Dionysius (Bacchus) roamed the world with a retinue of his randy friends, the Satyrs, bringing the world the vine (wine), erotic joy, and sometimes — trouble.

THE SECOND BIRTH OF “TWICE-BORN” DIONYSIUS (JOY GIVER)

Zeus lay with Semele, The Moon, and she became pregnant with Dionysius. Hera (Juno) the mother-goddess, furiously jealous of yet another of Zeus’s affairs instigated a fierce argument between Zeus and Semele. Zeus, losing his head, flashed thunder and lightning which consumed Semele, then six months pregnant. (That is why she is now nothing but a cold cinder.) The sweet god Hermes, however, saw fit to save his little unborn half-brother. He snatched the baby from the fiery lightning which destroyed the mother and then, later, while Zeus was sleeping, place the immature infant inside Zeus’s inner thigh just beneath the warmth of his pendulous sexual organs, there to mature for another three months. At the end of that time Zeus leaned back, spread his Olympian legs and delivered himself of immortal, “twice-born” Dionysius.

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DIONYSIUS AND THE SATYRS

After Zeus gave birth to Dionysius he could not keep him on Mount Olympus because of Hera’s terrible temper about his bastards. He therefore entrusted the baby to his lovely, fleet-footed older son, the god Hermes (Mercury). He told him to take the infant to the wild hills of Phrygia and there instruct his old friends the Satyrs to raise him. Hermes was to go to Phrygia from time to time to check on his little brother’s progress and well-being.

Now the Satyrs were merry forest creatures who spent most of their time running through the woods, dancing to the music of the pipes of the god Pan (the Arch-Satyr), mounting one another and generally disporting themselves sexually with one another and any mortal who happened by.

Physically the Satyrs were handsome, well-made men and boys from the knees up while from the knees down they had the hind legs of goats and goat horns on their heads. They had tails like horses. They never wore clothing and spent much of their time with their (usually formidable) cocks in a state of erection or at least semi-tumescence.

The Satyrs immediately loved the little god and became his eternal friends as they are to this day.

It was when Dionysius had become a beautiful adolescent god that he had his first and greatest love affair; the one that was to set the mission of his entire destiny...Joy Giver.

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DIONYSIUS AND AMPELOS

Once when Dionysius was still a young god — a sort of late adolescent in the terms of Greek god-hood — he was hunting in the Phrygian hills with his companions the Satyrs. This was well before he gave the vine (wine) to mankind. Several local youths were also present because the young men of Phrygia loved the company of the happy Satyrs and spent time with them whenever they could. On this day, however, Dionysius saw in their midst a youth he had not seen before. His name was Ampelos and he had the most perfect face and body he had ever encountered in a human. Approaching him he found a sunny spirit and laughing charm which totally enraptured him. He could not help himself. He set out immediately to seduce him while the older Satyrs looked on with amused approval. His only fear was that, because of his beauty, his father, Zeus, might want Ampelos for himself and so he prays to his father.

(The following is shortened and paraphrased — it is very long — from The Dionysiaca of Nonnos in the W.H.D. Rouse translation.

Oh, Father! Grant to me one grace oh Father Zeus! I do not ask the heavenly fire of your lightning, nor the cloud, nor the thunderclap. If it please you give firey Hephaestos (Vulcan) the spark of your thunderbolt; let Ares (Mars) have a corselet of your clouds to cover his chest; let Apollo, if you will, wield our Father’s lightning. My lad’s beauty to me is dearer than Olympus. Tell me, Father, do not hide it, swear by your own young friend — where you were an eagle, when you picked up the boy with gentle, greedy claws and brought him to heaven — had he such beauty as Ampelos when you made him one of the heavenly table? Forgive me Father Longwing! But don’t talk to me of your Trojan winepourer, the servant of your cup. To me lovely Ampelos outshines even your beautiful Ganymede. To me he is more radiant. And for you there are plenty more; beautiful troops of fine young men. Court them all if you like. But please — leave this one lad to Dionysius!

And indeed, Zeus was content to leave Ampelos to Dionysius.

Dionysius, disposed more to affectionate persuasion than force, started taking long walks with Ampelos, often swimming together in a forest pond, where their love was first consummated, hunting, throwing the thrysus, and especially — wrestling.

(Once again, the following shortened and paraphrased rendition of one of their wrestling matches is from The Dionysiaca of Nonnos from the WHD Rouse translation.)

