So basically this is just abt Lord Dionysus.
And you’re probably wondering what could be so important. A lot.
Basically he had more than just the tragic tale of getting his mom vaporized by his father and getting stuffed into Zeus' leg or smth. So lemme explain.
There are, of course, thousands of myths, but in general Dionysus has some HEAVY lore no one seems to look at.
Orphic Dionysus(600 B.C)
Orphic Dionysus was actually NOT a wine god. Shocked? Anyone? No? Okay. So basically he was a chthonic deity.(I suffered to spell deity). And no, he was NOT Semele's son, actually. He was, dare I say, Persephone and Zeus’. Ew, father-daughter relationships, scary. Too normal in Greek mythology, yk? Anyways. His story is more different than you’d think in general. Not the usual story of the tragic story of Hera tricking Semele into blah blah blah its almost 12 am. I'm tired. So, Orphic Dionysus, instead of all of the hellenized stuff, was actually reborn. Basically Orphic Dionysus was supposed to rule as king of gods after Zeus, and Hera didn't like that so she got Titans to rip Dionysus apart and eat him. Yup, sounds like Greek mythology to me. After all of that traumatizing…things, Athena had kept his heart and he was reborn with the help of his father, Zeus, by…many ways but probably something to do with the leg-stuffing thing again. Imagine popping out from your dads leg.
The thing about Orphic Dionysus that quite literally made me upset, was that his story was later on told as Zagreus, the son of Persephone and Hades(or Persephone and Zeus). They had the same backstory-ish, and all that cool stuff with being next in throne and getting torn to shreds and eaten alive. Syncretism and Greek mythology, Am I right?(please Laugh. I suck at Jokes.)
Orphic Dionysus was described as a young, horned man. His themes focused more on Madness and frenzied Insanity, but his main theme was his ability to get in and out of the Underworld, like any other Orphistic being. He was worshipped as a Chthonic deity and was often worshipped exclusively within Orphism.
Hellenism Dionysus(The Dionysus we all know and love)
You probably guessed it, and I don't think I need to explain it. The normal myths everyone knows about him. His mom getting vaporized, getting put in his dads leg, making wine, going insane because of his step-mother, in whom I actually respect bc i would’ve been hell’a mad if my husband cheated on me more than 200 times and had more than 200 kids, getting put as an Olympian as the god of wine and queerness and all that cool stuff. Anyways, yeah. That's Hellenized Dionysus, the one we all were technically taught.
Yada Yada, most people usually saw him as some drunk dude who liked partying but honestly It would make sense with all of the…fanfics we have now. I mean Percy Jackson, by the way.
Mycenaean Dionysus(The FIRST Dionysus from like,,,900 B.C. )
So…this guy is sort of, not very, close to the Orphic Dionysus, but like i said, SORT of. Not entirely. There was very limited literature for him during the time, and alot of Info I found in a literal video(yes im getting this from a video, its better than wiki atleast) was from early classical greek characterizations. Instead of knowing his mother, It was simply Unclear, and all we got to know of his parentage is, of course, Zeus. His main themes of his story was, again, rebirth and death.
So, this is sort of where the cult of Dionysus happened, but it was also unsure and it could have actually been during the orphic period of Dionysus. But, instead of a worship cult, it was just a wine cult, and there is even evidence of the wine cult existed when wine itself was created. 6000 B.C.E. damn, its old. Wine was most likely made in the Zagros Mountains(sound Familiar? Yh, well its not. The name is from an entirely different thing.). If such a theory is true, the cult itself moved from Zagros Mountains all the way to Mycenaean Greece and made Dionysus the god of Wine. Even if it wasn't from the Zagros Mountains, it still somehow got to Mycenaean Greece.
After the dark ages, the cult of Dionysus became established of Dionysian Worship. They started going through the Dionysian mysteries and had made some neat ritual of getting high and drunk out of their socks. Yes, Ancient Greeks had socks. Look it up.
Getting balls-high and drunk was considered being possessed by the god himself, which kinda sounds crazy but yk. Probably how Dionysus got his title as “god of wine”. I wouldn't be surprised.
Some people, including “Overly Sarcastic Productions”( cough cough), had found sort of a symbolism between the way wine was made, and the backstory of the god. Existing, getting destroyed/crushed, and then getting turned into smth else. Kinda neat.
Despite the wine cult and blah blah blah. The god was a Chthonic deity, mainly being stuff to do with rebirth, death, and that sort of stuff. And wine. And blacking out and waking up with sacrificial goat limbs on you(/ref).
This was around the time that the trojan war and stuff happened, but he wasn’t really apart of it nor written in the Iliad or Odyssey most likely because he was not as well known and most likely was not even considered an Olympian. The way he most likely gained popularity was when Pisistratus brought the Dionysia to Athens. Lets just say….it wasn’t that easy. He only popularized from Pisistratus threatening them by saying some of the horrifying things Dionysus could do to their…body parts. Yk what i mean.(thats why they carried sculpted…man, what is my life.)
Dionysus was described as a wise, bearded, Horned Chthonic god who was probably chill like Hades but yk ppl always gotta mix smth up.
Just thought it might be smth ya’ll might be interested into.
Okay yh I’ll go to sleep now.
