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Plate 1 A bearded god crowned with ivy holding a wine cup, a thyrsus staff beside him

Dionysus

The Greek god of wine and of the theatre, son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of Cadmus. Greek art shows him crowned with ivy, holding a two-handled wine cup and the thyrsus, his ivy-wreathed staff, often with satyrs and maenads around him.

Greek gods and their symbols. Also called dionysus grapes, dionysus symbol, dionysus symbols, dionysus thyrsus, symbol of dionysus.

Meaning

Dionysus (dy-uh-NY-suhs, as Dictionary.com respells it) is the god of wine, fruitfulness and the drama, whom the Romans called Bacchus. His attributes were so well known that Pausanias could use them to describe another god: a statue of Zeus at Megalopolis was “like Dionysus in having buskins as footwear and in holding a beaker in one hand and a thyrsus in the other”. In Euripides’ Bacchae the god arrives at Thebes in a fawn-skin, “taking a thyrsos in my hand, a weapon of ivy”, and the twenty-sixth Homeric Hymn calls him “ivy-crowned”. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Roman marble known as the Hope Dionysos wears a panther skin over a short tunic, and a South Italian wine bucket in the same museum shows him driving a chariot pulled by griffins. Dean Cameron, a performing-arts technician who founded a Hellenic worshipping group in Los Angeles, told Religion News Service in 2017 that he is closest to Dionysus “because he’s the god of the theater”.

Origin and history

The seventh Homeric Hymn tells how Tyrsenian pirates seized him on a headland, taking him for a king’s son. The ropes would not hold him. Wine ran through the ship, a vine spread along the top of the sail with clusters hanging from it, and “a dark ivy-plant twined about the mast”; the god became a lion, and the sailors leapt into the sea and were turned into dolphins. Only the helmsman, who had recognised a god, was spared.

The hymn pictures him as a young man with dark hair. Older images showed him bearded. On the carved chest of Cypselus at Olympia, Pausanias saw Dionysus lying in a cave, “a bearded figure holding a golden cup”, in a tunic to his feet, with vines, apple trees and pomegranate trees around him. The Met’s amphora signed by the potter Andokides, about 530 BC, has him standing between a satyr and a maenad.

He was the god who brought Hephaestus home. Pausanias tells how Dionysus made the smith drunk and led him back to heaven to free Hera, and the Metropolitan Museum’s krater by Lydos shows the procession with his male and female followers, the satyrs and maenads.

Bacchus

The Romans called him Bacchus, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses uses that name throughout. In one story the daughters of Anius, who could turn whatever they touched into wine, grain and oil, cry “Father Bacchus, give us thy aid!” when they are taken captive, and the god saves them by turning them into doves.

See also

Hephaestus, Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena.

Sources

  1. Dionysus (Dictionary.com), Dictionary.com, “Dionysus” (Random House Unabridged Dictionary and The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy), Dictionary.com, entry and pronunciation
  2. Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.31.4 (tr. W. H. S. Jones), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (Loeb, 1918), 8.31.4, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Paus. 8.31.4
  3. Euripides, Bacchae 1–25 (tr. T. A. Buckley), Euripides, Bacchae, lines 1–25, translated by T. A. Buckley (1850), Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Eur. Ba. 1–25
  4. Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White), Hesiod, Theogony; Shield of Heracles; The Homeric Hymns, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb Classical Library, 1914), Project Gutenberg eBook #348, Project Gutenberg, Homeric Hymn XXVI, To Dionysus; Homeric Hymn VII, To Dionysus; Homeric Hymn VII, ll. 1–24
  5. Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.19.6 (tr. W. H. S. Jones), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (Loeb, 1918), 5.19.6, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Paus. 5.19.6 (the chest of Cypselus)
  6. Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.20.3 (tr. W. H. S. Jones), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (Loeb, 1918), 1.20.3, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Paus. 1.20.3
  7. The Hope Dionysos, 1990.247 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Statue of Dionysos leaning on a female figure (“Hope Dionysos”), Roman, 27 BC–AD 68, accession 1990.247, catalogue entry, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogue description
  8. Situla attributed to the Lycurgus Painter, 56.171.64 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Terracotta situla attributed to the Lycurgus Painter, Apulian, ca. 360–340 BC, accession 56.171.64, catalogue entry, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogue description
  9. Amphora signed by Andokides, 63.11.6 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Terracotta amphora signed by Andokides as potter, Attic, ca. 530 BC, accession 63.11.6, catalogue entry, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogue description
  10. Column-krater attributed to Lydos, 31.11.11 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Terracotta column-krater attributed to Lydos, Attic, ca. 550 BC, accession 31.11.11, catalogue entry, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogue description
  11. The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books VIII–XV (tr. Henry T. Riley), Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by Henry T. Riley (1851), Project Gutenberg eBook #26073, Project Gutenberg, Book XIII, ll. 623–718
  12. Spiritual seekers reconstruct ancient Greek polytheism (Religion News Service, 7 March 2017), Religion News Service, “Spiritual seekers reconstruct ancient Greek polytheism”, 7 March 2017, Religion News Service, article text

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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 8, 2026. How we research

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