Both played in the woods together, now throwing the thrysus to travel through the air, not on some unshaded flat, or again they tramped the rocks hunting the hill bred lion. Often alone on a deserted bank they played on the sands of a pebbly river and had a wrestling match; no tripod was their prize, no flower-graven cauldron lay ready for the victory, no horse from the grass, but a double pipe of love — [an actual musical instrument and also an allusion to erect penises] — with clear sounding notes. It was a delightful strife for both, for mad Love stood between them!

Both stood forward as Love’s Athletes! They joined their palms garlandwise over each other’s back, packed at the waist with a knot of the hands, squeezed the ribs tight with the muscles of their four forearms, lifting each other from the ground alternately. Dionysius was in heaven amid this honeysweet grappling, and love gave him a double joy, lifting and being lifted. Ampelos enclosed the god’s wrist in his palm, then joining hands and tightening that intruding grip, interlaced his fingers in a double knot squeezing the right hand of willing Dionysius. Next the god ran his two hands round the young man’s buttocks, squeezing his body with a loving grip, and lifted Ampelos high. But then Ampelos kicked the god neatly behind the knee and Dionysius, laughing heartily at the blow from his young comrade’s naked foot, let himself fall on his back in the dust. While the god lay willingly on the ground, the naked youth sat straddling his naked belly, and Dionysius in pure delight lay stretched at full length on the ground gladly sustaining the sweet burden on his paunch. Then both rolled in the dust and the sweat poured out... In bliss...

Thus Dionysius was conquered with his own consent, like his father as an athlete, who was conquered at last, though invincible; for mighty Zeus himself, wrestling with Herakles beside the Alpheios, bent willing knees and fell of his won accord before his son.

But The Fates had decreed that such beauty as Ampelos’s must die young. On one of their many hunts together Ampelos was mortally wounded by a wild bull.

Dionysius, stricken with grief (not even the gods can countermand the fates) holds his dying lover in his arms. Then, out of compassion for Dionysius, the gods — led by Eros — change the beautiful youth into a beautiful vine while the god is holding him. This vine is henceforth sacred to Dionysius and from it he gives the grape and wine to mankind.

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THE DIONYSIA (BACCHANALIA)

The following scene of the Dionysia is the quintessence of one of the greatest celebrations of the ancient Greek religious year. The description is extrapolated and paraphrased from the W.H.D. Rouse translation of The Dionysiaca of Nonnus and from other sources.

When the Dionysia, in honor of the god, were celebrated the populous recreated the god’s life in licentious revels and outdoor banquets. Dionysius and his companion Ampelos were represented, sometimes in effigy, but more often by two comely young men, naked and in drunken sexual horseplay on a couch set out on a hillside with bonfires and pitch torches illuminating the scene. Men and boys represented Satyrs and Fauns while women and maidens represented the Naeads (Bacchantes) a sort of female version of a Satyr. Many got drunk and ran through the hills and woods disporting themselves sexually with one another and, in the case of the men, with anyone of either sex whom they encountered. It was a festival in which all the rules were suspended. There was a great riot of dancing and gamboling around the couch with the two young men on it. Nearby, making music on his Pan Pipes, is the god Pan and a huge phallus (another object sacred to the god) is being draped with garlands of ivy and parsley. Flagons of wine are poured over the Phallus.

The opening stanza of the phallic hymn to the god, always sung at the Dionysia, has come down to us.
 

O Phallos!
Revel Roaming!
Glad companion
of the gloaming!
O, lover of wives —
and young men!
Here is my home
I gladly greet thee!

The “Greater Dionysia” lasted from the 28th of March to April 2nd. At Athens a great phallic procession took place in which many garlanded phallae were paraded, carried by younger men, along with an image of the god and accompanied by a large chorus of boys singing dithyrambs.

The “Minor Dionysia” took place in November and early December. In one called the Oschophoria, twenty youths from the ranks of the ephebi carried branches of vine with grapes still cling to them in a nude race from the Temple of Dionysius in Athens to the Temple of Athena (Minerva) in Phalerum. Two of the finest boys from each of the major tribes were chosen each year for this honor.

Dionysius’s chief symbols are, the Phallus (Priapus is a frequent companion), clusters of grapes and grape leaves (often entwined in his hair), a thrysus (a staff with a cluster of pine cones at the top), wreaths of laurel and ivy, and a drinking goblet. His totemic animals are the bull, the panther, the snake, the dolphin (when at sea) and, of course, the goat.

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