Dionysus is so difficult to pin down because he is ever on the move and always in a perennial state of arrival and epiphany (Detienne 1989a:6-10; Otto 1965:71-80). On Attic vases Dionysus traveling with a grapevine is paired with Triptolemos, the Eleusinian hero who carried Demeter’s gift of grain throughout the world (Schwarz 1987). Bread and wine were considered the basic components of a civilized diet, and Dionysus and Demeter were recognized in ritual for providing these gifts to all. Dionysus should have been welcomed everywhere, but wine was a problematic gift and Dionysus was considered a foreign newcomer.
Myths of local resistance to the rites of Dionysus fit a standard pattern. One plot focuses on females. Insult to the god's divine status leads to punishment of a king's daughters by inflicting them with madness and inciting them to leave their weaving and their children to rave in the mountains. Dionysus can infect those who challenge him with madness so strong that they even tear their own children apart. This is the plot of stories told about the daughters of Kadmos at Thebes (Euripides, Bacchae); the daughters of Minyas at Orchomenos (Plutarch, Greek Questions 38); the daughters of Eleuther at Eleutherai (Suda, ‘‘Melan’’); and the daughters of Proitos at Argos (Apollodorus, Library 2.2.2).
Another plot targets males. In one version Dionysus arrives in Attica from Thebes by the route over Mount Kithairon and through the pass at Eleutherai. Continuing to Ikaria, he is received by Ikarios, to whom he gives a vine branch. In one version, Ikarios learns to make wine and shares it with a group of shepherds. They drink up the wine without diluting it with water and become very drunk. Believing that they have been poisoned, they kill Ikarios. When his daughter Erigone finds his body, she hangs herself (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.7). The story illustrates the danger of wine to a society not yet ready to manage its consumption.
In both story patterns Dionysus appears to be a threat to community, but evidence for his worship tells us otherwise. The Delphic oracle promoted Dionysus more than any other divinity, and myths of resistance to the arriving Dionysus have their counterpart in the rituals designed to receive him. Ionian cities welcomed Dionysus in springtime at the Katagogia, the festival during which they ‘‘led the god down’’ from the ship that brought him and then carried him in procession throughout the city (Tassignon 2003:81-94). In Attica, as a prelude to the Dionysia, a xoanon, a small, portable statue of the god, was taken from the temple of Dionysus to the Academy. When it was carried back to the area of the theater, the procession into the city guaranteed the presence of the god, marked the beginning of the Dionysia, and replayed the conclusion of the god’s original arrival in Attica (Pickard-Cambridge 1968:59-60).
World History
