The Ancients - Dionysus: God of Wine

Episode Date: May 19, 2024

Dionysus. He's known as the party God of ancient Greece who you never wanted to cross. Associated with theatre, mysterious cults and even, on one occasion, turning pirates into dolphins. But who exactly was the 12th God of the Greek Pantheon? And why has he become associated with having a good time?In today’s episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes continues our series on Greek Gods and Goddesses by exploring the infamous patron of wine with Dr Sarah Iles Johnston. Together they deep dive into the many myths that shaped his legend, starting with the horrific fate that befell King Pentheus after he banned the worship of Dionysus.This episode was produced by Joseph Knight and edited by Aidan Lonergan.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code ANCIENTS - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Many years have passed since he ruled the city, and he is reluctant to seat the gleaming throne. How many memories are cast, weathered, and scored into its bronze. But this is an emergency. Cadmus's successor, his grandson, stubborn Pentheus, is missing. What good can come from quarreling with a god? Cadmus had argued with him. But Pentheus merely answered with a scoff, his jaw set, obstinate to the last.

Under the cover of a poacher's moon, Pentheus snuck out of the city, pudded and cloaked. He was heading for the forest, following the flickering torches held by the revelers of Dionysus, following his mother, Queen Agave. And now, as the rosy fingers of dawn pry their way into the palace halls, Pentheus still has not returned. pry their way into the palace halls, Pentheus still has not returned. There is a baleful creak. The palace doors are drawn open and a figure stands upon the threshold.

Hair matted, clothes ripped, body bruised and bleeding. It is Queen Agave. She holds a sodden sack at her side, blood dripping upon the flagstones. We were attacked during the rituals, Agave shouts, eyes wild. A monstrous boar met us with a snarl, its tusks set. We would have been killed were it not for Dionysus. He gave us the strength to defend ourselves.

She is proud. In her eagerness to explain, she trips over her words, and when the bleeding sack slips from her fingers, sickening splatter, Agave smiles. But what of Pentheus? Cadmus asks. Did Agave see her son? But what of Pentheus? Cadmus asks. Did Agave see her son? Was he harmed in the boar's attack? It is not Agave who answers. It is the Muses. The Bacchic rituals are sacred, they sing. No man, no king can disturb them. Especially not one who has denied the divinity of Dionysus,

god of wine and wild things. He's known as the party god of ancient Greece who you never wanted to cross. Associated with theatre, mystery, cults and even, on one occasion, turning pirates into dolphins. It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode where we are continuing our special Greek Gods and Goddesses mini-series by exploring the 12th god in the pantheon. We have reached deity number 12 and of course we are talking about Dionysus, god of wine. Now as with all of these episodes we're going to kick this one off with the story, the retelling of a myth associated with Dionysus and the one we've chosen is the story of Dionysus and the king of Thebes, Pentheus. The horrific fate that befell Pentheus

after he banned the worship of Dionysus. Following this, we have an interview with Dr. Sarah Iles Johnston. Now, that name might seem familiar because Sarah, she was also our guest for an awesome episode about Hades, King of the Underworld, a few months back. This episode was similarly great. I really do hope you enjoy. And to kick off this episode, here's the myth of Dionysus and King Pentheus. The Musa story opens with drum and flute, stamping foot and raucous howl.

The sounds of revelry fill the forests about Thebes, lapping against the city walls like waves against the shore. It is from those battlements that stubborn Pentheus watches in horror. A sickness, that is what he believes has taken hold among the women of his city. Matron, daughter, wife, sister, mother. It is no ordinary fever. Its symptoms are vice and depravity, lust and debauchery. It is Dionysus' bacchanalia. Pentheus has tried to outlaw it. He has forbidden any worship of the reveler god. He has driven out priests, imposed curfews and set guards upon the gates. He has even recalled his grandfather Cadmus, once king of Thebes, for advice. But it is to no avail.

Hidden tunnels, secret paths, old magic. Somehow the women of the city continue to escape. They return by dawn dirtied, disheveled, bloodied, all unwilling, unable even, to speak of Dionysus' rituals and delights. And then one morning, Pentheus spies his own mother, Queen Agave, among those to return. It is an outrage too great. So, in his fury, stubborn Pentheus dares blasphemy. He denies Dionysus' divinity. No deathless god would provoke such depravity.

Only a man, Pentheus spits. He is no more a god than I. After all, are they not cousins, Pentheus and Dionysus? Do they not share divine blood? Through his grandmother, Ammonia, Pentheus is a descendant of Ares, a true-born son of Zeus. descendant of Ares, a true-born son of Zeus. Dionysus is merely the base-born consequence of Zeus's fancies with Semele, Agave's sister. He is a bastard without a seat upon Olympus, while I sit the throne of thieves, Pentheus rails. I will unmask his rituals and show they are nothing more than mortal deviance. His grandfather Cadmus can only plead, ignored, unheard.

