He was the god of fertility and wine, later considered a patron of the arts.
Dionysus was one of the most important Greek gods. He was thought to be the son of either Zeus and Persephone or of Zeus and Semele (and born from Zeus' thigh after Semele's death in this version). Dionysus was attended by a carousing band of satyrs, maenads, and nymphs. His worship was characteristically drunken and orgiastic. He was good and gentle to those who honored him, but he brought madness and destruction upon those who spurned him or the orgiastic rituals of his cult. He taught humans viticulture but was capable of dreadful revenge upon those (e.g., Orpheus and Pentheus) who denied his divinity.
According to tradition,
Dionysus died each winter and was reborn in the spring. To his followers,
this cyclical revival, accompanied by the seasonal renewal of the fruits
of the earth, embodied the promise of the resurrection of the dead.
The Romans identified him with Liber and Bacchus, who was more properly
the wine god.
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Dyonisus
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The author brings the immediate experience of Dionysus to the reader. In the first part, a general context is laid out. In the second, the stories of Dionysus are told, of a living presence. This immediacy makes the essay both powerful and compelling.
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D'audelaire's
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I received this book as a gift from my mother, when I was much, much younger. I loved it! To the Best Of My Memory, this book did a great job of explaining not only the Greek Gods and their descendants, but also the connections between them. It also features minor Gods, which is a great feature. It has been at least 20 years since I first read this book, and I can still remember this lovely book.
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Religions
of the ....
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Religions of the ancient greek
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Prolegomena
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Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion
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