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Sparta Flash Card #31: Myths and Legends: Lycurgus Historian Evidence LYCURGUS (8th c.?): [Founder of the Spartan ‘Constitution’] ARCHIDAMUS -Being asked why he had not made any use of written laws, he said, "Because those who are trained and disciplined in the proper discipline can determine what will best serve the occasion." -"Lycurgus did not put his laws in writing: in fact, one of the so-called rhetras is a prohibition to this effect. Instead he reckoned that the guiding principles of most importance for the happiness and excellence of a state would remain securely fixed if they were embedded in the citizens' character and training..." (Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus ch. 13) -In answer to a man who expressed surprise because (Lycurgus) did not permit a husband to spend the night with his wife, but ordained that he should be with his comrades most of the day and pass the whole night in their company, and visit his bride in secret and with great circumspection, he said, "So that they may be strong in body and never become sated, and that they may always be fresh in affection, and that the children which they bring into the world may be more sturdy." -He banished perfume, on the ground that it spoiled and ruined the olive oil; and also the dyer's art, on the ground that it was a flattery to the senses." -When someone inquired of him who were at the head of Sparta, said, "The Laws, and the Magistrates in accordance Relationship to other Syllabus dot points son of Zeuxidamus (King, 469-427): with the Laws." PAUSANIAS, on Sparta From: Pausanias, Loeb Classical Library, Vol. II (tr. W.H.S. Jones & H.A. Ormerod )(1926) Periegesis Hellados III I. (1)...According to the tradition of the Lacedaemonians themselves, Lelex, an aboriginal, was the first king in this land, after whom his subjects were named Leleges. Lelex had a son Myles, and a younger one, Polycaon.... On the death of Myles, his son Eurotas succeeded to the throne... Having no male issue he left the kingdom to Lacedaemon, whose mother was Taygete, after whom the mountain was named, while according to report his father was none other than Zeus. Lacedaemon was wedded to Sparta, a daughter of Eurotas. When he came to the throne, he first changed the names of the land and its inhabitants, calling them after himself, and next he founded and named after his wife a city, which even down to our own day has been called Sparta. Amyclas, too, son of Lacedaemon, wished to leave some memorial behind him, and built a town in Laconia. Hyacinthus , the youngest and most beautiful of his sons, died before his father, and his tomb is in Amyclae below the image of Apollo.... (5)...On the return of the Heracleidai in the reign of Tisamenus, son of Orestes, both districts, Messene and Argos, had kings put over them; Argos had Temenos and Messene had Cresphontes. In Lacedaemon, as the sons of Aristodemus were twins, there arose two royal houses; for they say that the Pythian Priestess approved. Tradition has it that Aristodemus himself died at Delphi before the Dorians returned to the Peloponnesus, but those who glorify his fate assert that he was shot by Apollo for not going to the oracle, having learned from Heracles, who met him before he arrived there, that the Dorians would make this return to the Peloponnesus. But the more correct account is that Aristodemus was murdered by the sons of Pylades and Electra, who were cousins of Tisamenus, son of Orestes. (7) The names given to the sons of Aristodemus were Procles and Eurysthenes, and although they were twins they were bitter enemies. LYKOURGOS (or Lycurgus) was an impious king of the Edonians of Thrake who attacked Dionysos when the god was travelling through his land instructing men in the art of winemaking or, in another version of the tale, while the god was still a child in the care of the Nymphs of Mount Nysa. As the troupe fled, Lykourgos struck down the god's nurse Ambrosia with his axe The rest dived into the sea where they were given refuge by the goddess Thetis. As punishment for his crime, Lykourgos was inflicted with madness and in this crazed state slew his wife and sons. His own death followed quickly after:--some say that he chopped off his own feet with an axe before killing himself; others that he was struck blind and being scorned by all died in destitution; or that he was torn apart by his own horses; or devoured by the panthers of the god; or wrapped in strangling vines and despatched to Haides for eternal torment. Lykourgos' fate was not unique--Pentheus, Orpheus, the Proitides and the Minyades were also suffered severe punishment for scorning the god. PARENTS [1.1] DRYAS (Homer Iliad 6.129, Apollodorus 3.34, Hyginus Fabulae 132) [2.1] BOREAS (Diodorus Siculus 5.50.2) OFFSPRING [1.1] ARDYS, ASTAKIOS (by Kytis) (Greek