page_title: Dionysus
section_title: In classical art
hierarchical_section_title: Dionysus / Iconography / In classical art
caption_attribution_description: 5706. Table support with a Dionysiac group. Marble from Dokimeion in Asia Minor. Unknown provenance. This piece was the single support for a table top. The pillar-support is adorned by a group of Dionysos, Pan and a Satyr. The nude Dionysos holds a rhyton (ritual vase) ending in the front half of a panther. Next to him the goat-footed god Pan holds a lagobolon (stick to hares). In front of him is a small cylindrical basket, from which a snake is emerging. A young Satyr climbs up the vine and cuts grapes with in his right hand. From the branch hangs a lagobolon, a pan-pipe and a goatskin. The exposed parts of the bodies are very well polished. Traces of red and yellow colour are preserved on the hair of the figures and the branches. This elaborate piece is from an Asia Minor workshop. AD 170-180. National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece --- 5706. Τραπεζοφόρο με διονυσιακό σύμπλεγμα. Μάρμαρο Δοκιμείου Μικράς Ασίας. Άγνωστης προέλευσης. Αποτελούσε το μονόποδο στήριγμα της πλάκας ενός τραπεζιού. Τον πεσσό-στήριγμα στολίζει σύμπλεγμα Διονύσου, Πανός και Σατύρου. Ο γυμνός Διόνυσος κρατεί ρυτόν (τελετουργικό αγγείο) που απολήγει σε ημίτομο πάνθηρα. Πλάι τou ο τραγοπόδαρος Παν κρατεί λαγωβόλο. Μπροστά του υπάρχει μια μικρή κυλινδρική κίαιην από όπου ξεπροβάλλει φίδι. Ο μίκρος Σάτυρος είναι οκαρφαλωμένος στην κληματαριά και, κρατώντας στο δεξί χέρι ένα δρεπάνι, κόβει σταφύλια. Από το κλαδί ένα λαγωβόλο, η σύριγγα του Πανός και μια δορά αίγας, Τα γυμνά μέρη των σωμάτων είναι πολύ καλά στιλβωμένα. Ίχνη κόκκινου και κίτρινου χρώματος οώζονται στα μαλλιά και στα κλαδιά. Το περίτεχνο έργο προέρχεται από μικρασιατικό εργαστήριο. 170-180 μ.Χ. Εθνικό Αρχαιολογική Μουσείο. Αθήνα.
context_page_description: Dionysus or Dionysos is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking and wine, of fertility, orchards and fruit, vegetation, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity and theatre in ancient Greek religion and myth.
  He is also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans; the frenzy he induces is bakkheia. Another name used by the Romans is Liber meaning “free”, due to his association with wine and the Bacchanalia and other rites, and the freedom associated with it. His thyrsus, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. As Eleutherios, his wine, music and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.
  In his religion, identical with or closely related to Orphism, Dionysus was believed to have been born from the union of Zeus and Persephone, and to have himself represented a chthonic or underworld aspect of Zeus.
context_section_description: The god, and still more often his followers, were commonly depicted in the painted pottery of Ancient Greece, much of which made to hold wine. But, apart from some reliefs of maenads, Dionysian subjects rarely appeared in large sculpture before the Hellenistic period, when they became common. In these, the treatment of the god himself ranged from severe archaising or Neo Attic types such as the Dionysus Sardanapalus to types showing him as an indolent and androgynous young man, often nude. Hermes and the Infant Dionysus is probably a Greek original in marble, and the Ludovisi Dionysus group is probably a Roman original of the second century AD. Well-known Hellenistic sculptures of Dionysian subjects, surviving in Roman copies, include the Barberini Faun, the Belvedere Torso, the Resting Satyr. The Furietti Centaurs and Sleeping Hermaphroditus reflect related subjects, which had by this time become drawn into the Dionysian orbit. The marble Dancer of Pergamon is an original, as is the bronze Dancing Satyr of Mazara del Vallo, a recent recovery from the sea.
  The Dionysian world by the Hellenistic period is a hedonistic but safe pastoral into which other semi-divine creatures of the countryside have been co-opted, such as centaurs, nymphs, and the gods Pan and Hermaphrodite. "Nymph" by this stage "means simply an ideal female of the Dionysian outdoors, a non-wild bacchant". Hellenistic sculpture also includes for the first time large genre subjects of children and peasants, many of whom carry Dionysian attributes such as ivy wreaths, and "most should be seen as part of his realm. They have in common with satyrs and nymphs that they are creatures of the outdoors and are without true personal identity." The fourth-century BC Derveni Krater, the unique survival of a very large scale Classical or Hellenistic metal vessel of top quality, depicts Dionysus and his followers.
  Dionysus appealed to the Hellenistic monarchies for a number of reasons, apart from merely being a god of pleasure: He was a human who became divine, he came from, and had conquered, the East, exemplified a lifestyle of display and magnificence with his mortal followers, and was often regarded as an ancestor. He continued to appeal to the rich of Imperial Rome, who populated their gardens with Dionysian sculpture, and by the second century AD were often buried in sarcophagi carved with crowded scenes of Bacchus and his entourage.
  The fourth-century AD Lycurgus Cup in the British Museum is a spectacular cage cup which changes colour when light comes through the glass; it shows the bound King Lycurgus being taunted by the god and attacked by a satyr; this may have been used for celebration of Dionysian mysteries. Elizabeth Kessler has theorized that a mosaic appearing on the triclinium floor of the House of Aion in Nea Paphos, Cyprus, details a monotheistic worship of Dionysus. In the mosaic, other gods appear but may only be lesser representations of the centrally imposed Dionysus. The mid-Byzantine Veroli Casket shows the tradition lingering in Constantinople around 1000 AD, but probably not very well understood.
caption: Marble table support adorned by a group including Dionysos, Pan and a Satyr; Dionysos holds a rhyton (drinking vessel) in the shape of a panther; traces of red and yellow colour are preserved on the hair of the figures and the branches; from an Asia Minor workshop, 170–180 AD, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A650 IS", "Image Orientation": "Rotated 90 CCW", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:03:15 14:47:23", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3997", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:03:15 14:47:23", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:03:15 14:47:23", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "157/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "37/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4000", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3000", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3362", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "4000000/291", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1000000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}