"Let us be merry and drink wine and sing of Bakkhos [#Dionysos], the inventor of the choral dance, the lover of all songs, leading the same life as the Erotes, the darling of Kythere [#Aphrodite]."
The Anacreontea, Fragment 38
🏛️ Roman terracotta relief dated 20 BCE - 50 CE. Today in the British Museum.
"Let us be merry and drink wine and sing of Bakkhos [#Dionysos], the inventor of the choral dance, the lover of all songs, leading the same life as the Erotes, the darling of Kythere [#Aphrodite]."
The Anacreontea, Fragment 38
🏛️ Roman terracotta relief dated 20 BCE - 50 CE. Today in the British Museum.
Silver #coin depicting the god #Dionysos sitting in his biga, a chariot drawn by a team of two animals. Dionysos is holding his iconic thyrsos, a staff of giant fennel. #Apollon Kitharoidos, Apollon the kithara player, is sitting beside him. The biga is drawn by a panther and a goat, both of which are animals sacred to Dionysos.
It's the Day of Hermes aka Mercurius Day aka #Wednesday! 🐏
Baby #Dionysos sitting on the lap of his big brother #Hermes is given to the #satyr Tropheus and the nymphs of Nysa. Also in the scene are Anatrophe (“upbringing”), as well as Ambrosia and Nektar (food and drink of the gods).
"Phaethon [#Helios] laughed, because #Ares in the seafight of [#Dionysos against the Indians] had fled again before the fire of #Hephaistos, as once before he fled from his chains."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 39.403
🎨 Helios (possibly Alexander of Macedon) bronze bust, 1st century CE.
It's #InternationalBatNight this weekend! The #BatNight has taken place every year since 1997 in more than 30 countries in Africa and Europe on the last full weekend of August. 🦇 #Bats rarely feature in #GreekMythology but they appear in #Aesop's fables as a creature of dual nature, neither bird nor mouse. As an animal blurring the lines, it fits well with #Dionysos, a god who blurs the lines not between mouse and bird but between male and female.
The story of #Dionysos and the Minyades appears in Plutarch's Greek Questions 38 and in the Metamorphoses of both Ovid and Antoninus Liberalis. The daughters of Minyas, Leukippe, Arsippe and Alkathoe were startlingly diligent. They strongly criticised other women for abandoning the city to roam the hills as Bacchantes. Dionysos took on the likeness of a girl and urged the Minyades not to miss out on the rites and mysteries of the god. But they paid him no heed.
#Dionysos was angered and turned into a bull, then a lion, then a leopard. From the beams of their looms there flowed for him milk and nectar. Gripped by terror, the maidens threw lots determining that Leukippe had to offer her son as a sacrifice to the god. They tore him to pieces and went into the mountains as Bacchantes until #Hermes (or Dionysos himself) changed them into #bats.
"I swear by the cluster-bearing delight of Dionysos' vine."
Euripides, Bacchae 535
🏛️ Marble sculpture of #Dionysos found in Italy, dated 2nd century CE. Arms and legs were heavily restored in the 18th century. Today in the Musée du Louvre.
The glossary for August's erotic mythology story is going to be looooong 😳
In the story, #Dionysos and #Ariadne visit #Egypt, invited by the goddess #Hathor, and as I am not as well-versed in Egyptian history, it was tough getting the details right. I always aim to bring the ancient world alive and it is supposed to be a place where young gods like Dionysos and Ariadne seem like children to the ancient deities who ruled over Egypt for centuries if not millenia when the story takes place.
It's #BlackCatAppreciationDay but #Dionysos and his pet panthers are celebrating it every day.
Just like we do with my sister's adorable black cat Emilia 🥰
This week's #MythologyMonday theme is artworks featuring mythology. There are, of course, countless depictions of mythological scenes from ancient times. Some myths, in fact, are ONLY known through artwork, for example the drinking contest between #Herakles and #Dionysos.
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There are quite a lot of artworks I love that were made in our modern day, especially from independent creators who just love #mythology. It is impossible to pick just one so here are four of my favourite artworks from contemporary artists.
This beautiful mosaic shows #Dionysos, also known in Latin as #Bacchus or #FatherLiber, pouring wine from a rhyton, a vessel from which wine or water were intended to be drunk or to be poured, either in a libation or at table. In this scene, Dionysos is pouring it to his pet panther.
🏛️ Roman mosaic, today in the National Museum of #Beirut
#Eros adjusts the kottabos stand, a popular game at #ancientGreek symosia. #Dionysos reclines on a couch, his lower body richly draped, holding a thyrsos in his left hand and a wine cup in his right.
🏛️ Red-figure vase painting on a bell krater, dated 395–375 BCE.
This week's #MythologyMonday theme is healing. The God of Healing is #Apollon but there are other gods who share in a subset of his power. Apollon's son #Asklepios famously brought dead people back to life. Deified after his untimely death by Zeus' thunderbolt, he received a cult of his own, the Temples of Asklepios serving as hospitals. Asklepios had children of his own, among them Panacea (Cure-all), and Hygieia (Health).
But he is not the only healing god associated with Apollon.
An older god of healing who appears in the #Iliad as the Healer of the Gods is #Paian. In the Iliad, Paian heals #Ares after the latter is injured by #Diomedes and #Athena through medicine that produces instant relief. #Hades is healed in a similar fashion after #Herakles' arrow (thankfully without hydra blood) pierces him.
Paian is later reduced to an epithet of both #Apollon and his son #Asklepios.
A god that is not usually associated with medicine but has a healing aspect is #Dionysos.
Dionysos Hygiates, Dionysos the Dispenser of Health, is Dionysos’ healing aspect. In #GreekMythology, he originally titled himself #Dionysos Iatros, (Doctor), but the Pythia of Delphi declared that he is not a doctor, but rather a dispenser of health. While #Apollon ensures the health of the city and the people, Dionysos spreads good health because wine has healing properties, as well as the vegetation he rules over.
Source: Forgetting Delphi between Apollo and Dionysus, by Marcel Detienne
Daddy Dionysos and #Herakles enjoying each other's company at a symposion. Note the chest hair! Both Dionysos and Herakles were demigod sons of Zeus who were deified and ascended to Olympos later in life. #Dionysos was born before Herakles and thus was a god when he was still mortal.
🏛️ Red-figure vase painting. Today in the British Museum.