
Later variants include Dionūsos and Diōnūsos in Boeotia Dien(n)ūsos in Thessaly Deonūsos and Deunūsos in Ionia and Dinnūsos in Aeolia, besides other variants. Without proper rendering support, you may see empty boxes instead of Unicode. This article contains Linear B that may not render correctly in your browser. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name, since all attempts to find an Indo-European etymology are doubtful. Jane Ellen Harrison believed that the name Dionysus means "young Zeus". He suggested that the male form is νῦσος ( nūsos) and this would make Dionysus the "son of Zeus". Kretschmer asserted that νύση ( nusē) is a Thracian word that has the same meaning as νύμφη ( nýmphē), a word similar with νυός ( nuos) (daughter in law, or bride, I-E *snusós, Sanskr. On a vase of Sophilos the Nysiads are named νύσαι ( nusae). It is perhaps associated with Mount Nysa, the birthplace of the god in Greek mythology, where he was nursed by nymphs (the Nysiads), although Pherecydes of Syros had postulated nũsa as an archaic word for "tree" by the sixth century BC. The second element -nūsos is of unknown origin. In Mycenaean Greek the form of Zeus is di-wo. At that time, there could be no certainty on whether this was indeed a theonym, but the 1989–90 Greek-Swedish Excavations at Kastelli Hill, Chania, unearthed, inter alia, four artefacts bearing Linear B inscriptions among them, the inscription on item KH Gq 5 is thought to confirm Dionysus's early worship. The earliest attestation is the Mycenaean Greek dative form 𐀇𐀺𐀝𐀰 (di-wo-nu-so), featured on two tablets that had been found at Mycenaean Pylos and dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century BC.

The dio- prefix in Ancient Greek Διόνυσος ( Diónūsos ) has been associated since antiquity with Zeus ( genitive Dios), and the variants of the name seem to point to an original *Dios-nysos. Name Etymology Dionysus extending a drinking cup ( kantharos) (late sixth century BC) Festivals of Bacchus were merged with those of Liber and Dionysus. Celebration of the Bacchanalia was made a capital offence, except in the toned-down forms and greatly diminished congregations approved and supervised by the State.
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Romans identified Bacchus with their own Liber Pater, the "Free Father" of the Liberalia festival, patron of viniculture, wine and male fertility, and guardian of the traditions, rituals and freedoms attached to coming of age and citizenship, but the Roman state treated independent, popular festivals of Bacchus ( Bacchanalia) as subversive, partly because their free mixing of classes and genders transgressed traditional social and moral constraints. He is sometimes categorised as a dying-and-rising god. 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. Festivals of Dionysus included the performance of sacred dramas enacting his myths, the initial driving force behind the development of theatre in Western culture. Wine could ease suffering, bring joy, and inspire divine madness. Wine was a religious focus in the cult of Dionysus and was his earthly incarnation.

His attribute of "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults, as he is a god of epiphany, sometimes called "the god that comes". Most accounts say he was born in Thrace, traveled abroad, and arrived in Greece as a foreigner. The Eleusinian Mysteries identify him with Iacchus, the son or husband of Demeter. In Orphic religion, he was variously a son of Zeus and Persephone a chthonic or underworld aspect of Zeus or the twice-born son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. As Dionysus 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. He was also known as Bacchus ( / ˈ b æ k ə s/ or / ˈ b ɑː k ə s/ Ancient Greek: Βάκχος Bacchos) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. ə ˈ n aɪ s ə s/ Ancient Greek: Διόνυσος Dionysos) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus ( / d aɪ.

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