His second birth also ties into his unusual gender identity, not in the historic cult but rather in modern worship and modern gender narratives. Dionysus here offers his disenfranchised followers - women, the poor and the social outcast - a relief from their misery through pleasure, and the promise of a better afterlife than the uninitiated regardless of social status. Known as Zagreus, his death comes in infancy where he is literally dismembered by Hera’s servants, only to regenerate by means of his heart being implanted either in Zeus’ thigh or Princess Semele’s womb. Dionysus of the cults is usually Dionysus of the underworld, the son of Zeus and his daughter Persephone, or her mother Demeter, goddess of the earth. The worship practices of those cults relied on religious ecstasy, the entering of an altered state of consciousness through spiritual transcendence, and generally offered women and other low-status people higher status than the world outside. This second birth and regeneration made him important in the mystery cults, secretive religions focusing on life after death (Christianity was originally viewed as one and they formed its primary competition until the Christianised Roman Empire eventually banned them). In all versions of the myth it is Hera, Zeus’ ever-jealous wife, who is responsible for the murder and so Zeus sends him away to Asia or Africa to be raised safely in secret.
The bastard son of Zeus and, depending on the source, a selection of women ranging from the mortal princess Semele to Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, all of his origin stories share one feature that either he or his pregnant mother were killed only for him to regenerate or finish gestating inside the body of a second parent. Neither the Greeks nor modern scholars can agree on where he and his cult came from, though the most popular version has him migrating to Greece from central Asia. The whole band, hands bloodied, were playing a game of catch with Pentheus’ flesh.” Euripides Bacchaeĭionysus is a late addition to the pantheon and the myths reflect this. His ribs were stripped bare from their tearings. One of them bore his arm, another a foot, boot and all. All were making noise together, he groaning as much as he had life left in him, while they shouted in victory. Ino began to work on the other side, tearing his flesh, while Autonoe and the whole crowd of the Bacchae pressed on. “Seizing his left arm at the elbow and propping her foot against the unfortunate man’s side, she tore out his shoulder, not by her own strength, but the god gave facility to her hands. Failure to offer him worship and appropriate respect would bring him to your town, at best to lure the women away as Maenads, at worst to turn them loose on the men. Armed with thyrsi, giant fennel staves, these women were drunk, sexually aggressive and, when sufficiently roused, liable to rip apart and eat anything that crossed their paths, from lions to their own sons. Called Maenads, these women gave up their families and positions in order to follow him, surrendering themselves fully to that animal state the ancient Greeks believed all women possessed. God of the stranger, the Other and religious ecstasy, Dionysus travels the countryside with his* consort Ariadne, followed by a continuous rolling orgy of nymphs, satires and mortal women. If you want a god of sex, wine and smashing the gender binary into little tiny pieces you might want to try Dionysus.
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