Papyri III No. 129) ENCYCLOPEDIA LYCURGUS (Lykourgos), a son of Dryas, and king of the Edones in Thrace. He is famous for his persecution of Dionysus and his worship on the sacred mountain of Nyseion in Thrace. The god himself leaped into the sea, where he was kindly received by Thetis. Zeus thereupon blinded the impious king, who died soon after, for he was hated by the immortal gods. (Hom. Il. vi. 130, &c.) The punishment of Lycurgus was represented in a painting in a temple at Athens. (Paus. i. 20. § 20.) The above Homeric story about Lycurgus has been much varied by later poets and mythographers. Some say that Lycurgus expelled Dionysus from his kingdom, and denied his divine power; but being intoxicated with wine, he first attempted to do violence to his own mother, and to destroy all the vines of his country. Dionysus then visited him with madness, in which he killed his wife and son, and cut off one (some say both) of his legs; or, according to others, made away with himself. (Hygin. Fab. 132, 242; Serv. ad Aen. iii. 14.) According to Apollodorus (iii. 5. § 1), Dionysus, on his expeditions, came to the kingdom of Lycurgus, but was expelled; where-upon he punished the king with madness, so that he killed his son Dryas, in the belief that he was cutting down a vine. When this was done, Lycurgus recovered his mind; but his country produced no fruit, and the oracle declared that fertility should not be restored unless Lycurgus were killed. The Edonians therefore tied him, and led him to mount Pangaeum, where he was torn to pieces by horses. Diodorus (i. 20, iii. 65) gives a sort of rationalistic account of the whole transaction. According to Sophocles (Antig. 955, &c.), Lycurgus was entombed in a rock. (Comp. Ov. Trist. v. 3, 39.) Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Homer, Iliad 6. 129 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) : "I will not fight against any god of the heaven, since even the son of Dryas, Lykourgos the powerful, did not live long; he who tried to fight with the gods of the bright sky, who once drove the fosterers of rapturous (mainomenos) Dionysos headlong down the sacred Nyseian hill, and all of them shed and scattered their wands on the ground, stricken with an ox-goad by murderous Lykourgos, while Dionysos in terror dived into the salt surf, and Thetis took him to her bosom, frightened, with the strong shivers upon him at the man’s blustering. But the gods who live at their ease were angered with Lykourgos and the son of Kronos [Zeus] struck him to blindness, nor did he live long afterwards, since he was hated by all the immortals." Stesichorus, Fragment 234 (from Scholiast on Homer's Iliad) (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric III) (Greek lyric C7th to C6th B.C.) : "When he [Dionysos] was pursued by Lykourgos and took refuge in the sea, Thetis gave him a kindly welcome, and he gave her the amphora, Hephaistos' handiwork. She gave it to her son [Akhilleus], so that when he died his bones might be put in it. The story is told by Stesikhoros." Aeschylus, Edonians (lost play) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) : Aeschylus dramatized the story of Lykourgos in a lost trilogy of plays, the first of which was entitled the Edonians. Aeschylus, Fragment 28 Edonians (from Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime 15. 6) (trans. Smyth) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) : "Lo, the house [of Lykourgos] is frenzied with the god [Dionsysos], the roof revels, Bakkhante-like." Aeschylus, The Youths (lost play) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) : The Youths or Neaniskoi was the third play in Aeschylus' Lykourgos trilogy. According to Smyth (L.C.L.) : "The Youths apparently has its name form the Edonians who celebrated the worship of Dionysus that had gained admission into the kingdom of Lycurgus despite the opposition of that prince." Aeschylus, Lycurgus (lost play) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) : The satyric play of the Lycurgean trilogy. Aeschylus, Fragment 56 Lycurgus (from Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 10. 67. 447C) (trans. Smyth) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) : "And after this he [Lykourgos] drank beer thinned by age, and made thereof loud boast [against Dionysos] in the banquet-hall." Aeschylus, Fragment 10 Bassarae (from Hephaestion, Handbook of Metres 13. 43) : "The bull [Dionysos] was like to butt the goat [Lykourgos] with his horns." Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 34 - 35 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "[Dionysos] set out eagerly through Thrake. Now Lykourgos, son of Dryas and king of the Edonians, who lived beside the Strymon River, was the first to show his hybris to Dionysos by expelling him. Dionysos fled to the sea and took shelter with Nereus’ daughter Thetis, but his Bakkhai were taken captive along with the congregation of Satyroi that accompanied him. Later on, the Bakkhai were suddenly set free, and Dionysos caused Lykourgos to go mad. In this state, thinking he was cutting a vine-branch, Lykourgos killed his son Dryas by cutting off his arms and legs with an axe. Then he regained his senses. When his land remained barren, the god [Apollon] made an oracular pronouncement to the effect that, if Lykourgos were to die, there would again be fertile crops. When the Edonians heard this, they took Lykourgos to Mount Pangaion and bound him, and there in accordance with the will of Dionysos, he was destroyed by his horses and died." Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 3. 4 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.) : "He [Dionysos] also punished here and there throughout all the inhabited world many men who were thought to be impious, the most renowned among the number being Pentheus and Lykourgos." Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 50. 1 - 6 : "Naxos. This island was first called Strongylê and its first settlers were men from Thrake, the reason for their coming being somewhat as follows. The myth relates that two sons, Boutes and Lykourgos, were born to Boreas, but not by the same mother; and Boutes, who was the younger, formed a plot against his brother, and on being discovered he received no punishment from Lykourgos beyond that he was ordered by Lykourgos to gather ships and, together with his accomplices in the plot, to see out another land in which to make his home. Consequently Boutes, together with the Thrakians who were implicated with him, set forth, and making his way through the islands of Kyklades he seized the island of Strongylê, where he made his home and proceeded to plunder many of those who sailed past the island. And since they had no women they sailed here and there and seized them from the land. Now some of the islands of the Kyklades had no inhabitants whatsoever and others were sparsely settled; consequently they sailed further, and having been repulsed once from Euboia, they sailed to Thessalia, where Boutes and his companions, upon landing, came upon the female devotees of Dionysos as they were celebrating the orgies of the god near Drios, as it is called, in Akhaia Phthiotis. As Boutes and his companions rushed at the women, these threw away the sacred objects, and some of them fled for safety to the sea, and others to the mountain called Drios; but Koronis, the myth continues, was seized by Boutes and forced to lie with him. And she, in anger at the seizure and at the insolent treatment she had received, called upon Dionysos to lend her his aid. And the god struck Boutes with madness, because of which he lost his mind and, throwing himself into a well, met his death. But the rest of the Thrakians seized some of the other women, the most renowned of whom were Iphimedeia, the wife of Aloios, and Pankratis, her daughter, and taking these women along with them, they sailed off to Strongylê. And in place of Boutes the Thrakians made Agassamenos king of the island, and to him they united in marriage, Pankratis, the daughter of Aloios, who was a woman of surpassing beauty." Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 20. 2 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) : "[In the temple of Dionysos at Athens :] There are paintings here . . . there are represented Pentheus and Lykourgos paying the penalty of their insolence to Dionysos." Anonymous, Dionysus and Lycurgus Fragment (trans. Page, Vol. Select Papyri III, No. 129) (Greek epic C3rd A.D.) : [Fragment of a hymn to Dionysos. Where our fragment begins, the countryside is by a sudden miracle rendered waste and desert. Lykourgos is terrified. Dionysos appears and assails him with thunder and lightning. Mainades and Satyroi assault his person, and Dionysos distracts his soul with madness.] ". .(whence) the playful Saytroi were born. Neither flowed the spring beside the elm, nor were there ways of watering, nor paths nor fences nor trees, but all had vanished. Only the smooth plain appeared again. Where a meadow was before, close came Lykourgos, heartstricken with mighty fear and speechlessness. For irresistibly, beyond mortal defence, all their works were upset and turned about before their eyes. But when Lykourgos knew him for the glorious son of Zeus, pale terror fell upon his spirit; the ox-goad, wherewith he had been at labour smiting, fell from his hand before his feet. He had no will to utter or to ask a word. Now might that poor wretch have escaped his gloomy fate : but he besought not then the divinity to abate his wrath. In his heart he foresaw that doom was nigh to him, when he saw Dionysos come to assail him amid lightnings that flashed manifold with repeated thunderclaps, while Zeus did great honour