Chapter Ten, Lecture Two
Dionysus in Thebes
Tragedy
Dionysus in Thebes
• Best known story of resistance to the
Dionysus told by Eurpides in his tragedy,
the Bacchae
• Dionysus in Thebes to spread his cult and
to punish the blaspheme against his
mother, Semelê, by her sisters Antonoë
and Agavê
Dionysus in Thebes
• The women and others are already in the
mountains
• The king, Pentheus, will oppose the cult
• Even old Tiresias and Cadmus have put
on the fawn skins and are going out
• Dionysus, in disguise, is brought to
Pentheus by soldiers
Dionysus in Thebes
• Pentheus thinks that he is only a priest of
Dionysus and taunts him.
• Dionysus is led away; the palace is
destroyed by an earthquake and Dionysus
comes back
• A report comes in about miracles and
wonders being performed in the mountains
by the Maenads
Dionysus in Thebes
• Pentheus is about to go out with a force to
capture the women, but Dionysus casts a
spell over him
• Pentheus now wants to see the “orgies”
for himself
• Dionysus helps disguise Pentheus as a
woman and leads him away
Dionysus in Thebes
• A messenger reports that Pentheus was
killed by the Bacchantes
– He was pulled down from a tree and torn to
pieces
– His own mother, Agavê, pulled off his head
• Agavê comes on stage with the head on
her thyrsus
• She is shown by Cadmus what she has
done
Dionysus’s Journey to the
Land of the Dead
Journey to the Land of the Dead
• Dionysus goes to the underworld to
release his mother, who had died
• Shown the way by a shepherd from Argos
• Near the swamp of Lerna
• Adorned the shepherd’s grave with a
wooden phallus
• The two become immortal and live in
Olympus
Observations: Myths of
Dionysus
Observations
• Dio –
• -nysos
– son?
– Nysa
– Another name for Dionysus (Hence Nysai)
Observations
• Eastern origins not doubted
• Names
– Semelê < Zemelô
– Thyrsus < Hittite tuwarsa (vine) ?
– Dionysus = Lydian bakivali ?
• Myths
– From Thrace or Phrygia and Lydia
Observations
• A historical fact
– A new cult being brought into Greece around
800 BC ?
– But he’s in Homer and Linear B tablets
• Etiological for viticulture ?
Observations
• Myths contain many folktale elements
– Hasty wish
– Vengeful stepmother
– “portion of the kingdom” (Proetus and
Melampus)
– Short-sighted fool
Observations
• Deeper meaning begins with the fact he is
god of fertility, preserved in epithets
– he of the trees
– god of blossoms
– he of the black goatskin
– followers called boukoloi (“bullherders”)
– god of “wet” vegetation
Observations
• A dying fertility god, like Dumuzi
– Perhaps originally the consort of Semelê
(Zemelô)
• Resistance to his cult
– But even devotees can be destroyed
• Always depicted as a new and foreign god
– Reflects perhaps Greek aversion to violence
and irrationality
The Cult of Dionysus
The Cult of Dionysus
• Different from other cults
– Olympians remote and known through their
external works
– Dionysus presence direct and personal
The Cult of Dionysus
•
•
•
•
•
•
“the god who comes”
enthousiasmos
ekstatis
lysios
sparagmos
ômophagia
The Cult of Dionysus
• Cult appealed especially to women
• Reflection of and reaction to their
submissive social role?
• Dionysus eventually tamed and give a
civic role
– Romans suppressed it
– Christians thought Dionysus was a demon,
but elements of his cult are similar to Christian
practices and thinking
Dionysus, God of the Theater
Dionysus, God of the Theater
• Tragedies performed at the Lenea
– “Festival of the Maenads (those of the wine
vat)
• Tragedies also at the City Dionysia
– Three days of tragedies
– Three on each day
– Each day ends with one satyr play
Dionysus, God of the Theater
• The relationship between theater and the
cult of Dionysus is murky
• Three main theories
– Emerged from dithyramb (Aristotle)
– Emerged from ritual performances
(anthological)
– Emerged from a lament for the dead hero
Dionysus, God of the Theater
• Perhaps a better explanation sees it as a
literary invention and political need
– Aristotle: Thespis first added the actor to a
choral song. This is the innovation to the old
form
– Aeschylus added a second actor, and
Sophocles the third and final
Dionysus, God of the Theater
• This innovation (Thespis) made around
the time of Pisistratus (530 BC)
• Pisistratus reorganized the old Dionysus
festival and made it available to the dêmos
of Athens
– A citywide “drinking party” to celebrate the
new order of things
Dionysus, God of the Theater
• Origins of comedy even more obscure
– Perhaps much older
• Original Dionysiac kômos given dramatic
elements – plot, setting, actors
– Aristophanes the major source of information
about the earliest forms of comedy
End