Dionysus Bacchus with Maenad statue - God of Wine Ritual Madness and ecstasy

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. He is a god of epiphany, "the god that comes", and his "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. Dionysus was the last god to be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre. He is an example of a dying god. His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and bearded satyrs with erect penises. He is also called Eleutherios ("the liberator"), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. The ancient women of Bacchus — the maenads, or bacchants — are one of the most prolific groups in surviving religious imagery from antiquity. Artists and sculptors throughout the ages have made them their subjects. These wild women who engaged in uninhibited frenzy were considered a mystery even in the ancient world. For the ancients, the maenads represented the dangers of women left unchaperoned by male authority. Yet for many women, the worship of Bacchus allowed them to experience what life could be like as an unfettered maenad.

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