to his son’s destructive deeds. So Dionysos urged his ministers, and they together sped against Lykourgos and scourged him with rods of foliage. Unflinching he stood, like a rock that juts into the marble sea and groans when a wind arises and blows, and abides the smiting of the seas : even so abode Lykourgos steadfast, and recked not of their smiting. But ever more unceasing wrath went deep into the heart of Thyone’s son : he was minded not at all to take his victim with a sudden death, but rather to break him under a lengthy doom, that still alive he might repay a grievous penalty. He sent madness upon him, and spread about the phantom shapes of serpents, that he might spend the time fending them away, till baneful Rumour (phêmê) of his madness should arrive at Thebes on wings and summon Ardys and Astakios, his two sons, and Kytis who married him and was subdued to his embrace. They, when led by Rumour’s (phêmê) many tongues they came, found Lykourgos just now released from suffering, worn out by madness. They cast their arms around him as he lay in the dust-fools! they were destined to perish at their father’s hand before their mother’s eyes! For not long after, madness, at the command of Dionysos, aroused Lykourgos yet again with real frenzy. He thought that he was smiting serpents; but they were his children form whom he stole the spirit forth. And now would Kytis have fallen about them : but in compassion Dionysos snatched her forth and set her beyond the reach of doom, because she had warned her lord constantly in his storms of evil passion. Yet she could not persuade her master, too stubborn; he, when his sudden madness was undone, recognized the god through experience of suffering. Still Dionysos abated not his wrath : as Lykourgos stood unflinching, yet frenzied by distress, the god spread vines about him and fettered all his limbs. His neck and both ankles imprisoned, he suffered the most pitiable doom of all men on earth : and now in the land of sinners his phantom endures that endless labour--drawing water into a broken pitcher : the stream is poured forth into Haides. Such is the penalty which the loud-thundering son of Kronos ordained for men that fight against the gods; that retribution may pursue them both living and again in death . . " Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 2. 433 ff (trans. Way) (Greek epic C4th A.D.) : "In her [Thetis'] bowers she sheltered Dionysos, chased by might of murderous Lykourgos from the earth." Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 132 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Lycurgus, son of Dryas, drove Liber [Dionysos] from his kingdom. When he denied that Liber [Dionysos] was a god, and had drunk wine, and in drunkenness tried to violate his mother, he then tried to cut down the vines, because he said wine was a bad medicine in that it affected the mind. Under madness sent by Liber [Dionysos] he killed his wife and son. Liber threw Lycurgus himself to his panthers on Rhodope, a mountain of Thrace, over which he ruled. He is said to have cut off one foot thinking it was a vine." Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 192 : "There are those who think they [i.e. the five Hyades] are among the stars because they were the nurses of Father Liber [Dionysos] whom Lycurgus drove out from the island of Naxos." Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 242 : "Men who committed suicide . . . Lycurgus, son of Dryas, killed himself in madness sent by Liber [Dionysos]." Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 21 : "The Hyades. These, Pherecydes the Athenian [mythographer C5th B.C.] says, are the nurses of Liber [Dionysos], seven in number, who earlier were nymphae called Dodonidae. Their names are as follows: Ambrosia, Eudora, Pedile, Coronis, Polyxo, Phyto, and Thyone. They are said to have been put to flight by Lycurgus and all except Ambrosia took refuge with Thetis, as Asclepiades [poet C3rd B.C.] says." [N.B. In Greek mosaics, Ambrosia falls beneath the axe of Lykourgos.] Ovid, Metamorphoses 4. 22 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "You, most worshipful [Dionysos], sent to their doom Lycurgus with his two-edged battleaxe, and Pentheus, both blasphemers." Ovid, Fasti 3. 720 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "It were long to relate the triumphs won by the god [Dionysos] over the Sithonians and the Scythians, and how he subdued the peoples of India, that incense-bearing land. I will say naught of him [Pentheus] who fell a mournful prey to his own Theban mother,68 nor of Lycurgus, whom frenzy drove to hack at his own son." Ovid, Heroides 2. 111 ff (trans. Showerman) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "The broad, broad realms of Lycurgus . . . where stretches icy Rhodope to Haemus with its shades, and sacred Hebrus drives his headlong waters forth." Virgil, Aeneid 3. 