Pentheus slips from tree to tree, just another shadow flickering in the wake of the backhands' torches. There is no sense of urgency among them. They stop to pick the caps of mushrooms or scrape bursts of lichen from the trunks, all the while laughing, dancing, highborn and lowborn alike. Eventually, they come to a small glade, a pyre burning at its heart. There will be little hiding in its glare, so Pentheus climbs to the canopy of one of the great oaks. From its height, he can watch the whole ritual. Thebes whispers with stories of the sacrifices made to Dionysus. But Pentheus sees no priest who would wield the bronze blade,

no animal to be slain, no one who would divide the mortal portion of meat from the deathless portion of bone and cook it all upon the flame. He sees only drink and debauchery. and debauchery. He sees only bared flesh and loose hair, mortal excess. Is it not to your liking, O king? Creaking voice, close and quiet. Pentheus's eyes are drawn from the delirium below to a delirium beside. A knot in the branch beside him has twisted into a mouth, cracked lips of bark and a green leaf tongue. You would deny my godhood. I, Dionysus, god of wine and wild things. But don't you see it down there? I am giving the women of Thebes a taste of divinity. To be deathless is to live a life without limit, to embrace excess. So, let me show you the crucial difference between me, an immortal god, and you, Pentheus,

a mortal man. A deafening crack. The mouth widens, a creaking grin that splits the branch in two, and Pentheus comes down in a rain of splintered wood and falling leaves. The drums die, the flutes whistle out. All the women are silent. As Pentheus picks himself up, he locks eyes with the nearest, and it is his mother, Queen Agave. She struggles to focus on him, like he is another shape. Then one of the falling leaves captures a breeze, lingering by her ear with a whisper, and Agave's eyes go wide with the most fatal intoxicant, bloodlust. A boar, she screams.

Kill the boar. Muses can barely bring their story to a close before Queen Agave screams again. She is on her knees, cradling the sack she had dropped upon the palace floor. It is so slick and swollen with blood that she struggles to loosen the ties. She almost rips the fabric apart. The contents are dirtied, disheveled, bloodied, but it is no matter. Cadmus's king of thebes still recognizes the set of his grandson's jaw even in death pentheus remains stubborn sarah it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. It's great to be here.

Last time we talked all about Hades, Lord of the Dead, King of the Underworld. But today, quite a different god who actually still does have connections with the underworld, as we'll explore, but Dionysus. Sarah, I know there's much more to his story than this, but it feels like he is the real party animal of Greek mythology when it comes to the deities. It was like he is the real party animal of Greek mythology when it comes to the deities. Yes, he certainly is. He's the god of wine. And I know we're going to talk more about that in a while.

But that's part of a bigger picture. Sometimes we describe him as the god of release because he's also, for example, the god of theater. And you go to theater and you have this emotional release by watching the story. He's the god of ecstasy in the sense of sort of feeling as if you're no longer inside your own body. So he's a party animal, but that's part of a bigger picture of him as sort of the guy who takes you out of yourself. We mentioned already, of course, he's the god of wine.

But where exactly does Dionysus sit in the whole Greek pantheon? Is he one of the more senior gods or where should we imagine him? He's one of the more senior gods, or where should we imagine him? He's one of the very youngest gods, and so he should be minor stuff, but he's extremely powerful, and he's one of the more frequently worshipped of the Greek gods. Probably the reason that myths evolved to make him be the younger one is because they like that paradoxicality, this idea that the youngest was so powerful, but also the idea that someone who comes in from the outside, when the gods are pretty much already ho-hum, we know what we're doing, and really shakes things up. We'll get into that coming in from the outside

because that is a very interesting part of his origins and his emergence into the Greek pantheon. But I'd also like to ask, first of all, is the whole image of Dionysus? I mean, Sarah, what are the main attributes and symbols that define Dionysus as a deity? He's often shown in ancient art as having grapes in his hair or grapes somehow draped around him. Also, a lot of ivy draped around him because the ivy, especially in Greece, is a plant that grows very vigorously. In fact, if you're a gardener, you may know that if you've got ivy in your garden, it's hard to get rid of. So it's this vigor of the ivy and the greenness of the ivy, the new life that makes that a good sign of Dionysus. He's often shown wearing a leopard skin, which, again, is very exotic and weird.

wearing a leopard skin, which again is very exotic and weird. And then he often carries a rod, kind of a walking stick that is topped by a pine cone. And this is called the thyrsus. It's a very particular walking stick that the worshippers of Dionysus carry when they're going out to, well, party, that would be our word for it, for the night. So Dionysus himself also carries it. Well, let's explore the origins of Dionysus first of all, Lucera, and focusing in on the birth, because this seems particularly interesting. He seems to be referred as being twice born. Now, what do the ancient Greeks mean by this? I actually would say he's thrice born, because the way the myth goes is that, as you know by now, Tristan, incest is a common thing in Greek myth.

Zeus rapes his daughter Persephone, and she eventually gives birth to Dionysus. And even though Zeus has other sons by now, Zeus is absolutely captivated by this child. And he holds him up in front of all the gods and says, this is going to be the next king of the universe when I step down. And he puts young Dionysus on a throne. And then one day no one's paying attention. And the Titans, those gods whom Zeus overthrew, some of whom are still lurking around, the Titans, and they're kind of being led in this by Hera, Zeus's wife, who's always jealous of any bastard that Zeus produces. The Titans sneak up to the throne and they hold out toys, a bouncing ball, a little puppet, a mirror.

