Initially, it was the personification of a luxurious abundance of plant power, manifested by the juiciness of herbs and fruits, producing clusters on the vine, giving a great taste to juicy fruits of fruit trees, and the ability to amuse a person to the juice of grapes. The vine and its bunches were for the ancient Greek the most complete manifestation of this abundance of plant power; therefore they were a symbol of Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of winemaking. “The essence of Dionysus is most clearly manifested in this plant,” says Preller. - Grape juice is a combination of moisture with fire, the result of a combination of earthly dampness with the warmth of the sun, and in an allegorical sense, a combination of tenderness and courage, pleasure and energy; these are the essential features of the concept of Dionysus. " The founder of winemaking and horticulture, Dionysus, was in Ancient Greece, like Demeter, the god who taught people to lead a sedentary comfortable life, which he gives joy with the juice of grapes. In the myths of Ancient Greece, he is the god not only of winemaking, but also of joy, fraternal rapprochement of people. Dionysus is a powerful god who overcomes everything hostile to him. In myths, he harnesses lions and panthers in his chariot, pacifies the wild spirits of the forest, softens and heals the suffering of people.

Dionysus with a drinking goblet. Image on an Attic amphora, c. 490-480 B.C.

Like Apollo, Dionysus gives inspiration, excites a person to sing, creates poetry; but the poetry emanating from him has a character more passionate than the poetry of Apollo, his music is noisier than Apollo's. Dionysus gives thoughts an enthusiasm that rises to the level of praise, gives them vivacity, the power of which creates dramatic poetry and theatrical art. But the exaltation caused by the god of winemaking leads to the darkening of reason, to orgiastic madness. In the ancient Greek cult of Dionysus, in the myths about him and especially on the holidays of Dionysius, various feelings were expressed, aroused in a person by the course of changes in plant life: the fun given to a person that time of the year when everything turns green, blooms, smells sweet, the joy of the ripening of fruits, sadness during wilting, with the death of vegetation. The combination of joyful and sad emotions of the soul under the influence of the mystical rituals of Eastern service to the forces of nature gave rise to exaltation among the ancient Greeks, manifested by the feasts of the maenads. In the myths of Ancient Greece, the symbol of the generative force of nature, the phallus, was the belonging of the cult of Dionysus.

The myths of ancient Greece. Dionysus (Bacchus). Stranger in hometown

Initially, Dionysus was a god of the villagers, a giver of wine and fruits, and they glorified him at rural feasts with merry songs, joked, danced in places filled with wine. But little by little, the importance of Dionysus grew. Periander, KlisSikion hair dryer, other tyrants transferred to the ministry the brilliance with which the service of the war gods of the aristocrats was performed. The songs and processions of festivals in honor of Dionysus gradually took on an exalted character under the influence of Eastern religions.

Dionysus. The birth of the theater. Video

Holidays of Dionysus

Everywhere in Ancient Greece, where grapes and fruit trees grew, there was a service to Dionysus, holidays were celebrated to him, which had a great influence on the development of ancient Greek civilization. The festivals of Dionysus, which were celebrated in Attica, Boeotia and on the island of Naxos, which were the main centers of this cult, became especially important for cultural life. The oldest temple Dionysus in Athens was a Lenaion, who stood at the foot of the Acropolis in a damp lowland called Limna (Swamp). Soon after the end of the grape harvest, the festival of "Small" or "rural" Dionysios was celebrated in ancient Athens. It was a merry holiday of the villagers, amusing themselves with jokes, dressing up, and various country amusements in a common, coarse taste. Around the time of the winter solstice there was a holiday of "Laziness", the "squeezing" of juice from grapes, - the holiday of the end of this business. Making this celebration, they decorated the temple of Dionysus with ivy, put on ivy wreaths, sacrificed, feasted, drank grape juice at a feast, walked in processions, amused themselves with jokes.

When the first greens of the returning spring were shown, in Attica, on the Greek islands, in the Greek colonies they celebrated in honor of Dionysus Anfesteria; they lasted three days; on the day the barrels were uncorked, the gentlemen and the slaves drank new wine together, rejoiced together; on the day of pouring new wine, they put on wreaths, feasted with singing, with music, with symbolic rites, celebrating the return of the gods of the earth from its depths to life under the light of day; joked, organized competitions in drinking wine. Women of the noblest Athenian families walked in procession to the Lena temple and performed the mystical ceremony of the marriage of the wife of the archon-king to Dionysus; this rite acquired the patronage of Dionysus for the olive trees ”and the vineyards of Attica. On the third day, sacrifices were made in memory of the dead. A month later, in March, the feast of the Great, or the city ones, was celebrated in Athens. Dionysius was a brilliant feast of spring, in honor of Dionysus, the liberator from winter poverty. Among the rites of this ancient Greek holiday was a magnificent procession in honor of Dionysus, the procession of which was accompanied by the singing of noisy praises; the singers walked with ivy wreaths on their heads; girls carried baskets with flowers and new fruits, citizens and metecs carried furs with wine; they were accompanied by the disguised; orchestras thundered, in front of the procession they carried a wooden image of Dionysus and a phallus attached to a pole, a symbol of fertility. The splendor of the great Dionysios attracted the Athenians and many foreigners to this holiday in Athens. With the development of ancient Greek culture, the celebration became more luxurious and elegant. All the dramatic poetry of the Greeks - tragedy, comedy, and satirical drama - developed from the rites and gaiety of the Athenian holiday of the Great Dionysios.

Dionysus and Satyrs. Painter Brigos, Attica. OK. 480 BC

Holidays in honor of Dionysus were also celebrated on the ancient Greek islands rich in vineyards: in Crete, Chios, Lemnos; but especially splendid was his feast on the island of Naxos, where Dionysus was married to the Ariadne (Ariagnos, "Most Holy") abandoned by Theseus, the beautiful-haired goddess who was the personification of the earth, awakening from winter sleep. Dionysus was the main god of folk religion on this island. His holiday began with rituals expressing sadness for the abandoned Ariadne, and ended with the joyful songs of her marriage to Dionysus. Dionysus is not always the god of the luxurious development of vegetation: nature for a while plunges into the sleep of death; at this time he is a suffering, murdered god, the god of the underworld. In this capacity, he bears the mystical name Zagrei. Dionysus Zagreus was offered sacrifices in Ancient Greece with the performance of symbolic rituals expressing grief over the death of the god of the generating force of nature; these mystical festivals were of an exalted character. In the winter cold, women and girls from Delphi, neighboring places and even from Attica converged on the heights of Parnassus, covered with snow, to celebrate the Feast of the Maenads, and whirled, ran there in sacred ecstasy, like drunks. Waving thyrsus and torches, with snakes in their loose hair and in their hands, these servants of Dionysus maenads or fiyads (thyiades) or, as they were called otherwise, Bacchantes, with beating tambourines and under the piercing sounds of flutes, furiously prowled through the forests and mountains, danced, jumped, grimaced. Ancient Greek myths said that Dionysus strikes with madness all those who resist him, refusing to participate in his noisy processions. The feasts of the maenads were imitations of the processions that were told about the myths.

Cult of Dionysus

The nature of the cult of Dionysus in different areas of Ancient Greece was different, in accordance with the difference in the education of their population: in some places it was rough, in others it was graceful, favorable to the development of art and poetry. In the Peloponnese, especially in Argos Achaia, Elis and on Taygetus, the accessories of the cult of Dionysus were night orgies, rituals of atonement, sacrifices in memory of the dead. In ancient times, people were even sacrificed on the islands. The maenads who served Dionysus tore goats, young deer, and other animals to pieces; these were symbolic actions that meant that nature was dying a painful death from the cold of winter. Dionysus was sometimes depicted as a bull or with bull horns. Women in Elis exclaimed at his holidays: "Come, O lord, to your temple, come with the Kharitas to your holy temple, knocking with a bull's foot!" In ancient Greece, a goat, a representative of voluptuousness, was dedicated to Dionysus.

In Asia Minor, the orgiastic cult of Dionysus was combined with the exalted rites of the "Great Mother," Cybele. Therefore, the fantastic creatures that made up the retinue of this goddess: kurets, koribants, cabirs, dactyls of Mount Ida - were also transferred to the myths about Dionysus. Excellent works of art have come down to us, the motives of which are taken from the orgiastic festivals of Dionysus: the artists loved to depict maenads in the ecstasy of passionate excitement. The orgiastic cult also provided the ancient Greek poets with material for legends that symbolically expounded philosophical thoughts. The feasts of the cult of Dionysus were not celebrated every year, but once every two years; therefore it was called triester (biennial). At the basis of all his rituals was the idea that the god of the luxurious development of vegetation was killed by the power of winter and that he would soon rise again, awaken the dead nature to a new life.

When the ancient Greeks got acquainted with other countries, they brought closer to the cult of Dionysus all the rituals that reminded them of his holidays. They found such rituals in Macedonia, Thrace, Lydia, Phrygia. Processions, torchlight races, noisy songs, thunder of music, frantic dances, fantastic costumes at the holidays of the Pessinunta "Great Mother" and the Syrian goddess of birth inspired them with the idea that this was the cult of Dionysus. The Osiris holiday made the same impression on them in Egypt: the crowds that walked at night with torches to look for the body of the murdered Osiris, other fantastic rituals, the phallus, seemed to the ancient Greeks to be accessories of service to Dionysus. When the Greeks, who were in the army of Alexander, saw in India endless magnificent processions of people in colorful clothes, they saw decorated animals in these festive processions, they saw chariots carried by panthers and lions, when they found ivy and wild grapes on a mountain whose name seemed to them similar in the name of Nisa - all this was transferred to the myths about Dionysus and to his cult. Thus, in ancient Greece, the legend of the victorious campaign of Dionysus through all the lands from Greece to the Indus and to the Arabian desert was gradually formed; it provided material for the glorification of Alexander and his successors who went to India: they were likened to Dionysus. Therefore, in the Macedonian time, as many bas-reliefs of that era prove, the myth about the campaign of Dionysus with his retinue (thiasos) of satyrs, seleni, centaurs and other fantastic creatures, personifying the generative forces of nature and the revelry of villagers' revelry when picking grapes, became one of the favorite objects of art. Through the addition of foreign legends to the old Greek myths, the myth of Dionysus gained enormous proportions. The fantasy of ancient Greek artists and poets expanded the cult of Dionysus with new episodes; along with legends, the number of mystical and orgiastic rituals grew. But in the teachings of the sacraments, the Greeks preserved its main meaning behind the myth of Dionysus, the idea of ​​the eternal cycle of the emergence, death and rebirth of plant life.