13 (trans. Fairclough) (Roman epic C1st B.C.) : "At a distance lies the war god’s land, of widespread plains, tilled by Thracians, and once ruled by fierce Lycurgus." Seneca, Hercules Furens 93 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy C1st A.D.) : "[Dionysos] the tamer of Lycurgus and the ruddy sea [i.e. the Tyrrhenian pirates], who bears a spear-point hidden beneath his vine-wreathed staff." Seneca, Oedipus 469 ff : "The Massgetan [a Thrakian tribe] who mingles blood with milk in his goblets has unstrung his vanquished bow and given up his Getan arrows; the realms of axe-wielding Lycurgus have felt the dominion of Bacchus [Dionysos]; the fierce lands of the Zalaces have felt it, and those wandering tribes whom neighbouring Boreas smites." Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 1. 729 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.) : "Thyoneus [i.e. Dionysos] has turned his savage horns against the guilty Thracians, and now the mountains of unhappy Haemus filled with madness a thousandfold, now the tall forests of Rhodope groan--such was Lycurgus before whom wife and sons in flight speed down the long colonnades." Statius, Thebaid 4. 54 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.) : "The Stygian Eumenides[Erinyes] . . . dip their faces and the horned snakes that gasp from drinking Phlegethon, whether they [the Erinyes] have ruined Thracian homes [i.e. the house of Lykourgos] or Mycenae’s impious palace or Cadmus’ dwelling." [N.B. An Erinys appears in Athenian vase-paintings depicting the madness of Lykourgos.] Statius, Thebaid 7. 180 ff : "To Thrace and the forests of Lycurgus." Sources: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Homer, The Iliad - Greek Epic C8th B.C. Greek Lyric III, Stesichorus Fragments - Greek Lyric C7th-6th B.C. Aeschylus, Fragments - Greek Tragedy C5th B.C. Apollodorus, The Library - Greek Mythography C2nd A.D. Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History - Greek History C1st B.C. Pausanias, Description of Greece - Greek Travelogue C2nd A.D. Greek Papyri III Anonymous, Fragments - Greek Epic C3rd A.D. Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy - Greek Epic C4th A.D. Ovid, Metamorphoses - Latin Epic C1st B.C. - C1st A.D. Ovid, Fasti - Latin Poetry C1st B.C. - C1st A.D. Ovid, Heroides - Latin Poetry C1st B.C. - C1st A.D. Virgil, Aeneid - Latin Epic C1st B.C. Seneca, Hercules Furens - Latin Tragedy C1st A.D. Seneca, Oedipus - Latin Tragedy C1st A.D. Valerius Flaccus, The Argonautica - Latin Epic C1st A.D. Statius, Thebaid - Latin Epic C1st A.D. Other references not currently quoted here : Diodorus Siculus 1.20, 3.65; Nonnus Dionysiaca Bks 20 & 21; Scholiast on Homer's Iliad 6.129; Sophocles Antigone 955; Tzetzes on Lycophron 273; Servius on Virgil's Aeneid 3.14; First Vatican Mythographer 122 Dionysos is the son of Zeus, chief of the Olympians, and Semele, a woman of Thebes, according to the most used geneology. Dionysos is the god of wine and madness, vegetation, and the theatre, and was the focus of various mystery cults (which were not, perhaps, exactly cults, but let's not get into that). Oh, Thebes, nurse of Semele, crown your hair with ivy! Grow green with bryony! Redden with berries! O city, with boughs of oak and fir, come dance the dance of god! Fringe your skins of dappled fawn with tufts of twisted wool! Handle with holy care the violent wand of god! And let the dance begin! He is Bromius who runs to the mountain! To the mountain! Where the throng of women waits, driven from shuttle and loom, possessed by Dionysos! Euripidies, The Bacchae, trans. Richmond Lattimore Dionysos is a strange god. Although he is best known as the god of wine, he is also a vegetation deity, a god of the liquid element, a death god, a god who comes into and changes, often irrevocably, the normal community life, and lastly the god of the theatre. His role as vegetation deity is obvious; he introduced the grapevine and taught the secrets of its cultivation and of fermenting wine. He is also associated with the fir tree and with ivy-- his symbol the thrysus, which his worshippers carry, is a branch or stalk of fennel tipped with ivy leaves or sometimes a pine cone. He is often paired with Demeter, goddess of grain. Water is also a part of Dionysos's domain. The myth of Lycurgus, related in the Iliad, tells how a young Dionysos and his foster mothers were attacked and chased by the impious Lycurgus. Dionysos fled into the sea and was sheltered by Thetis. The god is also a sailor; there is a myth which tells how he was once kidnapped by pirates and taken aboard a boat. The god then turned the pirates into dolphins. The sea is a refuge for Dionysos. Water, according to W. F. Otto, is the element in which Dionysos feels at home, as like him it betrays a dual nature: being bright, joyous, and