Interestingly, apparently that was something that was thought to be fascinating for children. And I guess it is actually fascinating for children. They hold these things out and they lure Dionysus off the throne. of her children. They hold these things out and they lure Dionysus off the throne. And when they've got him far enough away, they dismember him and they begin to cook him and they begin to eat him. Athena sees the smoke from the fire and she goes down to look and she discovers what they're doing. Luckily, they have not yet cooked and eaten his heart. It's still beating, in fact. And so she takes that and goes up to Zeus and says, you know, Father, look what's happening. Zeus strikes the Titans with a lightning bolt. And there's an interesting story that follows on that, but I won't go into it just now.

Zeus then takes Dionysus' beating heart. Somehow, and the myths are very vague about this, he uses that heart to impregnate Semele with Dionysus. Now, he impregnates Semele in the traditional way. It's not that there is no sex involved, but somehow the heart of Dionysus gets into the fetus that Semele into asking Zeus to appear to Semele in his true form. And Zeus says, no, no, no, you can't take it. But she insists. When Zeus reveals himself, Semele bursts into flames. The baby has to be rescued from her womb. So that's birth number two, first from Persephone, then from Semele's womb. Zeus sews the fetus into his own thigh.

And when gestation is complete, Dionysus is born for the third time out of Zeus' thigh. Wow. That is extraordinary. Yeah, so twice-born is the phrase you normally see, but thrice-born in this case as well. I know there are lots of bizarre birth stories for all of these deities, but when it comes to this one, it is pretty iconic and pretty unique, arguably one of the most unique and the most extraordinary of them all. Yes. We have reason to think that this myth didn't arise until maybe the 6th century, which is relatively late in the development of the Greek pantheon.

So it could be that by the time this myth is being created, first of all, there are specific reasons people are creating it. But also, probably by now, there's a certain one-upsmanship, like, how can we make this god even more interesting than Athena popping out of Zeus's head? I was thinking exactly of Athena there, but I love that idea of competition to make the birth of more gods even more exciting. Now, you also mentioned there Hera and Hera's jealousy at Zeus's, what he's been doing, for instance, with Semele. I'm guessing with the early life of Dionysus that this means that Dionysus and Hera, they don't get on well. And does this kind of also influence his earlier story?

Yeah. To say they don't get on well is putting it mildly because Hera then tries to get rid of the young child Dionysus a second time. Dionysus is eventually given to Semele's sister Aino to be raised. And so Aino and her husband are raising Dionysus alongside their own two sons. Hera finds out. She sends horrible madness upon Aino and Aino's husband. They kill their own children. Hera is about to kill Dionysus, but luckily, again, Zeus realizes what's happening. Dionysus is grabbed by Hermes and taken away. And according to one version of the myth, he's raised by the nymphs until he is old enough to go out into the world. But even after that, several times, Hera sends madness upon Dionysus in an attempt to destroy him.

That's an interesting myth insofar as, as I said at the beginning of our talk, Dionysus is this god of release, of kind of being outside of yourself. And that can be a very positive thing, but the dark side, of course, is madness in our sense of the word. So these stories of Hera causing Dionysus and his followers sometimes to go mad are nicely mirroring that as well as telling a great story. It's a great story. Who are the main figures who are closely associated with Dionysus as he's growing up almost? Because I have in my notes, and I'm sure he's not the only one, but the figure of Silenus seems to be very big.

So Silenus is sort of part, I was about to say human, but he's not quite human. He looks like a human, but he also looks partly like a horse. So he's a little bit, I don't mean like a centaur, he just has horse legs, two horse legs. And like all the followers of Dionysus, Silenus loves to drink and he is periodically getting himself into trouble by drinking too much. Is there any particular stories as to how he becomes closely associated with wine? Because so far, I haven't really been able to see any link to that yet. There's no origin stories of that. It's not like Hermes inventing the lyre, where we actually get that narrated to us by one of the ancient myths. I can't think of any story that says, aha, and here's where Dionysus discovered wine. It just seems to be part of him from the get-go.

There are stories about how he teaches mortals about wine, for example, but historically speaking, he's one of the very oldest Greek gods. He appears in that language called Linear B, which is very, very old and which is a pre-Greek language, but we've kind of deciphered it. And not very many of the divinities whom we think of as traditionally Greek are there, but Dionysus is one of them. So in spite of being portrayed as the youngest god of the Pantheon, he's actually one of the oldest ones. And from earliest times, there's the wine. One last question on him growing up almost. How long does it take? I mean, do we know anything about how he ultimately becomes accepted as one of these

key deities? Because you see names such as the region of Thrace come up, which is that modern day Bulgaria and Dionysus coming from abroad to become one of these chief deities. I mean, do we know much about that? Well, we know it's a myth. One reason is because his name is there in linear B. So that's, again, quite interesting because it means that the Greeks really wanted to imagine Dionysus as exotic. And so stories keep arising about he goes to India and then he comes back into Greece through Thrace, as you said, and eventually he comes down into Athens and the Peloponnese. But the story wants to picture him as kind of this world traveler who's had to reenter what is rightfully his own territory after having grown up separated from what might be thought of as his real home. In other words,

even though gods, of course, can live wherever they want, he has to, last of all, convince the Greeks, I mean, the Greek humans, that yes, I am a god. I'm a god. I know you've never heard of me before, but I really am. And there's a lot of stories, in fact, about how when he gets into Greece, people resist this and say, no, no, no. We know the god Zeus, Hera, Athena. Don't tell us you're a new god. And over and over in the myths, Dionysus has to convince people, sometimes harshly, that he is. Well, let's move on from that then to delve into some of these great myths that surround Dionysus' story. Sarah, what is the story of Dionysus and his encounter with King Midas?

