"[Dionysos] cut the thickest branch from a fig tree, smoothed and crafted it into a male member, fixed it to the grave, exposed his buttocks, lowered himself and inserted it. In his horniness he moved his buttocks to suffer from the wood what he had promised."
Arnobius of Sicca Adversus gentes 5.28
🏛 Roman intaglio ring depicting #Dionysos with a winged phallus
"Beardless #Ampelos, they say, a Nymph's and a Satyr's son, was loved by #Bacchus [Dionysos] on Ismarian hills. He trusted him with a vine hanging from the leaves of an elm; it is now named for the boy. The reckless youth fell picking gaudy grapes on a branch. Liber [#Dionysos] lifted the lost boy to the stars." #Ovid, Fasti 3.407
""I will tell of #Dionysos, the son of glorious Semele, how he appeared on a jutting headland by the shore of the fruitless sea, seeming like a stripling in the first flush of manhood: his rich, dark hair was waving about him, and on his strong shoulders he wore a purple robe."
Homeric Hymn 7 to Dionysos
🏛 Dionysos detail on Coptic Egyptian tapestry from the 4th Century
"But the god changed into a dreadful lion there on the ship and roared loudly: And so the sailors fled into the stern and crowded about the helmsman, until suddenly the lion sprang upon the master and seized him; and when the sailors saw it they leapt overboard into the bright sea."
Homeric Hymn 7
🏛 #Dionysos, Silenos & pirates, #mosaic, 2nd century CE, Bardo National Museum
"Note that the ancients used the word phlyein (to luxuriate) of an abundant yield of fruit. So they called #Dionysos Phleon (the luxuriant), Protrygaios (the first at the vintage), Staphylites (the god of the grape), Omphakites (the god of the unripe grape), and various other #epithets."
Aelian, Historical Miscellany 3. 41
🏛 Relief of Dionysos with a thyrsos and grape clusters
"In the Erythraian Sea, the daughters of Nereus cherished #Dionysos at their table, in their halls deep down under the waves [...] So he remained in the hall deep down in the waves under the waters, and he lay sprawled among the seaweed in #Thetis' bosom."
🏛 Epiphany of Dionysos #mosaic from the Villa of Dionysos, 2nd century CE, Archeological Museum of Dion, Greece
"They say that when Ariadne wed Liber [Dionysos] on the island of Dia [Naxos], and all the gods gave her wedding gifts, she first received this crown as a gift from Venus [#Aphrodite] and the Horae (Seasons)."
Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2.5
"Receive this god [#Dionysos] . . . For he is great in other respects, and they say this too of him, as I hear, that he gives to mortals the vine that puts an end to grief. Without wine there is no longer Kypris [#Aphrodite] or any other pleasant thing for men."
Euripides, The Bacchae 770
🏛 #Eros adjusts a kottabos stand while Dionysos reclines on a couch, Bell Krater 395–375 BCE
"We shall rule that the young man under thirty may take wine in moderation, but that he must entirely abstain from intoxication and heavy drinking. But when a man has reached the age of forty, he may join in the convivial gatherings and invoke #Dionysos, above all other gods." #Plato, Laws 665b
🏛 Drunken Dionysus #Mosaic from Antiochia, 4th century CE
"Let us be merry and drink wine and sing of Bakkhos [#Dionysos], the inventor of the choral dance, the lover of all songs, leading the same life as the Erotes, the darling of Kythere [Aphrodite as goddess of pleasure]."
Anacreontea, Fragment 38
Women dance around a pillar idol of #Dionysos, festooned with branches and set before a table where one of them ladles wine into a cup. The image of the god fastened to the pillar suggests a festival of Dionysos.
🏛 Dionysos and worshipping women, red-figure stamnos, late 5th century BCE
"#Dionysos in terror dived into the salt surf, and #Thetis took him to her bosom, frightened, with the strong shivers upon him at the man's blustering."
Homer, Iliad 6.135
#Dionysos is not a warlike deity but he can fight. In the Dionysiaca his father Zeus sends him to fight in India with an army of maenads and satyrs. In the Gigantomachia he slays one of the gigantes with his thyrsos as depicted in the vase painting below where he and his tiny pet panther battle Gaia's son Eurytos.
"Lord [#Dionysos], with whom #Eros the subduer and the blue-eyed Nymphai, and radiant #Aphrodite play, as you haunt the lofty mountain peaks."
Anacreon, Fragment 357
🏛 Dionysos & Eros, Roman copy of a Greek original, 2nd century CE, Farnese collection. National Archaeological Museum, #Naples
""[The Argive river] Inakhos was witness to both, when the heavy bronze pikes of Mykenes resisted the ivy and deadly fennel, when #Perseus sickle in hand gave way to #Bakkhos with his wand, and fled before the fury of Satyrs cyring Euoi."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 25 104
🏛 #Dionysos and a satyr, possibly his lover Ampelos
"He [Dionysos] was accompanied [...] by a personal attendant and caretaker, Seilenos, who was his adviser and instructor in the most excellent pursuits and contributed greatly to the high achievements and fame of Dionysos."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.4.3
It's the Day of Zeus / Jupiter's Day / #Thursday! ⚡
"#Zeus, Son of Kronos, received him in a chamber fit for birth, and having covered him in his thigh shut him up with golden clasps, hidden from Hera. And he brought forth, when the Moirai (Fates) had perfected him, the bull-horned god [#Dionysos]."
Euripides, Bacchae
🏛️ Birth of Dionysos by George Platt Lynes, 1945-49 CE
"But having gone down into Hades because of his wife & seeing what sort of things were there, he did not continue to worship #Dionysos, because of whom he was famous, but he thought #Helios to be the greatest of the gods, Helios whom he also addressed as Apollon."
Eratosthenes, Placings Among the Stars 24
🏛 Detail of a #fresco from #Pompeii, today in the Napoli MAN
Have a beautiful Day of Aphrodite aka Venus' Day aka Frigg's Day aka Friday 🌹
"The ancients record in their myths that Priapos was the son of #Dionysos and #Aphrodite and they present a plausible argument for this lineage; for men when under the influence of wine find their members tense and inclined to the pleasures of love."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.6.1
🏛️ Terracotta figurine from Myrina dated 150-100 BCE
It's the Day of Zeus / Jupiter's Day / #Thursday! ⚡
"The Father of men and gods [Zeus] gave you birth remote from men and secretly from white-armed Hera. There is a certain Nysa, a mountain most high and richly grown with woods, far off in Phoinike."
Homeric Hymn 1 to Dionysos
🏛️ Attic red-figure volute krater by the Altamura Painter, detail of #Zeus entrusting baby #Dionysos to the Nymphai, Ferrara, Museo Nazionale di Spina