Kretschmer tried to derive the name Semele from the Thracian-Phrygian word meaning "goddess of the earth", and such etymology was agreed by such prominent scientists as Nilsson and Vilamovitz. Whether this explanation is true or not, it does not provide anything for understanding the myth. First, it is difficult to imagine the hierogamy of Mother Earth and the heavenly god, which would end with the death of the first in the fire. On the other hand, the earliest traditions, significantly, emphasize this very fact: mortal woman, Semele, gave birth to god. And it is precisely this paradoxical duality of Dionysus that is important for the Greeks, since only it can explain the unusual fate of this god.

Born a mortal woman, Dionysus had no right to belong to the Olympic pantheon; however, he managed to establish himself in it, and in the end to introduce there his mother, Semele. Many references show that Homer knew about Dionysus, but neither the poet nor his audience was interested in the "foreign" god, so unlike the Olympians. And yet we owe the very first testimonies of Dionysus to Homer. The Iliad (VI, 128-40) tells a famous story: the Thracian hero Lycurgus pursues the nurses of Dionysus, "and they all at once drop the objects of their worship on the ground," while the god, "filled with horror, threw himself into the waves of the sea, and Thetis pressed him, trembling, to her chest, because a tremor seized him when he heard a war cry. " But Lycurgus "aroused the wrath of the gods," and Zeus blinded him, and he did not live long, because "all the immortal gods hated him."

In this story, where there is an escape from the "wolf-man" and a jump into the sea, traces of an ancient initiatory scenario can be discerned. However, in Homer's time, the meaning and intent of the myth were different. Homer shows us an episode characteristic of the fate of Dionysus - his "pursuit" by hostile characters. But the myth also indicates that Dionysus is recognized as a member of the family of gods, because not only his father Zeus, but all other gods feel offended by the actions of Lycurgus.

In this persecution finds its dramatic expression "resistance" to the nature of Dionysus and the religious "load" of his image. Perseus directs his army against Dionysus and the accompanying "sea inhabitants"; according to one of the legends, he threw God to the bottom of Lake Lernaeus (Plutarch. De Iside, 35). We again meet with the theme of persecution in the analysis of Euripides' "Bacchae". Attempts are known to interpret such episodes as mythologized traces of rejection, which the cult of Dionysus encountered. They are based on the theory that Dionysus is supposedly a "foreign" deity, as he appeared in Greece relatively late. After Erwin Rode, most scholars regard Dionysus as a Thracian god who came to Greece either directly from Thrace or from Phrygia. But Walter Otto draws attention to the ancient and pan-Hellenistic character of Dionysus, and the fact that his name is di-wo-nu-so-jo- is in the Mycenaean monuments, it seems, confirms his hypothesis. Nevertheless, Herodotus believed that Dionysus "appeared late" and that in Euripides' Bacchae (lines 220-21) Pentheus speaks of "this alien god: what kind of god, I do not know."

But regardless of what the history of the penetration of the cult of Dionysus into Greece was, the myths and mythological fragments indicating the rejection he met have a deeper meaning: they give us knowledge about the Dionysian religious experience, and about the special structure of the deity himself. Dionysus would inevitably provoke resistance and persecution, because the religious experience associated with him threatened the entire lifestyle and world of values ​​at that time. The supremacy of the Olympic religion and its institutions could be shaken. But in rejection, a more subtle drama also expressed itself - of those that are abundantly recorded in the history of religions - resistance to any absolute religious experience due to the fact that such an experience can only be realized through denial everything else(no matter what term it is designated - balance, personality, consciousness, mind, etc.).

Walter Otto was well aware of the relationship between the theme of "persecution" of Dionysus and the typology of his many and varied epiphanies. Dionysus is such a god who suddenly appears and then mysteriously disappears. At the celebrations of Agrionius in Chaeronea, women searched in vain for him and announced that God had poisoned himself to the Muses, who hid him. (Otto. Dionysos, p. 79). He dives to the bottom of the Lerna or into the sea and disappears, and then appears - as in the celebration of the Anfesteria - in a boat on the crests of the waves. Mentions of his "awakening" in a wicker cradle (Otto, p. 82 sq.) Indicate the same mythical theme. These periodic phenomena and disappearances place Dionysus among the gods of vegetation. He does show some solidarity with plant life: ivy and pine are almost inseparable from his image, and the most popular holidays in his honor coincide with the agricultural calendar. But Dionysus is life in its entirety, which can be seen from the way he is connected with water, with blood, sperm, with growth processes, and by the exuberant vitality that his "animal" epiphanies (bull, lion, goat) demonstrate ... In his unexpected appearances and disappearances, one can see the analogy of the origin and extinction of life, that is, the alternation of life and death and, ultimately, their unity. But this is not an "objective" observation of a cosmic phenomenon, whose ordinariness could not give rise to a single religious idea or give rise to a myth. Through his appearances and disappearances, Dionysus reveals the mystery - and holiness - of the union of life and death. And this revelation is religious in nature, for it is the presence of divinity that produces it. In addition, Dionysus' apparitions and disappearances are not always associated with the seasons: he may appear in winter, but hide at the very same spring festival, where he performs his most triumphant epiphany.

Disappearance is a mythological expression of the descent into Hades, death. And indeed, in Delphi they showed the grave of Dionysus; it was also said that he died in Argos. And when, during a ritual in Argos, Dionysus is called from the depths of the sea ( Plutarch. De Iside, 35), he again comes from the land of the dead. One of the Orphic hymns (§ 53) says that when Dionysus is not there, he is with Persephone. Finally, the myth of Zagreus-Dionysus, which we will discuss below, tells of the terrible death of a deity, killed, torn to pieces and eaten by the titans.

These diverse and complementary features of the image of Dionysus can still be discerned in the public rites dedicated to him, despite the inevitable amendments and interpretations.

§ 123. Archaic nature of some national holidays

Since the time of Lysistratus, four festivals have been held in Athens in honor of Dionysus. Rural Dionysias, which took place in December, were village festivals. The procession carried a huge phallus, crowds with songs accompanied him. Widespread in the world and essentially archaic, "phallophoria" is certainly older than the cult of Dionysus. Among the ritual entertainments were all sorts of competitions, and most importantly - a parade of mummers in masks or in animal costumes. These rituals themselves appeared before Dionysus, but in this case it is not difficult to understand how the god of wine became the leader of the procession of masks.

We know much less about the Lenei in the middle of winter. In Heraclitus, you can read that the word "Lenei" and the verb "perform Lenei" were used as equivalents of the word "bacchante" and the verb "play bacchante". God was called with daidouchos. According to the interpretation of one of the verses of Aristophanes, the Eleusinian priest, "holding a torch in his hand, says:" Call God! ", And those present exclaim:" Son of Semele, Iacchus, giver of riches! "

Anfesterias were celebrated around February-March, and the Great Dionysias, which appeared later, in March-April. Thucydides (II, 15.4) regards Anfesteria as the earliest known festival in honor of Dionysus, and also the most important. On the first day, called Pythogia, earthen jugs were opened (pithoi- pithos) with wine from the harvest of the previous fall. The casks were transferred to the sanctuary of Dionysus "in the Swamp", a libation was offered to God, and then the new wine was tasted. On the second day (called Choes,"jugs"), competitions were held on the speed of drinking: the participants received full jugs of wine and, upon a signal, had to drink them in a race. This competition, like some competitions in rural Dionysia (for example, askoliasmos, where young people are trying to maintain balance on oiled fur), takes place according to the same well-known scenario as all kinds of fights and tournaments (in sports, in public speaking), the meaning of which is to contribute to the renewal of life. But the intoxicating euphoria of these festivities speaks of the expectation of a different afterlife than the one that Homeric's gloomy underground kingdom promises to people.

In a day Choes there was also a procession symbolizing the entry of God into the city. Since it was believed that he was from the sea, a boat was carried through the city on four wheels from a chariot, in which sat Dionysus with a vine in his hand, and with him - two naked satyrs playing flutes. A large crowd, perhaps in masks or costumes, the sacrificial bull who walked first, the flutist and those who carried the garlands, made up the procession that moved to Lenya, an ancient sanctuary, open only on this day. Various ceremonies took place there, in which they took part basilinna,"Queen", that is, the wife of the king-archon, and her four associates. From now on basilinna, the heiress of the ancient queens of the city, was considered the wife of Dionysus. She rode beside him in a cart, and now a new procession, of a wedding type, was heading for Bukole (literally "bull's stall"), the ancient residence of the kings. Aristotle claims that there, in Bukole, the sacred marriage of God and the queen was played out (Ath. Pol. 3,5). The fact that it was Bucoli that was chosen for this indicates that the belief in the "bullish" epiphany of Dionysus was preserved.

Attempts have been made to interpret this union in a symbolic sense, and the god, presumably, was portrayed by the archon. But Walter Otto does not accidentally emphasize the importance of Aristotle's testimony.

The queen accepts God in the house of her husband, the heir to the kings, - therefore, Dionysus acts as a king. Perhaps this union symbolizes the marriage of the deity with the city itself, a marriage that promises the latter all kinds of benefits. But this act is characteristic of Dionysus - a deity whose epiphanies are brutal and who demands that his supremacy be publicly proclaimed. We do not know of any other Greek cult in which God would unite with a queen.

