Nonnus involves Ampelos,
a satyr,
who was loved by Dionysus. Foreseen
by Dionysus, the youth was killed in an accident riding a bull maddened by the
sting of an Ate’s
gadfly. The Fates granted
Ampelos a second life as a vine, from which Dionysus squeezed the first wine.

Chiron

Young Dionysus was also said to have been one of the many famous pupils of the centaur Chiron.
According to Ptolemy Chennus in the Library of Photius, “Dionysius was loved by
Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances, the bacchic rites and
initiations.”

Secondary myths

Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian,
at the National
Gallery in London.

When Hephaestus bound Hera to
a magical chair, Dionysus got him drunk and brought him back to Olympus after he
passed out.

A third descent by Dionysus to Hades is invented by Aristophanes in
his comedy The
Frogs. Dionysus, as patron of the Athenian dramatic festival, the Dionysia,
wants to bring back to life one of the great tragedians. After a competition Aeschylus is
chosen in preference to Euripides.

When Theseus abandoned Ariadne sleeping
on Naxos, Dionysus found and married her. She bore him a son named Oenopion, but
he committed suicide or was killed by Perseus.
In some variants, he had her crown put into the heavens as the constellation
Corona; in others, he descended into Hades to
restore her to the gods on Olympus. Another different account claims Dionysus
ordered Theseus to abandon Ariadne on the island of Naxos for he had seen her as
Theseus carried her onto the ship and had decided to marry her.

Psalacantha, a nymph, failed at winning the love of Dionysus as his main
love interest at the moment was Ariadne, and ended up being changed into a
plant.

Callirrhoe was a Calydonian woman
who scorned Coresus,
a priest of Dionysus, who threatened to afflict all the women of Calydon with
insanity (see Maenad).
The priest was ordered to sacrifice Callirhoe but he killed himself instead.
Callirhoe threw herself into a well which was later named after her.

Acis, a Sicilian youth,
was sometimes said to be Dionysus’ son.

Consorts and children

Topics in Greek mythology
Gods Primordial gods and Titans Zeus and the Olympians Pan and the nymphs Apollo and Dionysus Sea-gods and Earth-gods
Heroes Heracles and his Labors Achilles and the Trojan War Odysseus and the Odyssey Jason and the Argonauts Perseus and Medusa/Gorgon Pirithous and the Centauromachy Oedipus and Thebes Orpheus and the Orphic Mysteries Theseus and the Minotaur Triptolemus and the Eleusinian Mysteries Atalanta and Hippomenes’ Race (Golden apple)
Related Satyrs, centaurs and dragons Religion in Ancient Greece
Greek mythology portal
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Genealogy of the Olympians in Greek mythology

Parallels with
Christianity

The earliest discussions of mythological parallels between Dionysus and the
figure of the
Christ in Christian
theology can be traced to Friedrich
Hölderlin, whose identification of Dionysus with Christ is most explicit in Brod
und Wein (1800–1801) and Der
Einzige (1801–1803).

Modern scholars such as Martin
Hengel, Barry
Powell, Robert
M. Price, and Peter Wick, among others, argue that Dionysian religion and
Christianity have notable parallels. They point to the symbolism of wine and the
importance it held in the mythology surrounding both Dionysus and Jesus Christ; though,
Wick argues that the use of wine symbolism in the Gospel
of John, including the story of the Marriage
at Cana at which Jesus turns water into
wine, was intended to show Jesus as superior to Dionysus.

Scholars of comparative
mythology identify both Dionysus
and Jesus with the dying-and-returning
god mythological archetype.^[8] Other
elements, such as the celebration by a ritual meal of bread and wine, also have
parallels. Powell, in particular,
argues precursors to the Catholic notion of transubstantiation can
be found in Dionysian religion.

Another parallel can be seen in The
Bacchae where Dionysus
appears before King Pentheus on charges of claiming divinity which is compared
to the New Testament scene of Jesus being interrogated by Pontius Pilate.

E. Kessler in a symposium Pagan
Monotheism in the Roman Empire, Exeter, 17–20 July 2006, states that
Dionysian cult had developed into strict monotheism by
the 4th century CE; together with Mithraism and
other sects the cult formed an instance of “pagan monotheism” in direct
competition with Early
Christianity during Late
Antiquity.