vital for life, while also having a side that is dark, mysterious and deadly. Dionysos is the wine-god, and thus should be a pleasant fellow, a benefactor. But wine has both positive and negative aspects. It makes people drunk, causes them to behave in strange ways. The Greeks were well aware of the dual natures of wine, mirrored by the dual nature of its god. The story goes that Dionysos paid a visit to the house of a horticulturist, Ikarios. He left with this man a vine-plant, telling him that by following the instructions he would be able to extract from the plant an unusual drink. Ikarios planted the vine, harvested the grapes, fermented the liquid exactly as he had been told to. He then invited his neighbours over to taste the new wine. The fragrance of the drink amazed them, and before long they were singing its praises. Then suddenly the drinkers began to collapse, falling over in drunken stupor. Those left standing accused Ikarios of poisoning them, and they beat him to death and threw his mutilated body into a well. His daughter hanged herself. This, according to myth, was the first manifestation of Dionysos, benefactor of mankind, giver of good things. Dionysos certainly roves more than the other gods; the traditional picture of him is not one of him sitting sedately on Olympus sipping nectar and listening to the Muses sing. Rather it is one of him roaming through the wilderness, thrysus in hand, followed by bands of ecstatic women, his Bacchants, and spreading the art of cultivation of vines and of wine-making. Other gods may leave Olympus, but it is not habitual with them as it is with Dionysos. Dionysos often seems to stand somewhere between male and female, between god and man, between death and life. He is a male god, but he is always surrounded by women, his chief worshippers. His worship involved transvestism and the blurring of sex roles. Men and women both dressed in long robes covered by fawnskins, and women, as bacchants, left their normal sphere of activity, the home, and danced madly on mountainsides. Dionysos even looks somewhat ambiguous sexually; Pentheus in the Bacchae comments on the god's effeminacy: his long curls, his pale complexion. Dionysos is also, unlike most of the other gods, the son of a mortal woman, Semele. This means that by birth he is a native son of two realms, the mortal and the divine. This theme also shows in Dionysos' marriage to a mortal woman, Ariadne. According to the myth, as a young child, Dionysos was kidnapped by the Titans, who lured him with marvellous toys. While he is gazing at his own image in a mirror, the Titans slice his throat with a sacrificial knife. The childDionysos is then cut up into pieces and first boiled, then roasted. Zeus is attracted by the smell of cooking, and when he realises what is being cooked, he kills the Titans with a thunderbolt and resurrects Dionysos. According to some variants of the story, man then first appeared, born from the ashes of the burned Titans. So Dionysos is the god who dies and is reborn, and from his death... his sacrifice, for the titans follow correct sacrificial procedure when killing him, humanity comes into being. But those at whose hands Persephone accepts atonement for her ancient grief, their souls in the ninth year she sends up again to the sun of this world … and for all time to come they are called of men holy heroes. Pindar, fragment quoted by Plato. In Orphic theology, Dionysos is the son of Persephone, Queen of the underworld, rather than Semele. Zeus remains his father; he is said to have impregnated his daughter Persephone in the form of a snake. The Orphics both identified the soul as separate from the body, and gave a reason for it being present in the body: it is being punished. The reason for the punishment is alluded to in the passage above. The ancient grief of Persephone, according to one arguement, is sorrow for the death of her son Dionysos at the hands of the Titans. Humans pay the punishment because they were formed from the Titan’s ashes and have a Titanic nature. By living an Orphic life and avoiding the bloodshedding which is the legacy of the Titans, humans may pay the penalty and achieve freedom. Death forms a major part of the worship of Dionysos. In general, most of the Olympian gods seem to disapprove of murder and cannibalism. They reserve one of their harshest punishments in the underworld for Tantalus, who killed his son and served him to the gods at a banquet. Dionysos, by contrast, seems to revel in human sacrifice. There are a number of myths which involve women who he has driven mad as punishment who tear apart their children with their bare hands and later, occasionally, eat them. The best known example is that of Agave in the Bacchants. Agave, is running wild on the mountain with the rest of the women of Thebes, having been driven mad by the god, who is