Dionysus
Dionysus (Διόνυσος, Diónusos)/Bacchus (Βάκχος, Bákkhos)
God of wine, fruitfulness, parties, festivals, madness, chaos, drunkenness, vegetation, ecstasy, and the theater. He is the twice-born son of Zeus and Semele, in that Zeus snatched him from his mother's womb and stitched Dionysus into his own thigh and carried him until he was ready to be born. In art he is depicted as either an older bearded god (particularly before 430 BC) or an effeminate, long-haired youth (particularly after 430 BC). His attributes include the thyrsus, a drinking cup, the grape vine, and a crown of ivy. He is often in the company of his thiasos, a group of attendants including satyrs, maenads, and his old tutor Silenus. The consort of Dionysus was Ariadne. It was once held that Dionysius was a later addition to the Greek pantheon, but the discovery of Linear B tablets confirm his status as a deity from an early period. Bacchus was another name for him in Greek, and came into common usage among the Romans. His sacred animals include dolphins, serpents, tigers, and donkeys.
The Bacchanalia (or Bacchanal / Carnival) were Roman festivals of Bacchus based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia. They seem to have been popular and well-organised throughout the central and southern Italian peninsula. They were almost certainly associated with Rome's native cult Liberalia which is dedicated to Liber and spouse Libera, also known as Proserpina. The cult probably arrived in Rome itself around 200 BC. However, like all mystery religions of the ancient world, very little is known of their rites. Once the Bacchanalia had become popular, The Roman Senate was threatened by the Bacchanalia because they believed it was designed to rebel against their political views, thus wanted to suppress the mystery cult to avoid any kind of rebellion against the Senate.
Livy, writing some 200 years after the event, offers a scandalized and extremely colourful account of the Bacchanalia. Modern scholars take a skeptical approach to Livy's allegations of frenzied rites, sexually violent initiations of both sexes, all ages and all social classes and of the cult being a murderous instrument of conspiracy against the state. Livy claims that seven thousand cult leaders and followers were arrested, and that most were executed. Livy's dedication to the Bacchanalia scandal leads to his belief that the role Roman Mos maiorum played in society led to the anarchic growth in later centuries
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