But the three days of Anfesterus, and especially the second of them - the day of the triumph of Dionysus, is an unfavorable, evil time, because on these days the souls of the dead return to earth, and with them - the kera, carriers of the harmful influence of Hades. In addition, the last day of the Anfesterii was directly dedicated to these creatures. Prayers were pronounced to the dead, from various cereals they prepared panspermia- thin porridge, which had to be eaten before dark. With the coming of night everyone shouted in chorus: "To the gates, keri! The enfesterias are over!" A similar ritual scenario is well known and recorded in almost all agricultural civilizations. Fertility and wealth depend on the dead and on the forces of the underworld: "From the dead," Hippocrates writes in one treatise, "food, seeds and the ability to grow come to us." In all ceremonies, Dionysus acts as the god of fertility and death at the same time. Already Heraclitus said (fragment 15) that "Hades and Dionysus are one and the same."

Above, we mentioned the relationship of Dionysus with water, moisture, plant juices. It should also be said about the "miracles" that accompany or foreshadow his epiphanies: a spring begins to gush from the rock, the rivers are filled with milk and honey. Spring water turns into wine in Teos at a festival in honor of Dionysus (Diodorus of Siculus, III, 66, 2). In Alice, three bowls, left empty in the evening in a tightly closed room, turn out to be full of wine in the morning. (Pausanias, VI, 2, 6,1-2). Similar "miracles" took place elsewhere. The most famous was the "one-day grape", which blossomed and bore fruit in a few hours; this happened in different places, as evidenced by several authors.

§ 124. Euripides and the orgiastic cult of Dionysus

Such "miracles" are characteristic of the frantic and ecstatic cult of Dionysus, which reflects the most original and, quite possibly, the most ancient aspect of the image of this god. In the Bacchae of Euripides we have an invaluable illustration of what may have formed from the contact of the Greek genius with the Dionysian orgiasticism. Dionysus himself is the main character in The Bacchae, which has never been seen in an ancient Greek drama. Outraged that his cult is not recognized in any way in Greece, Dionysus arrives from Asia with a retinue of maenads and stops in Thebes, in his mother's homeland. Three daughters of King Cadmus deny that their sister Semele was the beloved of Zeus and gave birth to a god. Dionysus amazes them with "madness", and his aunts, along with other Theban women, run away to the mountains, where they perform orgiastic rituals. Pentheus, who inherited the throne after his grandfather Cadmus, forbade such ceremonies and remained adamant about it, despite the warning received. Dionysus, who was acting under the guise of a priest of his own cult, was captured and taken into custody by Pentheus. But he is miraculously released from prison and even manages to persuade Pentheus to go and spy on the women during their orgiastic ceremonies. The Maenads notice him and tear him apart; Pentheus' mother Agave solemnly brings his head into the city, thinking that it is the head of a lion.

Whatever Euripides wanted to say when he wrote the Bacchae at the end of his life, this masterpiece of Greek tragedy is the most important document related to the cult of Dionysus. The theme of "rejection, persecution and triumph" finds its most brilliant illustration here. And yet the old opposition to the cult was not forgotten, and one of the edifying ideas of the Bacchae was, of course, that God should not be rejected because of his "novelty." Pentheus does not accept Dionysus, because he is "a stranger and a sorcerer ... His head is all in golden curls / And fragrant, he himself is ruddy from his face, / And the bliss of Aphrodite is in his eyes; the deceiver spends these days and nights / With the girls he teaches them / He is to the orgies of a jubilant god ... "(lines 234 et seq.) Women leave their homes, run away at night to the mountains and dance there to the sound of tympans and flutes. And Pentheus is afraid, mainly, of the power of wine: "No, the rite where women are served / Grape juice, I do not recognize as pure" (261–262).

However, it is not wine that brings the Bacchantes into ecstasy. One of Penfey's servants, who came across them at dawn on Kiferon, says that they are dressed in goat skins, their heads are decorated with ivy, their bodies are entwined with snakes, they hold goats or wolf cubs in their arms, sucking from their breasts. A lot of specifically Dionysian miracles take place: Bacchantes hit the rock with their thyrsus, and water or wine begins to flow from there; they "scrape the earth with their fingertips" - milk will pour; honey oozes from ivy-covered thyrsus. The servant says to Pentheus: "You blaspheme Bacchus, king; but, once you saw / All this, you would pray to him" (712-13).

Discovered by Agave, the servant and his companions barely escape death. The Bacchae then rush "with their bare hands" on the grazing cattle. "Defeated by the darkness of the girls' hands", the ferocious bulls are torn to pieces in the blink of an eye. After that, the maenads rush to the valleys. "I saw how they, kidnapping the children, / They carried them on their shoulders, without tying them up, / And the little ones did not fall to the ground. / They could lift everything they wanted in their hands; neither copper nor iron / The weight did not resist them ; On the curls / They had a fire - and they didn’t burn. / The peasants, seeing that their belongings were being carried mercilessly, tried to raise the weapon. the thyrsus will raise - and they run / Men; how many wounded are left! (753 ff.).

There is no point in delving into the differences between these wild, wild nocturnal orgies and the Dionysian folk festivals (see paragraph 123 above). Euripides introduces us to a secret cult characteristic of the sacraments. “What kind of sacrament? Tell me,” asks Pentheus. And Dionysus replies: "It is impossible for the uninitiated to know about them." "What's the use of them for the fans?" - "You cannot find out; but it is worth knowing them" (471-74).

The mystery consisted of the participation of the Bacchantes in the epiphany of Dionysus from beginning to end. The ceremonies are performed at night, far from cities, on mountain slopes or in forests. Union with God is achieved by the sacrifice of an animal, which is torn to pieces. (sparagmos) and eaten raw (omophagia). Everything else: extraordinary physical strength, invulnerability to fire and weapons, miracles (water, wine, milk exuded by the earth), fearless relationships with snakes and young wild animals are the result of exaltation, identification with God. Dionysian ecstasy means, first of all, overcoming human limitations, achieving complete liberation, gaining freedom and immediacy, not characteristic of human beings. The fact that among these freedoms there is freedom from the prohibitions, rules and conventions of etiquette and social order seems obvious, and this is one of the reasons for the mass adherence of women to the cult of Dionysus.

But the Dionysian experience extended to more intimate depths. Devouring raw flesh, the Bacchantes did what had been suppressed for tens of thousands of years; such a frenzy was a connection with vital and cosmic forces, which can be interpreted as divine obsession. Obsession was naturally confused with "madness" mania. And on Dionysus himself was found "madness", and the Bacchantes only shared with him his trials and passions - in the end, it was the most the right way enter into communication with him.

The Greeks were also familiar with other cases when the gods sent mania. In the tragedy of Euripides "Hercules", the madness of the hero is the work of Hera; in Sophocles' Ajax, Athena causes madness. Coribantism, which the ancients compared to Dionysian orgiasticism, was mania, summoned by the Coribants, and his therapy ended with nothing more than initiation. But Dionysus and his cult were distinguished not by psychopathic crises, but by the fact that these crises were given value religious experience, regardless of whether it was a divine-sent punishment or a sign of favor. Ultimately, the interest in comparing externally similar rituals or collective actions - for example, medieval dances, in which convulsive movements predominate, or the ritual homophagy of the Aissav, the North African mystical brotherhood - is explained by the fact that such a comparison reveals the uniqueness of the Dionysian religion.

Very rarely, in any historical period, a deity suddenly appears, so "loaded" with an archaic heritage: rituals using theriomorphic masks, phallophoria, sparagmos, homophagy, anthropophagy, mania, enthousiasmos. But the most remarkable thing is that, while preserving this heritage, these remnants of prehistoric times, the cult of Dionysus, once entering the spiritual universe of the Greeks, did not cease to generate new religious values. Indeed, the frenzy caused by divine obsession - "madness" - interested many authors, and often caused irony and ridicule. Herodotus (IV, 78–80) tells about the adventure of the Scythian king Skyla, who, being in Olbia, on Borisfen (Dnieper), was "initiated into the rites of Dionysus-Bacchus." During the ceremony (teletē) he, possessed by a deity, turned "into a bacchante and a madman." In all likelihood, we are talking about a procession in which the initiates, "under the influence of a deity", allow themselves to be carried away by a frenzy, taken by outsiders, as well as by the possessed themselves for "madness" (mania).

Herodotus confines himself to retelling the story he heard in Olbia. Demosthenes in the famous passage (De corona, 259), trying to ridicule his opponent Aeschines, essentially describes some of the rites performed by the tias (thiasoi), unofficial religious brotherhoods, in Athens, in the IV century. BC e., to the glory of Sabazius - a Thracian deity, akin to Dionysus. (The ancients considered him to be the Thracian Dionysus with a local name). Demosthenes mentions rites followed by reading from "books" (probably from some written text containing hieroi logoi); he talks about "nebrizo"(hint at nebris,"goatskin" "perhaps it was a sacrifice with eating raw animal meat), about "kraterizo" (krater- a vessel in which wine and water were mixed, "mystical drink"), about "purification" (katharmos), which consisted mainly of rubbing the initiate with clay and flour. In the end, says Demosthenes, the minister lifted the initiate, prostrated on the ground in exhaustion, who repeated the formula: "I escaped evil and found a better one." And the whole meeting burst into screams (ologlygé). The next morning, there was a procession of initiates wearing wreaths of fennel and silver poplar branches. Aeschines walked at the head of the procession, waving snakes, shouting " Evoe, mysteries of Sabazia! "and danced to the shouts of the audience: "Hyes, Attès, Attès, Hyes". Demosthenes also mentions the basket, the "mystical winnower", liknon, the first cradle of baby Dionysus.

The central part of the Dionysian ritual has always been, in some form, the ecstatic experience of a greater or lesser degree of frenzy - mania. This "madness" served as a kind of proof that the initiate was entheos- "filled with God." Of course, the experience was unforgettable, because it gave the participant a feeling of intoxicating freedom, introduced to the creative immediacy, superhuman strength and invulnerability of Dionysus. Unity with God temporarily broke the shackles of human limitation, although it could not overcome it: neither the Bacchae, nor such a late work as Nonna's Dionysiaca speaks of immortality. This alone is enough to see the difference between the Greek god and Zalmoxis, with whom, since the publication of the book of Rode, Dionysus has been compared and sometimes confused; this god of the Getae "immortalized" initiates in his mysteries. The Greeks, however, did not dare to throw a bridge over the infinity that separated, in their eyes, the divine and human states.