Symbolism

Satyr giving a grapevine to
Bacchus as a child; cameo
glass, first half of the 1st century AD; from Italy

The bull, serpent, ivy,
and wine are
characteristic of Dionysian atmosphere. Dionysus is also strongly associated
with satyrs, centaurs,
and sileni.
He is often shown riding a leopard,
wearing a leopard skin, or in a chariot drawn by panthers,
and may also be recognized by the thyrsus he
carries. Besides the grapevine and
its wild barren alter-ego, the toxic ivy plant, both sacred to him, the fig was
also his symbol. The pinecone that
tipped his thyrsus linked him to Cybele.
Dionysus had two extreme natures to his personality. For instance, he could
shift from bringing bliss and relaxation, which then often transitioned into
bitterness and fury. Dionysus personified the nature of wine. When used
reasonably it can be pleasant, however, if misused it can provoke negative
effects. The Dionysia and Lenaia festivals
in Athens were
dedicated to Dionysus. Initiates worshipped him in the Dionysian
Mysteries, which were comparable to and linked with the Orphic
Mysteries, and may have influenced Gnosticism.
Orpheus was said to have invented the Mysteries of Dionysus.

Dionysus was another god of resurrection who was strongly linked to the bull. In
a cult hymn from Olympia,
at a festival for Hera, Dionysus is invited to come as a bull; “with bull-foot
raging.” Walter
Burkert relates, “Quite
frequently [Dionysus] is portrayed with bull horns, and in Kyzikos he
has a tauromorphic image,” and refers also to an archaic myth in which Dionysus
is slaughtered as a bull calf and impiously eaten by the Titans. In
the Classical period of Greece, the bull and other animals identified with
deities were separated from them as their agalma,
a kind of heraldic show-piece that concretely signified their numinous presence.

Bacchanalia

Bacchus by Caravaggio

Introduced into Rome (c.
200 BC) from the Greek
culture of southern Italy or by
way of Greek-influenced Etruria,
the bacchanalia were held in secret and attended by women only, in the grove of
Simila, near theAventine
Hill, on March 16 and 17. Subsequently, admission to the rites was extended
to men and celebrations took place five times a month. The mystery-cult may have
been seen as a threat to the political status quo.

The notoriety of these festivals, where many kinds of crimes and political
conspiracies were supposed to be planned, led to a decree by the Senate in
186 BC — the so-called Senatus
consultum de Bacchanalibus, inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered in Calabria (1640),
now in Vienna —
by which the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout all Italy except in special
cases that required specific approval by the Senate. In spite of the severe
punishment inflicted on those found in violation of this decree, the Bacchanalia
were not stamped out, at any rate in the south of Italy, for a very long time.

Dionysus is equated with both Bacchus and Liber (also Liber
Pater). Liber (“the free one”) was a god of male fertility, wine, and
growth, whose female counterpart was Libera.
His festival was the Liberalia,
celebrated on March 17, but in some myths the festival was also held on March 5.

In Art

“Bacchus”
by Michelangelo (1497)

Classical

The god appeared on many kraters and
other wine vessels from classical
Greece. His iconography became more complex in the Hellenistic period,
between severe archaising or Neo
Attic types such as the Dionysus
Sardanapalus and types showing him as an indolent and androgynous young man and
often shown nude (see
the Dionysus
and Eros, Naples
Archeological Museum). The 4th-century Lycurgus
Cup in the British
Museum is a spectacular cage
cup which changes colour when
light comes through the glass; it shows the bound King Lycurgus being
taunted by the god and attacked by a satyr.

Elizabeth Kessler has theorized that a mosaic appearing on the triclinium floor
of the House of Aion in Nea
Paphos, Cyprus, details a monotheistic worship of Dionysus. In
the mosaic, other gods appear but may only be lesser representations of the
centrally imposed Dionysus.

Modern views

Dionysus has remained an inspiration to artists, philosophers and writers into
the modern
era. In The
Birth of Tragedy (1872), the
German philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche contrasted Dionysus
with the god Apollo as a symbol
of the fundamental, unrestrained aesthetic principle
of force, music, and intoxication versus the principle of form, beauty, and
sight represented by the latter. Nietzsche also claimed that the oldest forms of
Greek Tragedy were entirely based on suffering of Dionysus. Nietzsche continued
to contemplate the character of Dionysus, which he revisited in the final pages
of his 1886 work Beyond
Good and Evil. This reconceived Nietzschean Dionysus
was invoked as an embodiment of the central will
to power concept in Nietzsche’s
later works The
Twilight of the Idols, The
Antichrist and Ecce
Homo.