Honey, I was just thinking of that Shirley Bassey song yesterday. Oh, yeah, I'm glad to hear that others remember that song too. So King Midas, who's the wealthiest man in the Greek world, I mean, he wants for nothing. And yet, nonetheless, he's always eager to get more gold. This is his life, acquiring more gold. So one evening, he walks out into his garden, and he finds Silenus passed out on the grass. And he thinks, oh my. And because because according to the myth, Midas had spent his youth studying what Orpheus had taught about the gods and their companions. Midas instantly knows who this is and thinks, oh, well, I need to take care of Silenus. Not just

because that's the right thing to do, but because this is one of Dionysus' pals, so I need to be careful. So Midas takes care of Silenus, and after 10 days, when Silenus is feeling more himself. 10 days? Wow. That's according to one version. Maybe it's a little quicker in other versions. But Midas says, Dionysus, you know, he holds up his hands to the heavens and says, Dionysus, just wanted to let you know, your guy Silenus is here with me if you need to want to, you know, come and pick him up. So Dionysus appears to Midas and says, thank you, thank you, thank you. So kind of you. And now I will grant you any wish that you desire. And Midas clearly

doesn't read his Greek myths because he doesn't know what a dangerous thing this is. And he doesn't think carefully. And he says, you know, grant that everything I touch turned to gold. And so Dionysus kind of, I imagine it anyway, the Dionysus kind of chuckles to himself and says, okay. And the next thing Midas knows, yeah, everything he touches turns to gold, including the food that he eats, the wine that he drinks. And so he realizes rather quickly that he's going to basically starve amidst all this new wealth he has acquired. And so he has to call to Dionysus again and say, oh, you know, forgive a stupid man and remove this curse from me. And Dionysus says, go to the river Patakalos and wash yourself in its waters and you will be released. And the story goes on to say,

and forever after the waters of that river had gold in them. And in fact, we know that you could sort of like the prospectors out West in America, you could get little bits of gold out of that river. So Dionysus is kind enough to release Midas from his hasty decision. There is that forgiving streak in Dionysus that he can pity certain humans and he can come to their rescue if the need arose, like Midas in this case. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think it's also interesting that in myth and art, we often see Dionysus connected with Pan, the god who's part goat, part human, who is, he can be horrible. I mean, Pan.

And that's where we get our word panic, in fact. He can frighten you nearly to death. But Pan can also be playful and helpful. And so I've always been interested in the fact that the two gods who you might not be quite so afraid to interact with are palling around. Now, what's the story about Dionysus getting captured by pirates? This seems almost quite difficult to believe, but it's a great one. This is a sting operation. palling around. Now, what's the story about Dionysus getting captured by pirates? This seems almost quite difficult to believe, but it's a great one. This is a sting operation. And this, again, is getting at what you were talking about a moment ago, where Dionysus,

he can be in a certain sense mischievous, but the mischievousness goes a little too far and becomes brutal. So Dionysus disguises himself as a young prince. And the ancient narration of this, which is in one of the Homeric hymns, ends sometime describing how youthful and how beautiful he is and how he's wearing very fine clothes. And he kind of stands on the beach. And there's a ship of pirates, Etruscan in pirates that is far enough away that they're able to sail. They're not, you know, close to the beach. But interestingly enough, they can nonetheless spot this interesting looking stranger.

And they say, ha, ha, ha, that looks like a prince. If we pull over and kidnap him, we'll be able to hold him for a very nice ransom. So they do this. And Dionysus this whole time is very acquiescent, right? And so it's as if he knew this would happen. And when he gets on board ship and they try to tie him up, the bonds keep falling away. They can't keep him restrained. And the helmsman says, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, we can't do this. This guy's a god. I don't know. It might be Zeus, might be Apollo, might be Hermes, or it might be a new god. But this is a god. We have to release them. And the other pirates say,

oh, no, don't be stupid. And so, Ivy and Grapevine start to grow up the mast of the ship and across the Yardum, which of course immobilizes the ship. You can't steer it anymore. And at the same time, a bear appears on the ship and Dionysus changes himself into a lion. And so these two terrifyingly dangerous animals are on the ship. And the pirates are so terrified that they jump overboard. And as they are heading for the water, before they hit the water, they turn into dolphins. And that's actually a pretty merciful end to the story. It could have been so much worse. The helmsman is spared, and the helmsman is by now terrified and kind of cowering in a corner of the ship. And Dionysus says,