§ 125. When the Greeks rediscover the presence of God

The activities of unofficial tias were definitely initiatory and secret (see: Bacchae, 470-74), despite the fact that some part of the ceremonies (for example, the procession) was public. It is difficult to clarify when and under what circumstances the secret and initiatory Dionysian rites acquired the special functions of the mystery religions. Some very authoritative scholars (Nilsson, Festugier) dispute the existence of the Dionysian mysteries on the grounds that there is not a single indisputable indication of an eschatological hope in them. But it must be borne in mind that we know very little about secret rituals in general, and even more so in the ancient era, not to mention their esoteric meaning (which probably existed, because the esoteric meaning of secret and initiatory rites is recorded throughout the world and at all levels of culture ).

Moreover, the morphology of eschatological hope should not be reduced to expressions made famous by Orphism or the mysteries of the Hellenic period. The disappearance and epiphany of Dionysus, his descent into Hades (comparable to death and subsequent resurrection), and most importantly - the cult of the Infant Dionysus with the celebration of his "awakening" - even if we leave aside the mythological and ritual theme of Dionysus-Zagreus, to which we will turn a little later - all this indicates the desire for spiritual renewal and hope for it. Everywhere in the world, the child of divine nature is endowed with initiatory symbolism, behind which lies the mystery of the mystical "new birth" (from the point of view of religious experience, it does not matter whether there is a rational understanding of this symbolism or not). Let's remember that already the cult of Sabazius, identified with Dionysus, had a sacramental order ("I escaped evil!"). Of course, immortality is not mentioned in the Bacchae; however, union, even temporary, with the deity does not remain without consequences for the posthumous state bacchos. The presence of Dionysus in the Eleusinian Mysteries allows us to think of an eschatological meaning in at least some of the orgiastic experiences.

But it was precisely from the time of Dionysus-Zagreus that the cult definitely took on mystery features. The myth of the dismemberment of the infant Dionysus-Zagreus is known to us mainly from the works of Christian authors, who, as expected, did not like him, and therefore was presented by them in a fragmentary and tendentious manner. However, thanks to their freedom from the prohibition to talk about sacred and secret things, Christian writers have brought to us a number of valuable details. Hera sends titans to little Dionysus-Zagreus, who at first lure him with toys (rattles, crepundia, a mirror, grandmothers, a ball, a spinning top, a rattle), and then they kill, cut into pieces, boil in a cauldron and, according to some versions, eat them. The heart of Dionysus-Zagreus is received (or she manages to keep it) by the goddess - Athena, Rhea or Demeter - and she hides it in a chest. Upon learning of the crime, Zeus strikes the titans with a lightning strike. Christian authors do not talk about the resurrection of Dionysus, but the ancient authors knew about him. The Epicurean Philodemus, a contemporary of Cicero, writes about the three births of Dionysus: the first from his mother, the second from the thigh of Zeus, and the third, which took place when Rhea put together the pieces of his body, torn apart by the titans, after which he returned to life. Firmik Matern concludes his essay with the story that in Crete (where, in his interpretation, the action takes place), this murder is celebrated with annual rituals that reproduce everything that "the child did and experienced at the moment of death": "in the depths of the forests, they scream terribly, depicting the furious throwing of the soul "- as if making it clear that the crime was committed in a moment of madness -" and tearing a living bull to pieces with their teeth. "

The mythological-ritual theme of the suffering and resurrection of the infant Dionysus-Zagreus has given rise to countless controversies, especially in connection with its Orphic interpretations. We will now restrict ourselves to only indicating that the information provided by Christian authors is confirmed in earlier documents. For the first time the name Zagreus is found in the epic poem of the Theban cycle "Alcmaeonis" (VI century BC); it means "great hunter", which corresponds to the wild, orgiastic nature of Dionysus. As for the atrocity of the Titans, Pausanias (VIII, 37.5) tells something about it, and this testimony remains valuable to us, despite the skepticism of Vilamowitz and other researchers. Pausanias reports that a certain Onomacritus, who lived in Athens in the 6th century BC. e., under the Pisistratis, wrote a poem on this topic: "Taking the name of the titans from Homer, he established Dionysian orgies, making the titans villains and tormentors of the deity."

According to this myth, the titans, before approaching the baby, were smeared with alabaster so that they would not be recognized. So, in the Sabazian mysteries held in Athens, one of the initiatory rites consisted in the fact that the faces of the initiates were covered with chalk or alabaster. These facts have been linked together since antiquity (cf. Nonnus. Dionys, 27, 228 sq.). But in fact, we have here one of the forms of an archaic initiatory ritual, well known in primitive societies: the initiates rub their faces with chalk or ash to resemble ghosts, that is, they go through ritual death. "Mystical toys" have also been known for a long time: in the papyrus of the 3rd century BC. BC, found in Fayyum and, unfortunately, spoiled, mentions a top, a rattle, bones and a mirror (Orphicorum, fr. 31).

The most dramatic episode of the myth - and especially the fact that, having tore a child to pieces, the titans threw pieces of his body into a cauldron, boiled, and then fried - was known as early as the 4th century; moreover, all these details were "rehearsed" in connection with the celebration of the Mysteries. Euphorion knew about a similar tradition in the third century (ibid., P. 53). Jeanmère convincingly showed that boiling in a cauldron and passing through fire are initiation rites that confer immortality (cf. the story of Demeter and Demophon) or rejuvenation (the daughters of Pelias stabbed their father and boiled in the cauldron).

Thus, in the "atrocity of the titans" we can recognize an ancient initiatory script, the original meaning of which has been forgotten. Titans behave like "masters of initiation", that is, they "mortify" the initiate so that he is "reborn" for more high level existence (in our example, they give the baby Dionysus the divine nature and immortality). However, in the religion that proclaimed the absolute supremacy of Zeus, the titans could only play a demonic role, for which they were incinerated by Zeus' lightning. According to some versions of this myth, important to the Orphic tradition, humans were created from the ashes of the Titans.

The initiatory nature of the Dionysian rites was also felt in Delphi, when women honored the reborn god. As Plutarch (De Iside, 35) testifies, in the Delphic basket lay, ready for rebirth, torn to pieces by Dionysus-Zagreus, and this Dionysus, "who was reborn under the name of Zagreus, was at the same time the Theban Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Semele"

Perhaps Diodorus of Siculus also has in mind the Dionysian mysteries when he writes that "Orpheus transferred the torn to pieces of Dionysus into the mystery rites" (V, 75.4). And elsewhere, Diodorus presents Orpheus as a reformer of the Dionysian sacraments: "That is why the initiation rites in honor of Dionysus are called Orphic" (III, 65.6). The message of Diodorus is valuable to us insofar as it confirms the existence of the Dionysian mysteries. But at the same time, it is likely that already in the 5th century BC. NS. these ordinances contained some "Orphic" elements. Then Orpheus, in fact, was proclaimed "the prophet of Dionysus" and "the founder of all initiations" (see Volume II, Chapter 19).

Dionysus surprises us more than all other Greek gods with his numerous and unusual epiphanies, the variety of his transformations. He is always on the move; he penetrates everywhere - to all countries, to all peoples, to all religious systems, ready to intermarry with a variety of deities (even with such antagonists as Demeter and Apollo). In fact, he is the only Greek god who, with his diversity, amazes the imagination and attracts ignorant villagers, the intellectual elite, and politicians, and hermits, and lovers of orgies, and ascetics. Intoxication, eroticism, the fertility of the world, and also unforgettable experiences: when the dead periodically appear, when a person is seized mania, when he sinks into animal unconsciousness, when he experiences ecstasy enthousiasmes,- and all these delicious and chilling sensations have one source - presence deities. By the very way of existence, this deity expresses the paradoxical unity of life and death. That is why Dionysus was so radically different from the Olympians in the type of his divinity. Did he stand closer to man than other gods? Hard to say; but one could approach him, one could even let him into oneself; and ecstasy manias served as proof that human limitation is surmountable.

His rituals developed unexpectedly. Dithyrambe, tragedy, satirical drama are, to a greater or lesser extent, a Dionysian product. It is extremely interesting to trace how the transformation of the collective rite went dithyrambes, including ecstatic fury, in the performance, and then in the literary genre. If some public rites became spectacles and made Dionysus the god of the theater, others, secret and initiatory, turned into mysteries. Orphism owes much to the Dionysian tradition, at least indirectly. Other Olympians cannot be compared to Dionysus, this a young god who never ceased to delight fans with his new epiphanies, unexpected messages and eschatological hopes.

Notes:

This highly archaic idea survived into Mediterranean antiquity; not only were animals sacrificed instead of people (a custom ubiquitous), but people were also sacrificed instead of animals. Wed: Walter Burkert. Homo Necans, p. 29, p. 34.

David R. Harris. Agricultural systems, ecosystems and the origins of agriculture. - The Domestication and exploitation of plants and animals, p. 12.

William Solhein. Relics from two diggings indicate Thais were the First Agrarians. - New York Times, January 12, 1970.

Hainuwele is a cultural heroine of the Vemale people (Eastern Indonesia), whose murder brought death to the world, and with it - fertility (see Myths of the peoples of the world. Vol. 2. P. 576).

Wed: Eliade. Aspects du mythe, p. 132 sq.

Cm.: Atuhiko Yoshida. Les excrétions de la Déesse et l "origine de l" agriculture.

Pindar, fr.85; Herodotus II, 146; Euripides. Bacchae, 92 sq .; Apollodorus, Bibl., III, 4.3. sq.

In the Iliad (XIV, 323) she is called "Theban", and Hesiod in the Theogony, 940 sq. speaks of her as a "mortal woman".

Cm.: H. Jeanmaire. Dionysos, p. 76. Jeanmaire. On Lycurgus and the initiations of the youths see: Idem. Couroï et Courètes, p. 463 sq.

On the tablet of the Cretan Linear B from Pylos (X a O 6).

See about this: Losev A.F. Decree. op. P. 142.

Agryony is a holiday in honor of Dionysus in Boeotia.