Károly Kerényi, a scholar in classical
philology and one of the founders
of modern studies in Greek
mythology characterized Dionysus
as representative of the psychological life force (Zoê). Other
scholars proposing psychological interpretations have placed Dionysus’ emotionality in
the foreground by focusing on the joy, terror or hysteria associated
with the god.

The Russian poet and philosopher Vyacheslav
Ivanov elaborated the theory of Dionysianism,
which traces the roots of literary art in general and the art of tragedy in
particular to ancient Dionysian mysteries. His views were expressed in the
treatisesThe Hellenic Religion of the Suffering God (1904),
and Dionysus and Early
Dionysianism (1921).

Inspired by James
Frazer, some have labeled Dionysus a life-death-rebirth
deity. The mythographer Karl
Kerenyi devoted much energy to
Dionysus over his long career; he summed up his thoughts in Dionysos:
Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life(Bollingen, Princeton, 1976).

Bacchus and the Choir of Nymphs (1888)
by John
Reinhard Weguelin

Dionysus is the main character of Aristophanes’ play The
Frogs, later updated to a modern
version by Burt
Shevelove (libretto) and Stephen
Sondheim (music and lyrics) (“The
time is the present. The place is ancient Greece. … “). In the play, Dionysus
and his slave Xanthius venture to Hades to bring a famed writer back from the
dead, with the hopes that the writer’s presence in the world will fix all nature
of earthly problems. In Aristophanes’ play, Euripides competes
against Aeschylus to be recovered from the underworld; In Sondheim and
Shevelove’s, George
Bernard Shaw faces William
Shakespeare.

The Romanised equivalent of Dionysus was referenced in the 1852 plantation
literature novel Aunt
Phillis’s Cabin, which featured a character named Uncle Bacchus, who was
so-named due to his excessive alcoholism.

Both Eddie
Campbell and Grant
Morrison have utilised the
character. Morrison claims that the myth of Dionysus provides the inspiration
for his violent and explicit graphic novel Kill
Your Boyfriend, whilst Campbell used the character in his Deadface series
to explore both the conventions of super-hero comic
books and artistic endeavour.

Dionysus is one of the central myths explored in the 2011 Weaponized anthology The
Immanence of Myth.

Walt Disney has depicted the
character on a number of occasions. The first such portrayal of Dionysus, as the
Roman Bacchus, was in the “Pastoral”
segment of Walt Disney’s third classic Fantasia.
In keeping with the more fun-loving Roman god, he is portrayed as an overweight,
happily drunk man wearing a tunic and
cloak, grape
leaves on his head, carrying a goblet of
wine, and riding a drunken donkey named Jacchus (“jackass”).
He is friends with the fauns and centaurs,
and is shown celebrating a harvest festival. Other portrayals have appeared in
both the Disney movie and spin-off
TV series of Hercules. He was
depicted as an overweight drunkard as opposed to his youthful descriptions in
myths. He has bright pink skin and rosy red cheeks hinting at his drunkenness.
He always carries either a bottle or glass of wine in his hand, and like in the
myths, wears a wreath of grape leaves upon his head. In the series he is known
by his Roman name “Bacchus,” and in one episode headlines his own festival known
as the “Bacchanal.”

In music Dionysius (together with Demeter)
was used as an archetype for the character Tori by contemporary artist Tori
Amos in her 2007 album American
Doll Posse, and the Canadian rock band Rush refer
to a confrontation and hatred between Dionysus and Apollo in
the Cygnus
X-1 duology.

Dionysus along with Lilith are
central characters in James
Curcio’s 2011 novel Fallen Nation: Party At The World’s End.

In literature, Dionysius has proven equally inspiring. Rick
Riordan’s series of books Percy
Jackson & The Olympians presents
Dionysus as an uncaring, childish and spoilt god who as a punishment for chasing
a nymph has to work in Camp Half-Blood and stay of alcohol. In Fred
Saberhagen’s 2001 novel, God
of the Golden Fleece, a young man
in a post-apocalyptic world picks up an ancient piece of technology shaped in
the likeness of the Dionysus. Here, Dionysus is depicted as a relatively weak
god, albeit a subversive one whose powers are able to undermine the authority of
tyrants.