fear not, noble helmsman, you have respected me and you will be spared. And go out and tell other people what happened because I am a god. What a story. It's got it all. It's kind of like that being mischievous turns into being quite brutal. But at the same time, there is an acknowledgement for that one person who told the other pals not to do it. At the end of the day, they are pirates. So it's interesting that they're used almost as this kind of opposing force to Dionysus on the ship. It does also make me think you will know what piece of art I'm talking about, I've got no doubt. I remember holding a reconstruction of this drinking cup, this Kylix, not too long ago, and I believe it's the famous craftsman,

the famous painter, Exegias, isn't it? Tell us all what exactly this drinking cup is, because it feels like this must depict that story. Yep, that's a beautiful cup, and it probably is showing the story that we were just talking about. There's another cup, which actually used to be in a museum nearby me, the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio, which was repatriated to Italy. And we now don't know where it is. But it's I mean, it's somewhere in Italy, but the Italians haven't told us yet where it is. It's a gorgeous cup. And it shows sequentially almost like in comic book art, but it's in a single frame.

The pirates jumping overboard and in different stages of the transformation, you know, half human, half dolphin, almost all dolphin, a little bit human. If you Google, you will eventually find a picture of this base. It's just remarkable. There you go. So obviously it seems to be very popular or a fun myth told by Greeks in ancient history, that they'd be able to recognize it by just seeing it on one of these drinking cups. Let's talk about Dionysus and his association with the dead, because it feels like the underworld,

and our last chat, quite fittingly, was all about the king of the underworld, all about Hades. This seems to be a strong part of Dionysus's story, because he seems to descend into the underworld to rescue loved ones, if I'm not mistaken. He descends into the underworld to bring up his mother, Semele. After Zeus unintentionally blasted her, she dies and goes to the underworld. But one of the first deeds that the grown-up Dionysus does is go to Hades and eventually take her all the way up to Olympus. So she becomes a goddess in her own right. But he also is in cult, a god who has a mystery cult. And by being initiated into this mystery cult of Dionysus, you can win or reprieve from the ordinary afterlife that a mortal would have, which is dark and dusty and really boring. And instead, when you go to the underworld after you die, you're going to, it's like going to the, you know, an airline lounge in the airport,

if you're a member of Delta Frequent Flyers or whatever. Instead of milling about in the airport like everyone else, you get to go to the lounge where, in the case of Dionysus, there's endless partying, there's endless wine, there's endless food, there's sunlight, which of course in the underworld is very remarkable. So he's a god of the dead in that sense of understanding enough about how the underworld works that he can buy you a place there. And this is probably connected to that myth I told earlier about the fact that his original mother was Persephone, who is the queen of the dead. And so he has that link to it as well. Do we know much about these cults? Were they quite mysterious? Do we know how Dionysus, if he has this importance to the underworld, but also for revelry, for wine, for relaxing, do we know much about how Dionysus was worshipped by people in the

ancient Greek world? As far as the mystery cult that you would be initiated into, like any mystery cult, probably by now on your show, you've talked about the Eleusinian mysteries. Well, not really. So could you explain those as well, Sarah, as we're talking, if we know much about it? This is the biggest of the mystery cults in ancient Greece. And they're called Eleusinian because they're situated in the town of Eleusis, which is 14 miles outside of Athens. And they're dedicated to Demeter and Persephone, which in essence means you're making a deal with Demeter and Persephone by being

initiated into this cult that in return for this extra honor that you show them by being initiated, they will in turn ensure that you get a better afterlife. And as a matter of fact, it's more or less the same good afterlife you'd get if you were initiated into Dionysus's mystery cult. We even have a very interesting inscription from antiquity implying that literally the people from the two mystery cults are going to the same place in the underworld. But so the Eleusinian mysteries are the oldest, and they're sort of the gold standard. And other mystery cults that develop later, to some extent, are probably patterning themselves. The mystery cult of Dionysus is probably the second most

famous and the second oldest. And instead of being anchored in a single place like Eleusis, they were run by itinerant priests who wandered all over Greece and basically said, hey, we know you've been initiated at Eleusis, but if you want an even better deal, get initiated into this cult as well. What we know about them is not much, but one really fascinating thing we do know is that if you could afford it after you'd been initiated, you got a very thin piece of gold, and maybe it was about an inch by half inch, and you either wrote yourself or you probably hired someone to write in very tiny letters, kind of mnemonics, so that when you got

to the underworld, when you confronted certain guards that were imagined to be there, Dionysus would have taught you what to say, but you might be forgetful after you die. So you'd have this little gold tablet that would remind you, oh yeah, when the guard asks you this, say this. When you finally get to meet Persephone, remember to say this. So that was an innovation of the Dionysiac mystery cult, the mnemonic device. Interesting. I mean, the story for this episode, Sarah, is one actually we haven't covered yet, and it would be a miss of me not to get you to talk about it. Now, what is this story of King Pentheus? Because we've touched on his brutalness in the past. This feels like another good example of a king who has a run-in with Dionysus,

and it doesn't end well for him. Yeah. And when we talk about Dionysus being brutal, I should add that he always gives people a chance first. It's when they refuse to take the chance that things get brutal. So Thebes is where his mother Semele lived. And he returns to Thebes, one of the last places that he goes in Greece to try to promulgate his cult, try to convince people he's a god. He goes to Thebes, and he is expecting that here, at least, where he still has relatives, Semele's sisters are alive. His cousin Pentheus is king. So he thinks these people will particularly welcome him, but it's absolutely the opposite. They're basically saying, yeah, yeah, Semele, she was lying. She didn't sleep with Zeus. Don't give us this baloney. So the only people who accept him in the city are his grandfather,