Anfesteria, antesteria - a spring holiday associated with the cult of Dionysus. The first day was called the opening day of pithos (wine barrels), the second - “mugs” (khoi): these days the statue of Dionysus was taken around the city in a boat on wheels (images of such boats are known among petroglyphs of the Bronze Age - such boats have survived in the tradition of European carnivals ). The last day was called "pots" and was associated with the cult of ancestors: food was taken out in pots for the souls of the dead (and other spirits of the underworld - ker).

Attempts were made to represent Dionysus as the god of the tree, or grain, or grapes, and the myth of his dismemberment was considered as an illustration of the preparation of wine or the "passion" of cereals (see the mythographers mentioned by Diodorus of Siculus, III, 62).

The fact that two of them bear the names of their respective months - the leneon and anfesterion - testifies to their antiquity and Panhellenic character.

In the Eleusinian Mysteries, the spirit of the processions of Iacchus was identified with Dionysus; cm.: W. Otto. Dionysos, p. ten; Wed: Jeanmaire. Dionysos, p. 47.

This is, of course, an extremely ancient scenario, pervasive throughout; being one of the most important remnants of prehistoric times, it still retains a special place in all types of societies.

We are talking about a completely different alliance than, for example, the alliance of Bel in Babylon with the hierodule (which took place when the god was in the temple) or Apollo with the priestess who had to sleep in his temple in Patara in order to receive knowledge directly from God and then transmit it through the oracle; cm.: Otto. Dionysos p. 84.

The expulsion of the souls of the dead invited to the calendar festival is known, in particular, to the Iranian tradition (see above about the Fravashi) and the Slavs (the expulsion of souls and evil spirits at Christmas time).

Sophocles. Thyestes (fr. 234); other sources are quoted by V. Otto: Otto. Dionysos, pp. 98–99.

There are other examples of the "madness" sent by Dionysus in response to the non-recognition of his divine nature, for example, the madness of the women of Argos (Apollodoms, II, 2.2, III, 5.2) or the daughters of Minius in Orchomenos, who tore the son of one of them (Plutarch. Quaest., Fr. XXXVIII, 299e).

In the fifth century, Thebes became the center of the cult, since it was there that Dionysus was conceived and there was the tomb of Semele.

Translation by I.F. Annensky.

Tiresias nevertheless defends God: "Of course, it is not Dionysus's business to teach women modesty / It is a gift / of Nature itself. Pure in soul / And the dance in Bacchus will not be corrupted" ("Bacchantes", 317-20).

What distinguishes a shaman from a psychopath is the ability to heal himself on his own and become, as a result, a more resilient and creatively stronger personality than others.

Rohde compares the spread of the ecstatic religion of Dionysus to the epidemics of convulsive dancing in the Middle Ages. R. Eisler (R.Eisler) drew attention to the Isāwiyya, who practiced ritual homophagy (called frissa, from the verb farassa,"tear"). Mystically identified with the predators, whose names they bore (jackals, panthers, lions, cats, dogs), members of the brotherhood tore, gut and eat bulls, wolves, rams, sheep and goats. After chewing on raw meat, the participants indulged in a frantic, jubilant dance, "to enjoy wild ecstasy and get in touch with the deity." (R. Brunel).

According to ancient interpretations, the term saboi(or sabaioi) in Phrygian language was the equivalent of Greek bacchos; Jeanmaire. Dionysos, pp. 95-97.

See: Nonn Panopolitan. The deeds of Dionysus.

Zalmoxis, Salmoxis - Thracian (Getan) god mentioned by Herodotus (IV. 94–96). The Thracians sent a messenger to him, piercing the messenger with spears. Herodotus tells (in the spirit of the aforementioned Greek author Eugemer) that Zalmoxis was a slave of Pythagoras, from whom he learned wisdom; freed, he gained great wealth and appeared in Thrace. He promised immortality to his companions in Thrace. To assure them of his supernatural abilities, he hid in secret peace, and the Thracians began to mourn him as dead. On the fourth he appeared again, and they believed in his teaching. A special work of Eliade himself is dedicated to Zalmoxis: De Zalmoxis à Gengis-Khan, P., 1970.

In this regard, it should be remembered that during the Anfesteries, some rituals were performed exclusively by women and in the strictest secrecy.

The cult of the Infant Dionysus was known in Boeotia and Crete and tended to spread throughout Greece.

Firmicus Maternus. De errore profanarum religionum, 6; Clement d "Alexandria. Potreptikos, II, 17, 2; 18.2; Arnobus. Adv. Nat., V, 19; the texts are reproduced in: O. Kern. Orphicum fragmenta, pp. 110-111.

Philodemus. De piet., 44; Jeanmaire. Dionysos, p. 382.

Fr. 3, Kinkel. vol. 1, p. 77; Euripides. Fr. 472; Callimachos (fr. 171) holds that Zagreus is a special name for Dionysus; for other examples see: Otto. Dionysos, p. 191 sq.

Demosthenes. De corona, 259. To participate in the Dionysian festivals, the Argives covered their faces with chalk or alabaster. chalk (titanos) emphasized the connection of the episode with the titans (Titanes). But this mytho-ritual complex arose due to the confusion between the two terms (cf .: Farnell. Cults, vol. 5, p. 172)

Wed the "problem" attributed to Aristotle (Didot. Aristote IV, 331, 15), which, following Salomon Reinach, is discussed by Molyneux (Moulinier. Orphée et l "orphisme, p. 51).

Jeanmaire. Dionysos, p. 387. For other examples, see: Marie Delcourt. L "oracle de Delphes, p. 153 sq. The same two rituals - dismemberment and placement in boiling water or passage through fire - are also characteristic of shamanistic initiations.

Eliade's reference to Plutarch in this case is inaccurate: in his work there is no mention of the cradle-basket itself, in which, according to Orphic myth, Zagreus was torn to pieces by the titans. But Dionysus himself is called Liknit, from lïknon- baskets with the first fruits of the harvest, which were offered to God.

Delcourt, pp. 155, 200. Having told about the torn to pieces and resurrection of Osiris, Plutarch turns to his friend Klee, the leader of the maenads in Delphi: "That Osiris is the same Dionysus, who can know better than you, who controls the fiads, whom his father initiated into the mysteries of Osiris?"

Dithyrambe, "a circular dance, the rhythmic movements of which, ritual exclamations and outcries evoked collective ecstasy during the sacrifice, managed - and it was in that period (VII-VI centuries), when the great genre of choral lyrics was developing in the Greek world - to evolve into a literary form due to the fact that it increasingly included vocal fragments performed by exarchon, as well as lyrical passages on themes more or less connected with episodes of life and with the personality of Dionysus " (Jeanmaire. Dionysos, pp. 248-249).

The type and attributes of the god Dionysus (Bacchus). - Eastern Bacchus and Bacchus of Thebes. - Vine, ivy and thyrsus. - God Dionysus and God Apollo. - God Dionysus as the founder of the theater. - Bacchic masks. - Mystical chalice. - Bacchanalia - holidays in honor of the god Dionysus.

Type and attributes of the god Dionysus (Bacchus)

Dionysus(or Bacchus; romanized form of the last name - Bacchus), the god of grapes, personified wine. The cult of the god Dionysus was established much later than the cult of the rest of the Greek gods. It gained importance and began to spread in ancient Greece as the culture of the vine spread. Dionysus was very often combined with the goddess Demeter (Ceres) and they organized common holidays for these two representatives of agriculture.

In ancient Greece, primitive art was limited only to the image of one head of the god Dionysus (Bacchus) or his mask. But these images were soon replaced by the beautiful and dignified image of the old god Bacchus in a luxurious, almost female dress, with an open and intelligent face, holding a horn and a vine branch.

Only since the time of the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles, who was the first to depict the god Dionysus as a young man, has this type of youth appeared in ancient art with soft, almost muscular forms, something between a male and a female figure. The expression on the face of such a god, Dionysus, is a mixture of bacchanal ecstasy and gentle daydreaming, long, thick hair is loose over the shoulders in bizarre curls, the body is devoid of any clothes, and only a goat's skin is casually thrown over, legs are shod in luxurious caturnas (ancient shoes), in in his hands is a light stick, entwined with vine branches, reminiscent of a scepter.

In later times, the god Dionysus (Bacchus) is quite often at the monuments of art dressed in luxurious women's clothing. In group and individual sculptural images, Dionysus is usually presented in a comfortable reclining position or sitting on a throne. Only on cameos and engraved stones is the god Dionysus depicted walking with an unsteady gait of a drunken person or riding on some beloved animal.

Eastern Bacchus and Bacchus of Thebes

The most beautiful image of the god Bacchus with a beard is a statue that was known for a long time under the name "Sardanapalus", thanks to the later inscription made, but which all connoisseurs of art history recognized as a statue of Dionysus. This statue is a true type of Eastern Bacchus.

In art, the most common image is Dionysus, known as the Theban Bacchus, a beardless and slender youth.

The Greek painter Aristides painted the beautiful Bacchus. This painting was taken to Rome after the conquest of Corinth. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder says that the consul Mummius was the first to introduce the Romans to foreign works of art. During the division of the spoils of war, Attalus, king of Pergamum, offered to pay for Bacchus, written by Aristides, six hundred thousand denarii. Struck by such a figure, the consul, suspecting that the painting possessed some miraculous power unknown to him, withdrew the painting from sale, despite the king's requests and complaints, and placed it in the temple of Demeter (Ceres). It was the first foreign painting to be publicly exhibited in Rome.

On all the statues of the Theban type, the god Bacchus is depicted as a beardless youth in all the splendor of youth and beauty. The expression on the face of the god Dionysus is dreamy and languid, his body is covered with the skin of a young deer. The god Dionysus is also very often depicted riding a panther or on a chariot carried by two tigers. Vines, ivy, thyrsus (rod), bowls and Bacchic masks are common attributes of Dionysus-Bacchus.