A version of Bacchus also appears in C.
S. Lewis’ Prince
Caspian, part of The
Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis depicts him as dangerous-looking,
androgynous young boy who helps Aslan awaken the spirits of the Narnian trees
and rivers. He does not appear in the 2008 film version.

In 2009 the poet Stephen
Howarth and veteran theatre
producer Andrew Hobbs collaborated on a play entitled Bacchus
in Rehab with Dionysus as the
central character. The authors describe the piece as “combining highbrow concept
and lowbrow humour.”

The second season of True
Blood involves a plot line
wherein a maenad,
Maryann, causes mayhem in the Louisiana town of Bon Temps in attempt to summon
Dionysus.

Dionysus, going by his Roman name “Bacchus,” is a character in the 2011 video
game Rock
of Ages. Bacchus is a playable character in the multiplayer
online battle arena Smite.
He is a melee tank and
is nicknamed “God of Wine”.

Names originating
from Dionysus

• Dion (also spelled Deion, Deon and Dionne)
• Denise (also spelled Denice, Daniesa,
  Denese, and Denisse)
• Dennis, Denis or Denys (including the
  derivative surnames Denison and Dennison), Denny, Dennie
• Denis (Croatian),
  Dionis, Dionisie (Romanian)
• Dénes (Hungarian)
• Dionisio/Dyonisio (Spanish),
  Dionigi (Italian)
• Διονύσιος, Διονύσης, Νιόνιος (Dionysios,
  Dionysis, Nionios Modern
  Greek)
• Deniska (diminutive of Russian Denis,
  itself a derivative of the Greek)
• Dionísio (Portuguese)
• Dionizy (Polish)
• Deniz (Turkish)

Gallery

• 

  The Ludovisi
  Dionysuswith panther, satyr and grapes on a vine (Palazzo
  Altemps, Rome)

   

• 

  Dionysos riding a leopard, 4th-century BC mosaicfrom Pella

   

• 

  Statue of Dionysus
  (Sardanapalus) (Museo
  Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme, Rome)

   

• 

  Dionysus extending a drinking cup (kantharos),
  late 6th century BC

   

• 

  Drinking Bacchus (1623)Guido
  Reni

Nicopolis ad Istrum was a

Roman

and Early

Byzantine

town founded by Emperor

Trajan
around

101–106, at the junction of the Iatrus (Yantra)

and the Rositsa

rivers, in memory of his victory over the

Dacians
. Its

ruins are located at the village of

Nikyup

, 20 km north of

Veliko Tarnovo

in northern

Bulgaria
.

The town reached its apogee during the reigns of Trajan,

Hadrian
, the

Antonines

and the

Severan dynasty

.

The classical town was planned according to the orthogonal system. The

network of streets, the forum surrounded by an Ionic colonnade and many

buildings, a two-nave room later turned into a basilica and other public

buildings have been uncovered. The rich architectures and sculptures show a

similarity with those of the ancient towns in Asia Minor. Nicopolis ad Istrum

had issued coins, bearing images of its own public buildings.

In

447 AD

, the town was destroyed by

Attila’s

Huns
.

Perhaps it was already abandoned before the early 400s.

In the 6th century, it was rebuilt as a powerful fortress enclosing little more

than military buildings and churches, following a very common trend for the

cities of that century in the Danube area.The largest area of the extensive ruins (21.55 hectares) of the classical

Nicopolis was not reoccupied since the fort covered only one fourth of it (5.75

hectares), in the southeastern corner.

The town became an episcopal centre during the early Byzantine period. It was

finally destroyed by the Avar invasions at the end of the 6th century. A

Bulgarian medieval settlement arose upon its ruins later (10th-14th century).

Nicopolis ad Istrum can be said to have been the birthplace of

Germanic

literary tradition. In the 4th century, the

Gothic
bishop,

missionary and translator

Ulfilas
(Wulfila)

obtained permission from Emperor

Constantius II

to immigrate with his flock of converts to Moesia and settle

near Nicopolis ad Istrum in 347-8.

There, he invented the

Gothic alphabet

and translated the

Bible
from

Greek

to

Gothic

.