Cadmus, Semele's father, and the priest and seer, Tiresias. So Tiresias and Cadmus accept him. Dionysus maddens the women of Thebes so that then they accept him, but they're what are called menads, which literally means mad women in Greek. So, he kind of infects them with this rather destructive form of belief in him. except Dionysus, even by force, is Pentheus, the king. And so the myth talks about how first Dionysus, who is masquerading as his own priest, allows himself to be captured by Pentheus' guards because Pentheus is saying, oh, this stupid cult of this fake god Dionysus, it's making our women run around in the woods and God only knows what they're up to out there, insinuating that it's filthy, whatever they're doing. And they're drinking. So Dionysus allows himself to be captured as the alleged priest of this cult. And he's taken into Pentheus' presence and he slowly infects Pentheus with madness and says to Pentheus, say, wouldn't you like to know what the women are doing out there in the woods? And Pentheus goes madness and says to Pentheus, say, wouldn't you like to know what the women are doing

out there in the woods? And Pentheus goes, yeah. And Dionysus says, okay, I'm going to dress you up as a woman and then we'll sneak out there. So he drapes his uncle in very effeminate clothing and a wig and little shoes. And as this is going on, Pentheus gets more and more crazy and starts to primp and say, oh, am I beautiful now? How does my hair look? And stuff like that, which he used to be a macho man. So this is both horrifying and amusing to people watching or reading the myth. They go out to the woods. Dionysus basically, once they're there, says to all the women, hey, you know, this guy is attacking us. And the mean adds hair Pentheus limb from limb while he's alive. I said that he has said, here's this guy that's

attacking us, but they simultaneously think Pentheus is a wild animal. It's very confused. In the end, they march back to Thebes carrying this dismembered pieces in the belief that they're carrying the dismembered pieces of an animal. Pentheus's own mother ends up putting Pentheus's head on the top of her walking stick and carries that back and says to her father Cadmus proudly, look, look, look at the magnificent lion that I have captured. And Cadmus is going, oh my God. And then perhaps most cruelly of all, Dionysus wipes away the women's madness and they see what they've really done. Wow. This horrific story. How do ancient Greeks reinvent it in particular in drama? The most famous telling of it was by Euripides in a play called the Baki. And theacchae is another word for these menads,

these women. And we know that this was a very influential telling because we get vase paintings after we know the Bacchae was premiered. We get vase paintings that show pictures of the menads dismembering Pentheus. But interestingly, the artists are skillful enough that they can convey to us that this is a stage portrayal of the dismembering of Pentheus. The dismembered limbs look fake on the vase paintings. So, in other words, this is a really good indication that that play was quite shocking, quite influential. And so authors who come after that will tell the story again. But the most vastly influential text, as far as how the story is told in later texts, is this Euripidean drama

that was performed on stage in Athens. And women couldn't go to the theater, but most of the men in Athens would have been sitting in that theater watching this unfold. Is the Bacchae and this recreating of this myth, is this in part or is this completely the reason as to why Dionysus, he doesn't just become the god of wine, but also becomes closely connected to theater and entertainment in ancient Greece. Do we know much about that? It's one of these vicious circles that it's hard to tell what came first, what came second. Again, I got to go back to what I've already said. He seems to be in his essence, the god of release, whether that be good release, like, ah, let's have a couple of drinks, we'll feel better. And let's go to the theatre, we'll feel better. Or the horrible releases that we see in things like that play the Baki, where the Minads don't know what they're doing. He's the god of release. And everything else sort of seems to grow out of that. In what order? We don't know. And he said he seems to be quite cruel in many ways, this descending of

madness onto these people. But it's also interesting when you kind of reverse it and you look at Athenian comedy. And I remember doing the play The Frogs, and this is almost a completely different portrayal of Dionysus. He's not this cruel overlord. He seems, to put it lightly and bluntly, in my opinion, a bit of a dithering idiot. Talk us through this. That's hilarious. That is absolutely hilarious. Because as I mentioned a moment ago, there are these mysteries of Dionysus where one of the things you're taught during your initiation is when you get to the underworld, be sure you take this road, don't take the other road, you'll end up in the bad part of the underworld. And if you get to this spring in the underworld,

I know you're going to be thirsty, but don't drink out of it. Because if you drink out of it, it's going to wipe your memory and you know, then you're in trouble. Just keep going along the road. You'll come to a source of water that is safe to drink, blah, blah, blah. So these are little roadmaps for what to do in the underworld that you acquire in the course of being initiated. And if you're wealthy enough, you have mnemonics for them inscribed on the gold tablet. What you see in that play, The Frogs, is, as you said, this kind of dithering Dionysus who does not know how to get to the underworld. He's going to the underworld because he thinks that Athenian drama has gone get better again. So he's going to the underworld for that purpose, but he doesn't know how to get there. And he ends up, for example,

disguising himself as Heracles because he remembers, oh yeah, Heracles managed to get to the underworld. So I'll just dress up like Heracles. Why do you think this happens? This kind of shift in the portrayal of Dionysus, and let's not forget, he is a god in their eyes, but this shift to kind of make him a comedic figure, someone to laugh at, how silly he appears in this play of Aristophanes. Well, but Aristophanes does that to a lot of the gods. That's what comedy is all about. I know it seems odd to us. It's hard to imagine. Well, I was about to say it's hard to imagine making fun of the Christian, Jewish and Christian God, but that's not actually true. For example, there's that movie Dogma. Now

