It's the Day of Hermes aka Mercurius Day aka #Wednesday! 🐏
"Indeed they would have chopt up little Bakkhos [#Dionysos] a baby still piecemeal in the distracted flood of their vagabond madness, had not #Hermes come on wing and stolen Bakkhos again with a robber's untracked footsteps."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 9.28
🏛 Hermes and baby Dionysos, detail of a red-figure krater. Today in the Musée du Louvre.
"#Dionysos was named twice-born by the ancients, counting it as a single and first birth when the plant is set in the ground and begins to grow, and as a second birth when it becomes laden with fruit and ripens its grape-clusters. The god is thus considered to have been born once from the earth and again from the vine."
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 3.62.5
Have a beautiful Day of Aphrodite aka Venus' Day aka Frigg's Day aka Friday 🌹
"About him bold Eros beat his wings, and Kythereia [Aphrodite] led, before Lyaios [Dionysos] the bridegroom. For Theseus had just sailed away, and left without pity the banished maiden [Ariadne] asleep on the shore."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 47.265
It's the Day of Zeus / Jupiter's Day / #Thursday! ⚡
"That gift of love consumed her. From her womb her baby, still not fully formed, was snatched, and sewn (could one believe the tale) inside his father's thigh, and so completed there his mother's time." #Ovid, Metamorphoses 3
🏛️ Birth of #Dionysos, detail, Roman sarcophagus with the Triumph of Dionysos, 190 CE, Walters Art Museum
📸 Lucas Livingston
It's the Day of Hermes aka Mercurius Day aka #Wednesday! 🐏
"Zeus taking up the child [Dionysos], handed it over to #Hermes, and ordered him to take it to the cave in Nysa, which lay between Phoenicia and Neilos [the River Nile]."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.2.3
🏛 Birth of #Dionysos from #Zeus' thigh, Roman work of the 2nd century after a Greek original of the late 4th century BCE, Vatican Museum
Dionysos Liknites, “Dionysos of the Winnowing-fan” is an epithet of #Dionysos because at birth he is said to have been laid on a winnowing-fan. Placing newborn children in winnowing-fans is “an omen of wealth and fruitfulness”.
Hermes, too, was "laid in swaddling-bands on the winnowing fan".
Have a beautiful Day of Aphrodite aka Venus' Day aka Frigg's Day aka Friday 🌹
"Lord [#Dionysos], with whom #Eros the subduer and the blue-eyed Nymphai, and radiant #Aphrodite play, as you haunt the lofty mountain peaks."
Anacreon, Fragment 357
🏛️ Relief detail of Aphrodite and Dionysos (and baby Eros), Sarkophag 7b, Antalya Museum
It's the Day of Zeus / Jupiter's Day / #Thursday! ⚡
Fufluns or Puphluns is the #Etruscan god of plant life, happiness, wine, health, and growth in all things. He is the son of the god Tinia and Semla, who was killed by Tinia in the form of a lightning bolt. Like #Zeus, Tinia sews the infant into his thigh and later gives birth to him.
🏛️ Birth of #Fufluns (#Dionysos), Etruscan mirror in Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale
"Seilenos (#Silenus), who was his adviser and instructor in the most excellent pursuits and contributed greatly to the high achievements and fame of #Dionysos."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.4.3
🏛️ Baby Dionysos in the arms of #Silenos, his foster father. From #Myrina, dated 2nd century CE. Today in the Musée du Louvre.
"And golden-haired #Dionysos made blonde-haired #Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, his buxom wife: and [Zeus] the son of Kronos made her deathless and unageing for him."
Hesiod, Theogony 947
🏛️ Painted terracotta figures of Bacchus and Ariadne, 50 BCE - 50 CE, Thappsus, Sicily; now in the #Ashmolean Museum, #Oxford
Exquisite gold offering bowl engraved with the drinking contest between #Bacchus and #Hercules. We know this story from art but no written account of this myth has survived.
🏛️ #Dionysos and #Herakles, Drinking Contest Detail, Patera of Rennes, Roman bowl, ca 210 CE. Today in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, #Paris.
@dyadya_boris@mythology@antiquidons@archaeodons The way I understand it, the association with #Dionysos with big cats in general and #panthers/#leopards more specifically is that they represent the dangerous side of wine/alcohol. Also, in myth, he was sent to fight a war against the Indians by his father #Zeus, his triumphant return sometimes depicted with him in a tiger-drawn chariot. In art, his kitties are usually female with swollen teats to visualise his fertility powers.
@dyadya_boris@archaeodons@AimeeMaroux@antiquidons@mythology I think that back then leopards were thought to be the product of the mating of a lion and a creature called pard (whatever that was…). I have also seen depictions of Dionysos riding cheetahs and there may have been some confusion between the two species. Maybe the Greeks thought leopards as strange as Dionysos himself, hence his association with them. #dionysos
This is one of my favourite depictions of #Dionysos in ancient art. My written version of him is largely based on this gold relief of drunken Dionysos and a panther, supported by a #satyr friend.
🏛️ Naiskos ("little temple") relief framed by the columns and pediment of a temple, 2nd century BCE, National Archaeological Museum #Athens
This bronze bust of the wine god Dionysos used to decorate a Thracian or Roman chariot.
🏛️ Bronze bust of #Dionysos from ancient Philipopolis (modern Plovdiv, #Bulgaria) dated to the 2nd century CE. He was the face of the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition in the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia.
"After #Hera inflicted madness upon him [#Dionysos], he wandered over #Egypt and Syria. The Egyptian king Proteus first welcomed him."
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 29
🏛️ Dionysos and #Ariadne, #Coptic Egyptian tapestry from the 4th century CE.
@smutstodon 3: Baths, Shower & Water Sex + Asterion
#Dionysos came closer, a small creature compared to the Bull of Minos. Asterion looked down, the horned head crowned with an ivy wreath just about reaching to his chest. There was mischief in those dark, divine eyes and #Asterion wondered if he should be scared when two soft hands picked up his flaccid cock.
"#Dionysos showed himself on the island [of Naxos], and because of the beauty of #Ariadne he took the maiden away from #Theseus and kept her as his lawful wife, loving her exceedingly."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.61.5
🏛️ Dionysos and Ariadne, #fresco from the Triclinium in the House of Vettii, #Pompeii