fighting to establish his worship in this city. Her son Pentheus, who opposes Dionysos, is lured by the god into going to spy on the women. Agave and her sisters rush upon Pentheus and tear him apart with their bare hands, scattering the pieces of his body over the mountainside. Dionysos's worship is thus established by the simple means of killing the opposition. But the story has deeper connotations as well. Pentheus in this case has been dressed up in the same bacchic costume of fawnskin and thrysus that the god himself wears. It is possible that he is serving as a stand-in for the god, dying the death of Dionysos at the hands of his mother rather than the Titans. It has been suggested that every tragic hero who suffers and dies on stage at the Dionysia, the great dramatic festival at Athens, is in fact Dionysos himself, being killed. In conjunction with this, it has also been proposed that the sacrifice plot was the original plot of tragedy, and the festival of the Dionysia honoured Dionysos by reenacting his death. It is interesting to note that a surprising number of children are killed in tragedy, as the child-god himself was killed. The most obvious parallel is with Atreus, who killed the children of Thyestes, cooked them, and then fed them to their father. This story is told in lost plays and is mentioned in Aeschylus's Agamemnon. Medea kills her children to revenge herself on Jason in the Medea of Euripides, Heracles kills his wife and children in a fit of madness in his play, also by Euripides, and Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigeneia to Artemis, as is told in Aeschylus's Agamemnon, among other places. And there takes place every other year during the Agriona a flight and pursuit of these women by a priest of Dionysos holding a sword. And he is permitted to kill anyone he catches, and in our own time Zolius the priest did so. Plutarch, Quaest. Graec. According to legend, the daughters of Minyas refused to take a part in the dances in Dionysos' honour. In revenge, the god drove them mad. They developed a craving for human flesh, and drew lots to determine whose child they would devour. Leukippe drew the unlucky lot, and the Minyades tore her son Hippasus to pieces and ate him, raw. The women were later driven away, and the god Hermes transformed them into owls and bats. The women were given the name Oleiai, or "Destructive Ones". The supposed descendants of this family retained the name, and Plutarch records that their banishment was re-enacted in a perverse, bloody ritual in which they were chased and occasionally, killed. The duality of Dionysos is related to another of his attributes, which is that of loss of identity. The actors in the plays performed for Dionysos were masked; the mask symbolized the submersion of their identity into that of another. Wine also has the effect of submerging the normal personality of the person who drinks it. Dionysos made a habit of stealing the identities of his worshippers; the bacchants dancing on the mountainside have no separate personalities; they are mad, crazed, they have been taken over by the god; and they are all alike. Agave is certainly not herself when she tears her son to pieces, acting in unison with her sisters. In this respect they are behaving in the same way crowds often do, in which the individual is subliminated by the mob. Dionysos induces mass hysteria, he is the god of mob fury. This loss of individuality is demonstrated in the theatre not only by the masks which the actors wear, but also by the chorus. They dance and sing in unison, all chanting the same words. The members of the chorus have no identity, each is merely an insignificant part of the whole, with no separate will. All individuality and willpower must be given up to Dionysos, when the god choses to take it. Sources and Resources Further information on the ancient mystery cults and their relation to Dionysos may be found on my new site Orphika. Alderink, Larry. Creation and Salvation in Ancient Orphism. Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Burkert, Walter. Ancient Mystery Cults. Detienne, Marcel, Mireille and Leonard Muellener, trans. Dionysos Slain. Detienne, Marcel, Arthur Goldhammer, trans. Dionysos at Large. Dodds, E. R. The Greeks and the Irrational. Hughes, Dennis. Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece. Jeanmaire, Henri. Dionysos; histoire du culte de Bacchus. Otto, Walter F. Dionysus, myth and cult. The Bacchants of Euripides. Text translation at MIT. The Orphic Hymns. Some of the longer hymns in a verse translation, most of the short ones are missing. The Homeric Hymn to Dionysos. A verse translation at the University of Saskatchewan. Homeric Hymns. This site has the above hymn and two other hymns to Dionysos in prose translation. Dionysos images. Ancient coins, vase paintings etc, and a few more modern pictures.