More than the other Olympian gods, Dionysos is credited with supernatural wonders: springs of wine gush from the ground, thursoi drip with honey, vines spring up in minutes and bear fruit. These miracles are strongly associated with Dionysiac ecstasy (e. g. Eur. Bacch. 699-707) and with the epiphany of the god, particularly in his bull form. Such wonders, including magic “ephemeral” vines that grow and bear fruit in one winter day, are mentioned in Greek tragedies, but it is unclear what role they played in cult during the Archaic and Classical periods.30 Later sources speak of sanctuaries in which miraculous springs of wine were to be found, sometimes in connection with a lesser-known Dionysiac festival, the Theodaisia (God’s Feast). Haliartos in Boiotia celebrated the Theodaisia by the spring Kissousa, where local tradition held that the infant Dionysos was bathed. The water of Kissousa was delicious and “had the color and sparkle of wine,” the result of the holy bath.31 The month name Theodaisios and/or the festival were observed in Kyrene, Rhodes, and Krete, where arrheta (unspoken things) were performed in connection with the Theodaisia of the city Olous. Springs of wine are also found in Ionian contexts. Pliny (HN 2.106, 31.13) says that wine flowed in the sanctuary of Dionysos on the island of Andros for the seven days of the Theodaisia in the winter. Similar wonders are attested for Teos and Naxos, where the miracle was inaugurated when Dionysos and Ariadne met. Based on the little evidence we have, the Theodaisia seems to have been a biennial winter festival, hence mainadic in origin, concerned with the mysteries of the god’s birth and characterized by supernatural signs of his presence.
We see a similar combination of wine miracle, epiphany, and women’s ritual in Elis at the celebration of the Dionysia or Thyia (Raving). According to Pausanias (6.26.1-2), the Eleans believed that Dionysos attended the festival, manifesting himself in the wine. At his sanctuary outside the city, the priests placed three empty pots in a room and sealed the doors in the presence of witnesses. The next day, when the seals were broken, the pots were found filled with wine. Plutarch (Quaest. Graec. 299a-b) reports that the Elean women sang a song of invocation to the god: “Come, hero Dionysos, with the Charites to the holy Elean temple, raving (thuOin) to the temple on bovine foot, worthy bull, worthy bull.” This hymn, which scholars consider one of the most ancient attested cult songs, was most likely sung as part of the Thyia. It illustrates the visualization of Dionysos as a bull, a recurrent feature of his worship.32 In the Bacchae, for example, the ecstatic chorus praises Dionysos as the bull-horned god (100) and he appears to the demented Pentheus in the form of a bull (922). The designation of Dionysos as “hero” has not been satisfactorily explained.
World History
