pothos.org

Alexias wrote:This is the link http://www.lifo.gr/team/omorfia/46357. Some rather otherworldy and archaic ritual costumes. Whether there is actually anything to do with Dionysus I'm not sure. It looks more to do with cattle rearing.

Allusions to Dionysus

Dionysus is a pre-Indo-European god of great antiquity in spite of his composite name (dio-nysos, 'god of Nysa or Nysai'; the latter probably is a pre-Indo-European place name). His cult in Greece is evidenced by temples, sculptures of phalli and descriptions of processions carrying huge phalli as late as the second century BC and the persisting tradition of Dionysiac festivals even into later times is attested by a group of mythical images having strong roots in the local (southeast European-western Anatolian) soil. Discussions about the origin of the Greek Dionysus - whether he came to Greece from Thrace, Crete, or western Asia Minor - are pointless, since all these lands originally belonged to the same Mother Culture. Dionysus was a bull-god, god of annual renewal, imbued with all the urgency of nature. Brimming with virility, he was the god most favoured by women.

The abundance of phalli in Dionysiac festivals, in sculptures near the temples, on herms used as signposts on the roads and before the doors of houses suggests that the ancient Greeks were no less obsessed by phallic magic than were the Old Europeans. The bull-god was also alive in many areas of Greece and particularly in Macedonia in the time of Euripides whose Bacchae abounds in bull epiphanies:

A Horned God was found
And a God with serpents crowned
(Euripides, Bacchae, 99)

In the Orphic mystery, the worshipper ate the raw flesh of the bull before he became 'Bacchos'. The ritual of Dionysus in Thrace included 'bull-voiced' mimes who bellowed to the god. The scholiast on Lycophron's Alexandra says that the women who worshipped Dionysus Laphystios wore horns themselves, in imitation of the god, for he was imagined to be bull-headed and is so represented in art. Plutarch gives more particulars" 'Many of the Greeks represent Dionysus' image in the form of a bull. The women of Elis in their prayers invoke the god to come to them with his bull-foot. And among the Argives there is a Dionysus with the title Bull-born. They summon him by their trumpets out of the water, casting lambs in the depths to the Door-keeper' (Plutarch de Js. et Os. XXXV). Dionysus also manifested himself as the bull Zagreus, in which guise he was torn to pieces by the Titans.

The key to a more complete understanding of the male god and the Bull god of Old Europes lies in the Dionysiac festivals - Anthesteria, Lenai and the Greater Dionysia. In these festivals, which have assimilated elements of deep antiquity, Dionysus appears as a year-god. The idea of renewal is predominant throughout the festivals of winter and spring. Each re-enacts an orgiastic agricultural scenario with phalli, phallus-shaped cups, ladles and cult dishes and bull-man (Dionysus) marrying the queen (goddess).

The Lenai festival held in January was preceded by a Rural Dionysia in which phalli were carried in procession amid general merrymaking to promote the fertility of the autumn-sown seed, and of the soil during the winter recess. Offerings were made before the image of Dionysus (including pouring porridge with a ladle) and priapic and goat songs were sung. The purpose of the Lenai festival was to arouse the slumbering vegetation. The City Dionysia festival in March was also designed to ensure fertility. To this festival the cities of the Athenian empire sent the grossest kind of fertility emblem, the phallus, as part of their tribute. Anthesteria was a Festival of Flowers in honour of Dionysus as the god of spring, and included drinking and rejoicing. The second day of the festival was called Choes, the Day of the Cups. The wine was taken from the jars and brought to the sanctuary of Dionysus in the marshes, where it was silently distributed in small jugs among all citizens over the age of four. After everyone had drunk, the wife of the magistrate was married to Dionysus in the Bukoleion or Ox-stall, attended by women who had taken vows of chastity in the service of Dionysus. Thither the image of Dionysus, possibly in bovine form, or an actor wearing horns and a hide, was brought on a boat-like structure on wheels to complete the nuptial rites.