I'm probably really dating myself, but there are movies that gently make fun of the Judeo-Christian God. But nonetheless, Aristophanes and the other comic playwrights do it to a greater extent, and it's acceptable. And it's presumed that in some ways the gods would be honored by this. So Dionysus is particularly funny in the frogs because it's not just funny because he's the god of the dead or one of the gods of the dead, but also because he's the god of the theater. And there he is in his theater, in the theater of Dionysus, and he's being made fun of. So yeah, I agree with you. It's very funny. What was the whole festival of the Dionysus? Do we know much detail about how it

was structured and how Dionysus really became closely associated with this particular festival? He's associated with most dramatic festivals, but the Dionysia in Athens is the greatest of them. And drama was invented in Athens. So it's no surprise that that's where the biggest festival is. So there was a process of choosing which tragic playwrights, so Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and a whole bunch of others who weren't so famous, there would be a selection process. And three of them would be chosen. And those three had to present three plays each, three tragic plays each, and then what's called a Seder play, which Seder, S-A-T-E-Y-R, a Seder play is a funny little play at the end.

So the first day of the three-day Dionysia, the first playwright would produce their three plays and their Seder play. And then the second day, the second and the third, the third, and then there would be a judging and one of them would get first place, which was a very, very, very big deal. The other interesting thing about this is that wealthy men were expected to pay for this. In other words, if you were someone who was someone in Athens, it would be rather disgraceful for you not to take your turn in stepping up and saying, sure, I'll sponsor the production of Sophocles' trilogy this year, or I'll sponsor the production of Euripides' trilogy this year. So it was paid

for by the wealthy, even though all men could come and watch. In the mythology about Dionysus' love interests, now, do we know much about that part of his story about any flings he has and offspring? Yeah, he's not like Zeus. We don't really hear about his offspring as far as I can think at the moment anyway. His main love interest is Ariadne. And the story there is that Ariadne is a Cretan princess. She helps Theseus when he comes to kill the Minotaur. Without Ariadne, basically Theseus would have been cooked because she's the one who gives him the thread to tie to the post at the entrance to the labyrinth. He unrolls the thread as he goes through the labyrinth. He gets in there and kills the Minotaur and then he rolls the thread back up in order to get out.

So without her, he couldn't have done it. She gets on board ship with him as he flees Crete after this, which is a very daring thing to do. You know, oh, my goodness, she's running away with a man, and her father has not married her to this man. And the idea is that he's going to marry her. But they stop at the island of Naxos on the way home because you can't sail all the way to Athens in one day. And then there's two different versions of the story. Either Theseus abandons her and says, eh, I don't want this Cretan princess.

I'm going home and making a more politically wise marriage. So either Theseus abandons her and then Dionysus sees her crying alone on Naxos, falls in love with her and asks Zeus to make her immortal and raise her to Olympus, or Theseus doesn't abandon her. Dionysus sees her on Naxos and says, oh, that's who I want, and sends his sister Athena down to say to Theseus, sorry, dude, you're not taking this woman anywhere. You know, Dionysus has chosen her. So pick the version you want.

One way or another, Ariadne is raised up off the island of Naxos into immortality so that she can marry Dionysus. And he's a pretty faithful husband. There are not that many stories in which he's dallying with mortal women. That's good. A nicer end for Ariadne than many other women from Greek mythology, which is nice to hear. One last myth, Sarah, because you've been fantastic over this past three quarters of an hour. But this is the myth that you mentioned to me at the start before we

started recording, and I did not know about it at all, but it seems to be a very interesting myth, which is the story of Icarius. Yeah. So when Dionysus is traveling the world trying to convince people that he's a god, he's also teaching them viticulture. In other words, how you grow this fruit that no one had seen before, how you harvest it, how you ferment it, and most importantly, how you do and do not drink it. So in his wanderings, he comes to a farm outside of Athens where there lives Icarius, who's a widower and his daughter, Origani. And he teaches Icarius these things because Icarius and Origani have welcomed him and treated him well. So he teaches Icarius how to do this. He spends a whole year there. And when the first wine that the two of them have produced together is ready to drink, Icarus drinks it and says,

wow, great stuff. And Dionysus says, don't forget, you can't drink too much of this, or you will be in trouble. And Icarus says, got it. So then Icarus makes some more wine. And when that year is over, he invites his neighbors who have never tasted this or the neighboring men to be specific. And they don't listen to him. They drink and drink. And I'm sure you've never been drunk, Kristen, but if you had, you'd know the drunker you get, the harder it is to be sensible. get, the harder it is to be sensible. So they get to the point that they pass out on the ground. And when they wake up in the morning, they feel really crappy and they think, Icarus poisoned us. And so they murder Icarus and they hastily bury his body in the woods under a tree. Well, the family dog realizes what's happening and goes and gets origami and leads origami to the place in the woods where the body is buried. Origami, it's been so hastily buried that she easily uncovers it. She subsequently hangs herself from the tree under which her father's body has been buried.