Grapevine, ivy and thyrsus

The vine, ivy and thyrsus are emblems of the manufacture of wine and the action it takes. In antiquity, it was assumed that ivy has the property of preventing intoxication. This is why feasts often adorned their heads with ivy. Ivy, like the vine, on many statues of Dionysus entwines thyrsus, at the end of which there was a pine cone. In many places in ancient Greece, pine cones were used to make wine that was supposed to be very different from today's wine. Judging by how easily Odysseus managed to put Cyclops to sleep by giving him a little wine, we can probably say that wine in those days was much stronger than today. The ancient Greeks mixed honey or water with wine, and only as a very rare exception drank pure wine.

Many antique coins and medals, embossed in honor of the god Dionysus, depict sista, or a mythical basket in which items used in solemn services were kept, and also depicts a snake dedicated to the god Asclepius, as if hinting at the healing properties that the ancient Greeks attributed to wine.

The tiger, panther and lynx are common companions of the god Dionysus in all the monuments of ancient art depicting his triumph. They point to the Eastern origin of the entire Dionysus myth.

The presence of the donkey Silenus is explained by the fact that Silenus was the adoptive father or educator of the god Dionysus. The donkey of Silena became famous, in addition, for his participation in the battle of the gods with the Giants (gigantomachy). At the sight of the Giants lined up in battle formation, Silenus's donkey began to scream so that the Giants, frightened by this cry, fled.

The appearance of the hare in some Bacchic groups is explained by the fact that this animal was considered by the ancient Greeks and Romans as a symbol of fertility.

In addition, the following animals are found on antique cameos, engraved stones and bas-reliefs depicting solemn processions in honor of the god Dionysus: a ram, a goat and a bull - a symbol of agriculture. Therefore, Dionysus is sometimes depicted as a bull, then personifying the fertility of the earth.

God Dionysus and God Apollo

A slight intoxication, acting excitingly on the human mind, evokes inspiration, and therefore the god Dionysus is credited with some of the qualities of Apollo, this god of inspiration par excellence.

God Dionysus as the founder of the theater

Sometimes the god Dionysus is depicted accompanied by Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, because Dionysus was considered the inventor of the theater, that is, theatrical performance. At the festivities in honor of the god Dionysus, plays began to be performed for the first time. Festivals in honor of Dionysus were held at the time of the grape harvest. Grape pickers, sitting on carts and painting their faces with grape juice, uttered funny and witty monologues or dialogues. Little by little, carts were replaced by a theater building, and the grape pickers by actors.

Bacchic masks

The numerous masks that often adorned ancient tombstones (sarcophagi) were indispensable accessories of the mysteries in honor of the god Dionysus as the inventor of tragedy and comedy.

On the sarcophagi, the Bacchic masks indicated that human life, like theatrical plays, is a mixture of pleasures and sorrows, and that every mortal is only a performer of some role in life. Thus, the god Dionysus, who at first personified only wine, became a symbol of human life.

Mystical chalice

The cup is also one of the attributes of the god Dionysus and had a mystical meaning. “The soul, - explains the scientist researcher of ancient myths Kreutzer, - drinking this cup, gets drunk, it forgets its high, divine origin, wants only to incarnate into a body through birth and follow the path that will lead it to an earthly home, but there, to fortunately, she finds the second cup, the cup of reason; having drunk it, the soul can heal or sober up from the first intoxication, and then the memory of its divine origin returns to it, and with it the desire to return to the heavenly abode. "

Bacchanalia - holidays in honor of the god Dionysus

Many bas-reliefs have survived, as well as picturesque images of the holidays in honor of the god Bacchus-Dionysus - Bacchanalia. The rites performed in the Bacchanals were very diverse.

For example, in some localities, children crowned with ivy and grape branches surrounded the chariot of the god Dionysus, decorated with thyrsus and comic masks, bowls, wreaths, drums, tambourines and tambourines, in a noisy crowd.

Dionysus' chariot was followed by writers, poets, singers, musicians, dancers - in a word, representatives of those professions that require inspiration, since the ancient Greeks and Romans believed that wine is the source of all inspiration. As soon as the solemn procession ended, theatrical performances and musical and literary competitions began, which lasted several days in a row.

In Rome, the Bacchanalia gave rise to such scenes of licentiousness and immorality, even to the point of crimes, that the Roman Senate was forced to ban the Bacchanalia.

In Greece, at the beginning of the establishment of the cult of the god Dionysus, his holiday bore the character of a modest, purely rural holiday, and only later did it turn into a luxurious orgy.

The processions in honor of the god Dionysus in Alexandria were especially luxurious and magnificent. To give at least a faint idea of ​​this procession, it is enough to mention that, in addition to richly dressed representatives of all the peoples of Greece and the Roman Empire, representatives of foreign countries took part in it and, in addition to a whole crowd of dressed satyrs and strongmen riding donkeys, hundreds of elephants participated in the procession , bulls, rams, many bears, leopards, giraffes, lynxes and even hippos.

Several hundred people carried cages filled with all kinds of birds.

Richly decorated chariots with all the attributes of the god Bacchus alternated with chariots depicting the entire culture of grapes and the manufacture of wine - up to and including a huge wine-filled press.

ZAUMNIK.RU, Egor A. Polikarpov - scientific editing, scientific proofreading, design, selection of illustrations, additions, explanations, translations from Latin and Ancient Greek; all rights reserved.

Introduction

2.2 Theater of Dionysus in Athens

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

antique art cult of dionysus

Ancient art, which was born in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, served as the ancestor of all subsequent Western art, it is both part of the spiritual experience of all mankind, and the basis for the formation of the cultures of many countries, especially European ones. And an important role in the art of antiquity is played by the cult of Dionysus - the god of dying and reviving nature, the patron saint of winemaking and theater. Since its establishment in Hellas, the Dionysian cult has been closely associated with almost all spheres of life in ancient Greek society: economic, political, cultural, spiritual.

The Greeks liked to repeat: "Measure, measure in everything." But was this frequent reference to "measure" not a hint that the Greeks were in some way afraid of themselves? Dionysianism showed that under the cover of common sense and an orderly civil religion, a flame bubbled, ready to burst out at any moment.

Before the discovery of the Mycenaean culture, many researchers believed that Dionysus came to Greece from the barbarian lands, since his ecstatic cult with frantic dances, exciting music and immoderate drunkenness seemed alien to the researchers to the clear mind and sober temperament of the Hellenes. The Dionysian line in the history of the Greek spirit was very strong and had a deep influence on the entire Hellenic consciousness, and its ecstatic cult was reflected both in the art of antiquity and in the art of subsequent eras.

Chapter 1. Dionysus and his cult in Greece

1.1 Origin and deeds of Dionysus

Son of Zeus, Dionysus, I am with the Thebans.

Here once was Semele, daughter of Cadmus,

I was born prematurely,

Struck by Zeus' fire.

From a god, becoming a man in appearance,

I walk up to the streams of my dear rivers ...

Euripides. Bacchae. 1-6

Dionysus is the ancient Greek god of the fertile forces of the earth, vegetation, viticulture, winemaking. It is believed that this deity was borrowed by the Greeks in the east - in Thrace (of Thracian and Lydian-Phrygian origin) and spread in Greece relatively late and with great difficulty was established there. Although the name of Dionysus is found on the tablets of the Cretan linear script as early as the 14th century. BC, the spread and establishment of the cult of Dionysus in Greece dates back to the 8-7 centuries. BC. and is associated with the growth of city-states (policies) and the development of polis democracy. During this period, the cult of Dionysus began to supplant the cults of local gods and heroes. From the beginning of the 2nd century BC. NS. the cult of Dionysus is established in ancient Rome.

Traditionally, it is believed that Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele ("earth"), the daughter of Cadmus and Harmony. Upon learning that Semele was expecting a child from Zeus, his wife Hera in anger decided to destroy Semele and, assuming the appearance of either a wanderer, or Beroi, Semele's nurse, inspired her with the idea of ​​seeing her beloved in all divine splendor. When Zeus again appeared at Semele, she asked if he was ready to fulfill any of her wishes. Zeus swore by the waters of Styx that he would fulfill it, and the gods cannot break such an oath. Semele asked him to hug her in the form in which he hugs Hera. Zeus was forced to comply with the request, appearing in a flame of lightning, and Semele was instantly engulfed in fire.

Zeus thunders thundered -

The agony of childbirth came:

Without informing, she spewed

Bromium mother from the womb

And under a lightning strike

She ended her life prematurely ...

Zeus managed to snatch the premature fetus from her womb, Hermes sewed it into Zeus's thigh, and he successfully carried it out. Thus, Dionysus was born from the thigh by Zeus. In the painting of Ctesilochus, Zeus giving birth to Dionysus was depicted in a miter and groaning like a woman, surrounded by goddesses. This is why Dionysus is called "twice born" or "child of double doors".

But he accepted the ejected one

Zeus into his immediate bosom,

And, melting from Hera's son,

He skillfully at his hip

Fastened with a buckle in gold.

100 When the time came for him,

He gave birth to a horned god,

I made a wreath of snakes for him,

And since then this wild booty

The maenad is wrapped around the brow.

There are also alternative versions of the birth of Dionysus.

According to the legend of the inhabitants of Brasia (Laconic), Semele gave birth to a son from Zeus, Cadmus imprisoned her in a barrel together with Dionysus. The barrel was thrown to the ground by Brasius, Semele died, and Dionysus was brought up, Ino became his nurse, raising him in a cave. Another of Dionysus's educators was Silenus, a constant participant in the Bacchic festivities. On ancient monuments of art, Silenus, as a rule, was depicted as an obese, lustful and often drunk old man, with a huge belly, accompanied by satyrs and nymphs and surrounded by cheerful smiling cupids. Satyrs (Roman Fauns) are fantastic humanoid creatures, also included in the retinue of Dionysus. Their cheerful, witty nature gave the name to the comic poems, which became known as satyrs. There are several ancient sculptures where Silenus nurses little Dionysus. In the antique group from the Louvre, which bears the name "Faun and Child", Silenus is represented as a fine looking, caring teacher, in whose arms lies the infant Dionysus.

According to the Achaean story, Dionysus was raised in the city of Mesatis and here he was endangered by the Titans.

The myths involving Semele, the second mother of Dionysus, have a continuation about the education of God.

