Dionysus: The god of wine and revelry. 25cm Full length alabaster statue, ancient Greece

Dionysus is the

God of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity and theatre in ancient Greek religion and myth. He is also known as Bacchus, the frenzy that he induces is bakkheia. As Eleutherios ("the liberator"), his wine, music and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and freedoms. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms, some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. Wine was a religious focus in the cult of Dionysus and was his earthly incarnation. Wine could ease suffering, bring joy, and inspire divine madness. Festivals of Dionysus included the performance of sacred dramas enacting his myths. The cult of Dionysus is also a "cult of the souls"; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead.

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