And as she hangs herself or before she hangs herself, guess, she curses Athenians and says, may all of your daughters swing in the way that I'm about to swing. And then she hangs herself. So all the Athenian girls start running out in this suicidal madness and hanging themselves from trees. And their parents can barely stop them from doing this. The Delphic Oracle eventually explains to the Athenians what's happened. Apollo, through the Delphic Oracle, says you've got to find the murderers of Icarus and execute them, and you also have to institute rituals to appease a Riganese ghost. And these rituals become incorporated into what is probably one of, I won't even say probably, but it's one of the most important festivals of Dionysus of all, which is called the Anthisteria, which is the festival at which

every year the new wine was first tasted by Athenian men, and not just Athenian men, men in other parts of Greece too. And as the new wine was tasted at this festival, they would pray to Dionysus that it would bring only good, not ill. Is having a deity of wine, is it embraced by many different ancient cultures? Can we almost see this spread of Dionysus throughout ancient history and these different civilizations? Oh yeah, absolutely. It moves eastward and into the area that we now would call Jordan and even beyond that. But a lot of cultures had a god, if not of wine, of intoxication. The Egyptians, for example, drank something more like what we would call beer instead of wine, but they had their gods of intoxication.

So it's as though it's this universal human condition. Maybe I shouldn't even call it intoxication. The drinking of wine, which can lead to intoxication, is something that humans clearly value very highly, and rightfully so in my opinion, but also which they think had better be under the control of a god lest we abuse it. Last thing as well, keeping on that legacy, I mean, down into the present day, how is he usually depicted, whether it's in media or in books or other types of formats? I'm guessing his legacy has very much endured.

As mentioned at the start, he is the party animal of Greek religion, so presumably he's quite a popular deity for people who want to depict him in the 21st and 20th centuries. Yeah. Through Renaissance art into the modern period, he's pictured, of course, with grapes in his hair and stuff like that, kind of racing ahead to a very different kind of influence. Some of your listeners will have heard of that movie Animal House, which came out when I was in college, but it seems to live forever. The reason that, at least when I was in college, the reason that people had what they

called toga parties, right, and dressed in these togas like John Belushi does in Animal House, is because they thought of drinking as a very Greek and Roman thing. And that's partially because of Dionysus having this very long reach into European and then American culture as the god of wine. I think my favorite depiction of him is a very recent one. I'm not sure whether you've touched in your various conversations on this wonderful series of graphic novels by George O'Connor called The Olympians. And there's 12 of them that have come out over the course of the last eight or nine years, one by one. And George O'Connor purposefully saved

doing Dionysus till the end. So he's number 12 in the series. George O'Connor, first of all, has a superb knowledge of Greek mythology. I have never yet caught him out making a mistake. And in fact, once or twice, he's come up with little parts of stories that I was going, where'd he get that? And then I go and look and discover, yeah, there is an ancient source for this. But to get back to the point, I think number 12 Dionysus is even better than the 11 that preceded it. One thing I really like about what this graphic novel does is Dionysus is shown with one green eye and one blue eye throughout, which really subtly but persistently gets across the idea,

this is a slightly strange guy. This is not your normal Greek god. Anyway, he tells a lot of the myths that we've talked about today, Tristan, and a lot of them that we haven't. And so I highly recommend it. It's called Dionysus by George O'Connor. Well, there you go. George O'Connor did Dionysus as his 12th deity, gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon. And we've done exactly the same because we are on number 12 of Dionysus. We've just got Hestia to go and we might throw Hercules in there too. Sarah, this has been absolutely brilliant. Last but certainly not least, you have written a book recently all about the various myths,

not just of Dionysus, but of the whole of Greek mythology. Yes, I have. It's called Gods and Mortals, Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers. And you may have figured this out by now, I'm very fond of Dionysus. So I made sure to put a bunch of Dionysus stories in there. And also, I bring him in as a secondary character in a lot of myths too. I mean, only myths where he belongs, but I took care to make sure he's well represented in Gods and Mortals. Fantastic. Well, Sarah, it just goes me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today. It's always a pleasure, Tristan. Thank you. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Sarah Iles Johnston talking all the

things Dionysus, God of Wine, the latest in our Greek Gods and Goddesses series. We're really near the end of this series now. Only a couple of more episodes to go. Stay tuned for those. Now, the script for the story at the beginning of this episode, it was written by Andrew Hulse. The narration was done by Nicola Woolley. The assistant producer for the episode was Joseph Knight. The producer was Anne-Marie Luff. And the whole episode was edited together brilliantly by Aidan Lonergan. Thank you to you all for making this episode a reality. Last thing from me, wherever you're listening to the podcast, whether that be on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify or elsewhere, make sure that you are subscribed, that you are following The Ancient so that you do not miss out when we release new episodes twice every week. But that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode. Thank you.