To protect his son from the wrath of Hera, Zeus gave Dionysus to be raised by Semele's sister Ino and her wife Athamante, the king of Orchomen, where they began to raise the young god as a girl so that Hera would not find him. But it did not help. The wife of Zeus sent madness to Afamant, in a fit of which Afamant killed his son, tried to kill Dionysus, and because of which Ino and his second son had to throw themselves into the sea, where they were accepted by the Nereids.

Lush-haired nymphs suckled the baby, having adopted

To his chest from the lord-father, and lovingly in the valleys

The nymphs raised him. And by the will of the parent Zeus

He grew up in a fragrant cave, ranked among the host of immortals.

After he grew up goddesses by the care of the eternal,

Dionysus, many singing, rushed into the distance along the logs of the forest,

Crowned with hops and laurel, the nymphs hurried after him,

He led them forward. And the whole immense forest thundered.

Then Zeus turned Dionysus into a kid, and Hermes carried him to the nymphs in Nisa (between Phenicia and the Nile). The nymphs hid him from Hera, covering the cradle with ivy branches. Brought up in a cave on Nisa. After the death of the first educators, Dionysus was given to be raised by the nymphs of the Nisey Valley. There, the mentor of the young god Silenus, revealed to Dionysus the secrets of nature and taught him how to make wine.

As a reward for raising his son, Zeus transferred the nymphs to the sky, so, according to the myth, in the sky of Hyades, a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus next to the star Aldebaran appeared.

Many monuments of ancient art have survived, embodying the image of Dionysus and the plots of myths about him in plastic (statues and reliefs) and vase painting. Scenes of the procession of Dionysus and his companions, orgies, were widespread (especially in vase painting); these plots are reflected in the reliefs of the sarcophagi. Dionysus was portrayed among the Olympians (reliefs of the eastern frieze of the Parthenon) and in scenes of gigantomachy, as well as sailing on the sea (cilicus Exekia "Dionysus in the boat" and others) and fighting the Tyrrhenians (relief of the monument to Lysicrates in Athens, ca. 335 BC .).

In the Renaissance, the theme of Dionysus in art is associated with the affirmation of the joy of being. Artists loved to depict Bacchic festivities full of unbridled joy and wild revelry, in which the entire retinue of Dionysus took part. The beginning of their image was laid by A. Mantegna. A. Dürer, A. Altdorfer, H. Baldung Green, Titian, Giulio Romano, Pietro da Cortona, Annibale Carracci, P.P. Rubens, J. Jordaens, N. Poussin addressed the plot. In their paintings, the god is presented in all the splendor of youth and beauty, surrounded by his retinue and the Olympic gods, with his invariable attribute - the vine. The plots "Bacchus, Venus and Ceres" and "Bacchus and Ceres", which are especially popular in baroque painting, are permeated with the same symbolism. Dionysus occupies a special place among other antique characters in Baroque garden sculpture. The most significant works of the 18th - early 19th centuries are the statues of "Bacchus" by J.G.Danneker and B. Thorvaldsen.

Accompanied fun company Dionysus, walking on the earth, went through all countries, up to the borders of India, and everywhere he taught the peoples to cultivate grapes. Probably, the statue with his image is associated with the eastern campaigns of Dionysus, which for a long time was known under the name of Sardanapalus - because of the inscription made at a later time. Art connoisseurs recognized in her the image of Dionysus (a type of Eastern Bacchus) in the image of a handsome, stately bearded old man, draped in long ceremonial clothes.

During one of his processions, Dionysus met the beautiful Ariadne - the daughter of the legendary king Minos, whom Theseus, captivated by her beauty, took away from the island of Crete. This plot formed the basis of Titian's painting "Bacchus and Ariadne", where God is presented in a rapid movement among bacchantes and satyrs. Leopards and snakes - creatures dedicated to Dionysus, accompany his cortege. It also contains the indispensable attributes of the Bacchic festivities - tympanum and thyrsus (thyrsus is a stick, densely entwined at one end with ivy). According to legends, at the wedding feast in honor of the marriage of Dionysus and Ariadne, the bride was presented with a radiant crown. (Relief "Wedding Procession"). But this union was short-lived: the god of wine and fun soon left his wife during her sleep, once doubting her loyalty. Dionysus was also awarded the love of the beautiful Aphrodite, who bore him two sons: Hymeneus, the god of marriage, and Priapus, the deity of the fertile forces of nature.

Dionysus severely punished those who did not recognize his cult. So, in one of the legends, which formed the basis of the tragedy of Euripides "Bacchae", tells about sad fate Theban women, struck at the behest of Dionysus with madness because they did not recognize his divine origin. And the Theban ruler Pentheus, who prevented the worship of Dionysus in Thebes, was torn to pieces by a crowd of raging Bacchantes led by his mother Agave, who took her son in a state of ecstasy for a bear.

Wherever Dionysus appears, he establishes his own cult; everywhere on its way teaches people viticulture and winemaking. In the procession of Dionysus - (mosaic "Dionysus on a Panther"), which was of an ecstatic nature, Bacchantes, satyrs (painting "Dionysus and Satyrs"), maenads or Bassarids (one of the nicknames of Dionysus - Bassarei) with thyrsus (wands) entwined with ivy took part. Belted with snakes, they crushed everything in their path, seized by sacred madness. With cries of "Bacchus, Evoe" they glorified Dionysus-Bromius ("stormy", "noisy"), beat the tympans, reveling in the blood of torn wild animals, carving honey and milk from the ground with their thyrsus, uprooting trees and dragging crowds with them men and women. The first women who took part in the Mysteries of Dionysus-Bacchus were called Bacchantes or Maenads. Art made no distinction between the two. But Euripides says that there is a difference in mythology: the bacchantes are Greek women, the maenads are Asian, who came with Bacchus after his campaign in India. Not a single holiday, not a single procession was complete without bacchantes and maenads. In a wild dance, deafening and exciting themselves with the loud music of flutes and tambourines (tympans), they rushed through the fields, forests and mountains to complete exhaustion. The famous Greek sculptor Skopas in 450 BC NS. sculpted a dancing maenad, about which we can judge by a small copy, unfortunately, badly damaged. Menada, whose image is saturated with emotional dynamics, is presented in a frantic dance that strains the entire body of the Maenad, arching her torso, throwing her head back, bordering on frenzy.

In one of the Thracian villages, according to a Greek folk legend, there lived an old sad homeless goat. However, in the fall, amazing changes took place with him: he began to jump cheerfully and playfully cling to passers-by. The goat stayed in this state for some time, then returned to its despondency. The peasants were interested in the goat's unexpected mood swings, and they began to follow him. It turned out that the animal's mood changed for the better after it walks through the vineyard and eats the remaining bunches after harvest. As a rule, crushed, dirty bunches remained in the fields. Grape juice fermented and transformed into intoxicating wine. It was from him that the goat got drunk. People tried this delicacy and for the first time felt the effect of alcohol on themselves. The goat was recognized as the inventor of wine and was hailed as a god. Apparently, it was from that moment that Dionysus began to take the form of a goat.

The Dionysus goat is no different from the minor gods - Panov, Satyrov, Selenov, who were closely related to him and were also more or less often depicted in a goat's guise. Pan, for example, was invariably depicted by Greek sculptors and painters with the face and legs of a goat. Satyrs were portrayed with pointed goat ears, and in other cases with piercing horns and a tail. Sometimes these deities were simply called goats, and the actors who acted as these gods wore goat skins. Ancient artists portrayed Selena in the same dress.

Also, Dionysus was often depicted as a bull or a man with horns (Dionysus Zagreus). This was the case, for example, in the city of Cyzicus, in Phrygia. There are antique images of Dionysus in this hypostasis, so, on one of the statuettes that have come down to us, he is presented dressed in a bull's skin, the head, horns and hooves of which are thrown back. In another, he is depicted as a child with a bull's head and a wreath of grapes around his body. Such epithets as "born of a cow", "bull", "bull-shaped", "bull-headed", "bull-headed", "bull-horned", "cuckold", "two-horned" were applied to God.

After a short time, the cult of Dionysus and the mysteries that accompanied him spread from Thrace throughout Greece, and then (from the 3rd century BC) throughout the empire of Alexander the Great. Wherever the young god appeared, he was accompanied by bursts of enthusiasm and orgy.

Before the discovery of the Mycenaean culture, it was believed that Dionysus was an alien god who was worshiped by the barbarians and one day began an offensive against civilized Hellas. However, it has now been established that this opinion was not entirely accurate. Achaean inscriptions testify that the Greeks knew Dionysus even before the Trojan War. Gradually, the cult of Bacchus began to supplant the cults of local gods and heroes. Dionysus, as the deity of the agricultural circle, associated with the elemental forces of the earth, is constantly opposed to Apollo, as the deity of the tribal aristocracy. He was the antipode of the aristocratic Olympians-gods who defend the interests of the communal-clan nobility. For a long time, his cult was persecuted due to its orgiastic nature, and only in 536-531 BC. was equated with the official common Greek cults, and Dionysus himself was included in the Olympic divine pantheon.

Chapter 2. Holidays in honor of Dionysus

2.1 The emergence of the ancient theater

Come quickly, oh lord, to the pressure vat

Be the leader of our night work;

Above the knees, picking up your clothes and a light leg

Moisten with foam, revive the dance of your workers.

And directing talkative moisture into empty vessels,

Take the tortillas as a sacrifice along with the shaggy vine.

Quint Meky. Prayer of the winemakers to Bacchus.

Holidays were one of the most important aspects of the cult of Dionysus in Greece. In Attica (an area in the southeast of Central Greece with the center in Athens), magnificent festivities were held in honor of Dionysus. Several times a year there were festivities dedicated to Dionysus, at which praises (songs of praise) were sung. The mummers who made up the retinue of Dionysus also performed at these festivities. Participants smeared their faces with wine, put on masks and goat skins. Along with solemn and sad ones, merry and often obscene songs were sung. The solemn part of the holiday gave birth to tragedy, funny and humorous - to comedy.

