This is one of my favourite depictions of #Dionysos in ancient art. My written version of him is largely based on this gold relief of drunken Dionysos and a panther, supported by a #satyr friend.
🏛️ Naiskos ("little temple") relief framed by the columns and pediment of a temple, 2nd century BCE, National Archaeological Museum #Athens
This bronze bust of the wine god Dionysos used to decorate a Thracian or Roman chariot.
🏛️ Bronze bust of #Dionysos from ancient Philipopolis (modern Plovdiv, #Bulgaria) dated to the 2nd century CE. He was the face of the 2020 Bulgarian Archaeology Exhibition in the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia.
"You, #Bacchus [Dionysos], from thyrsus-bearing India, with unshorn locks, perpetually young, you who frightens tigers with your vine-clad spear, and with a turban you bind your horned head." #Seneca, Phaedra 753
"After #Hera inflicted madness upon him [#Dionysos], he wandered over #Egypt and Syria. The Egyptian king Proteus first welcomed him."
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 29
🏛️ Dionysos and #Ariadne, #Coptic Egyptian tapestry from the 4th century CE.
"#Dionysos showed himself on the island [of Naxos], and because of the beauty of #Ariadne he took the maiden away from #Theseus and kept her as his lawful wife, loving her exceedingly."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.61.5
🏛️ Dionysos and Ariadne, #fresco from the Triclinium in the House of Vettii, #Pompeii
"Let us be merry and drink wine and sing of Bakkhos [#Dionysos], the inventor of the choral dance, the lover of all songs, leading the same life as the Erotes, the darling of Kythere [#Aphrodite]."
The Anacreontea, Fragment 38
🏛️ Roman terracotta relief dated 20 BCE - 50 CE. Today in the British Museum.
"Let us be merry and drink wine and sing of Bakkhos [#Dionysos], the inventor of the choral dance, the lover of all songs, leading the same life as the Erotes, the darling of Kythere [#Aphrodite]."
The Anacreontea, Fragment 38
🏛️ Roman terracotta relief dated 20 BCE - 50 CE. Today in the British Museum.
Silver #coin depicting the god #Dionysos sitting in his biga, a chariot drawn by a team of two animals. Dionysos is holding his iconic thyrsos, a staff of giant fennel. #Apollon Kitharoidos, Apollon the kithara player, is sitting beside him. The biga is drawn by a panther and a goat, both of which are animals sacred to Dionysos.
"I swear by the cluster-bearing delight of Dionysos' vine."
Euripides, Bacchae 535
🏛️ Marble sculpture of #Dionysos found in Italy, dated 2nd century CE. Arms and legs were heavily restored in the 18th century. Today in the Musée du Louvre.
This beautiful mosaic shows #Dionysos, also known in Latin as #Bacchus or #FatherLiber, pouring wine from a rhyton, a vessel from which wine or water were intended to be drunk or to be poured, either in a libation or at table. In this scene, Dionysos is pouring it to his pet panther.
🏛️ Roman mosaic, today in the National Museum of #Beirut
#Eros adjusts the kottabos stand, a popular game at #ancientGreek symosia. #Dionysos reclines on a couch, his lower body richly draped, holding a thyrsos in his left hand and a wine cup in his right.
🏛️ Red-figure vase painting on a bell krater, dated 395–375 BCE.
Daddy Dionysos and #Herakles enjoying each other's company at a symposion. Note the chest hair! Both Dionysos and Herakles were demigod sons of Zeus who were deified and ascended to Olympos later in life. #Dionysos was born before Herakles and thus was a god when he was still mortal.
🏛️ Red-figure vase painting. Today in the British Museum.
"When Seirios [#Sirius, the star] scorches the flesh, when the crude grapes which #Dionysos gave to men - a joy and a sorrow both - begin to colour." #Hesiod, The Shield of Herakles 398
🏛️ Dionysos holding a kantharos, Roman statuette, Archaeological Museum of #Eleusis
“Your hair is long—apparently you never wrestle. It flows over your cheeks, full of appeal. And your complexion is so clear, studiously so. The sun never gets at it; it is the shade you go hunting, hunting Aphrodite with your beauty…”
Euripides, Bacchae 326
🏛️ Hadrian-era Roman marble sculpture, detail of torso, 2nd century CE, Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme, #Rome
#Dionysos is returning from #India in this mosaic from #Tunesia. His chariot is pulled by #tigers and winged Nike (victory) is riding with the victorious demigod. A riotous procession of bacchants surrounds the chariot.
#Dionysos is a famously effeminate god. He even carries the epithet "Androgynos", describing him as someone doing both active, male things and passive, female ones, specifically during sexual intercourse. The Macedonians called him by the epithet Pseudanor (Ψευδάνωρ), "fake man", metaphorically an effeminate man.
He is the god who blurs the lines between male and female.
A mature, bearded #Dionysos watches a #maenad dancing in phallus shorts, a costume in ancient Greek #theatre to play the role of a #satyr, hence the horse tail.
"If he [#Ampelos] joined with a yearsmate hunter to follow chase, Dionysos jealous held him back, lest another be struck like himself with a heartbewitching shaft, and now enslaved by love should seduce the fickle boy's fancy."
Nonnons, Dionysiaka 10.230
🎨 #Dionysos, supported by the satyr #Ampelus. Gaeco-Roman bronze, 1st century BCE-CE, today in the Royal-Athena Galleries, New York
"They [the Athenians] honoured him as a god next after the son of Persephone [Dionysos Zagreus], and after Semele's son [Dionysos Bromios]; they established sacrifices for Dionysos late born [#Bromios] and Dionysos first born [#Zagreus], and third they chanted a new hymn for #Iakkhos."