Tragedy actually means "song of the goats". Tragedy, according to Aristotle, originates from singing praises, and comedy from singing phallic songs. These singers, answering the questions of the choir, could tell about any events in the life of God and encourage the choir to sing. Elements of acting were mixed with this story, and the myth seemed to come to life in front of the participants of the holiday. Initially, the praises in honor of Dionysus, chanted by the chorus, were not distinguished by either complexity, musical diversity, or artistry. And therefore it was a big step forward to introduce a character, an actor, into the chorus. The actor recited the myth of Dionysus and gave remarks to the choir. A conversation was struck up between the actor and the chorus - a dialogue that forms the basis of the dramatic performance.

According to the assumptions of many scholars, the ancient Greek theater arose from the rituals dedicated to this god.

At first, Dionysus was considered the god of the productive force of nature, and the Greeks portrayed him as a goat or a bull. However, later, when the population of ancient Greece got acquainted with the cultivation of vineyards, Dionysus became the god of winemaking, and then the god of poetry and theater.

The historian Plutarch wrote that in 534 BC. a man named Thespides showed a performance - a dialogue between the actor who played the role of Dionysus and the chorus.

From this legendary year, theatrical performances, apparently, became an obligatory part of the holidays of Dionysus.

When performing sacrifices and accompanying magical ceremonies, those present were located in the form of an amphitheater on the slopes of a neighboring hill adjacent to the altar. This is the beginning of Greek theater. The principle of the amphitheater was preserved in the future. Greek theaters throughout history have been amphitheatres located at the foot of the hills, under open air, without a roof and curtain. The Greek theater was a free space that formed a semicircle (amphitheater). Thus, the very design of the Greek theater was based on a democratic principle. Not connected by an enclosed space, Greek theaters could be very large and accommodate a large mass of people. For example, the theater of Dionysus in Athens accommodated up to 30 thousand spectators, but this is far from the largest theater in ancient Greece known to us. Subsequently, in the Hellenistic era, theaters were created that could accommodate 50, 100 and even more than thousand spectators. The main part of the theater consisted of: 1) a koilone - a room for spectators, 2) an orchestra - a place for a choir, and at first for actors, and 3) a stage - a place where the scenery was hung and later the actors performed.

In the middle of the orchestra was the ornate altar of Dionysus.

The back of the stage was decorated with columns and usually depicted the royal palace. Seats for spectators (auditorium) from the rest of the city were fenced off by a wooden or stone wall without a roof.

The sheer size of theaters has led to the need for masks. The audience simply could not see the actor's features. Each mask expressed a certain state (horror, fun, calmness, etc.), and in accordance with the plot, the actor changed his own "faces" during the performance. The masks were a kind of close-ups of the characters and at the same time served as resonators - they amplified the sound of voices. Masks were made of wood or canvas, in the latter case the canvas was stretched over a frame, covered with plaster and painted. The masks covered not only the face, but the entire head, so that the hairstyle was attached to the mask, to which, if necessary, a beard was also attached. The tragic mask usually had a protrusion above the forehead, which increased the height of the actor.

The mask changed the proportions of the body, so the performers stood on koturny (sandals with thick soles), and put on thicknesses under their clothes. The Koturns made the figure taller and the movements more significant. Fabrics brightly colored with natural dyes, from which sophisticated costumes were sewn, also enlarged and emphasized the figure. The color of clothing was endowed with symbolic meaning. Kings appeared in long purple cloaks, queens in white ones with a purple stripe. Black meant mourning or misfortune. Short clothes were required for messengers. Attributes were also symbolic, for example, olive branches in the hands of those asking.

Masks in comedies were caricatured or caricatured portraits of famous people. The costumes usually emphasized an exorbitant belly, a fat bottom. The choir members were sometimes dressed in animal costumes such as frogs and birds in the plays of Aristophanes.

In the ancient Greek theater, the simplest machines were used: ekkklema (a platform on wheels) and eorema. The latter was a lifting mechanism (something like a system of blocks), with the help of which the characters (gods, for example) "took off into the heavens" or fell to the ground. It was in the Greek theater that the famous expression "God out of the machine" was born. Later, this term began to mean an unmotivated denouement, an external, not prepared by the development of action, resolution of the conflict both in tragedy and in comedy.

Actors in ancient Greece were considered respected people. Only a free-born man could play in the theater (they also performed female roles). At first, a choir and only one actor took part in the performances; Aeschylus brought in a second actor, Sophocles a third. One performer usually played several roles. The actors had to not only recite well, but also sing, possess refined, expressive gestures. In a tragedy, the chorus consisted of fifteen people, and in a comedy it could include twenty-four. Usually the choir did not take part in the action - it summarized and commented on the events.

Ancient Greek drama is based on myths. They were known to every Greek, and the viewers were especially interested and important in the interpretation of events by the author of the play and the actors, the moral assessment of the actions of the heroes. The heyday of the ancient theater falls on the 5th century. BC.

In the everyday life of the Greeks, various competitions took up a lot of place: chariot drivers and horsemen competed, and sports Olympics were held every four years. Theatrical performances were also organized as competitions - for both playwriters and actors. The performances were played three times a year: on Great Dionysios (in March), Small Dionysias (late December - early January) and Linea (late January - early February). Tragic poets presented three tragedies and one satire drama to the audience and the jury; comic poets performed individual compositions. Usually the play was performed once, repetitions were rare.

With the introduction of the theoricon (theatrical money that was paid to the poorest citizens), Pericles made the theater accessible to all Athenian citizens.

Theatrical performances were given only on the holidays of Dionysus and were originally part of the cult. Only gradually did the theater begin to acquire social significance, being a political tribune, a place of recreation and entertainment.

The theater provided a high general cultural level of the Greek city-states. He organized, educated and educated the masses of the people. In the Festivities in honor of Dionysus and the accompanying theatrical performances, a socio-political orientation is visible. In the mouths of mythological heroes, playwrights have always put words concerning the most acute problems of our time.

Along with theatrical performances, sports, games, wrestling, musical, literary and many other types of physical and spiritual sports should be noted.

2.2 Theater of Dionysus in Athens

The oldest known theater building is the Theater of Dionysus in Athens, located in the sacred fence of Dionysus on the southeastern slope of the Acropolis, which was rebuilt several times in subsequent eras. Its excavations were completed in 1895 by Dörpfeld.

On two minor remains of the wall, Dörnfeld established a circular orchestra - a terrace with a diameter of 27 m (E. Fichter considers the diameter of this orchestra to be approximately 20 m). It was located on the slope of the Acropolis in such a way that its northern part protruded into the mountain, and the southern part was propped up by a wall that rose in the southernmost part 2-3 m above the level of the sacred fence of Dionysus and in the west was in close contact with the old temple.

There were no stone seats in this theater yet: the audience sat on wooden benches, and, perhaps, on the first bunks and just stood. The Byzantine scholar Svida reports that in the 70th Olympiad (i.e., 499-496 BC) temporary seats collapsed and that after that the Athenians built a theatron, that is, special places for spectators.

Skene did not initially denote a palace or a temple. However, the later plays of Aeschylus and the dramas of Sophocles already demanded a palace or a temple as a backdrop, and on the tangent of the orchestra they began to erect a wooden skene building, on the facade of which 3 doors soon appeared.

At the same time, stage painting also came into use, and painted boards could be placed between the columns of forgiveness. Under Pericles, the theater underwent a restructuring, which probably ended after his death.

The old orchestra was pushed to the north. In this way, a slightly larger space was achieved for the presentation of the actors and for the stage adaptations required by the development of the drama of Sophocles and Euripides. The southern border of the terrace was completely rebuilt, and instead of the old curved support wall, a long (about 62 m) straight wall was erected from large blocks of conglomerate, which supported the terrace. At a distance of about 20.7 m from the western end of the wall, a solid foundation, about 7.9 m long, protrudes towards Skene for about 2.7 m. It is believed that it served as a support for the machines used in the theater. But the skene itself was still made of wood.

A little south of the old temple, a new temple of Dionysus was built, in which a statue of a god made of gold and Ivory sculpted by Alkamen. The supporting walls of the spectator seats were in contact with the odeon, a building for musical competitions, the construction of which was completed by Pericles in 443 BC. NS. The seating in this rebuilt theater was still made of wood, except perhaps for some places of honor.

There were parascenias. The skene building, when staged, which required the image of a palace or a house, was usually two-story, with the top floor, perhaps, slightly receding back and leaving the actors with space in front and on the sides.

The temple could have a pointed pediment. The Pericles reconstruction was completed by the construction of a stop - a large hall running along the entire length of the new retaining wall, with an open colonnade on its southern side. The next major restructuring of the Athenian theater took place in the 2nd half. 4 c. BC. (completed about 330) and was associated with the name of Lycurgus, who was in charge of Athenian finances.

A permanent stone skene was erected in place of the temporary wooden structures. Parascenias performed for approx. 5 m from the facade of the skene. The facade of the skene had 3 doors. Probably along the facade and on its internal. the sides of the parasenia had columns. Some scholars believe that in the stone theater of Lycurgus there was a wooden request, somewhat receding from the building of the skene and forming a portico

(similar to how it was later in the Hellenistic theater).

The plays were performed, as before, at the level of the orchestra, in front of the skena, the façade of which was adapted (with the help of movable screens, partitions and other devices) for the presentation of individual plays.

Spectator places, a significant part of which can still be seen in Athens) were built of stone. A double retaining wall was built to support them. In the lower tier, the space for spectators was divided by radially rising stairs into 13 wedges. In the upper tier, the number of stairs doubled. There were 78 rows in total on the hillside. Orchestra was somewhat pushed further north. A canal was built around Orchestra to drain rainwater

Conclusion

Ancient Greece became the cradle ancient civilization... In Greece, from where the bacchanalia came to Rome, the cult of Dionysus had two types - rural holidays (Dionysius, Lenei, etc.) and orgiastic mysteries, which later gave development to the ancient Greek theater. He gave impetus to the development of theatrical art throughout the world. Although modern theaters have undergone changes, in general, the basis has remained the same. Also his cult enriched different kinds art: plots of myths about him are reflected in sculpture, vase painting, literature, painting (especially the Renaissance and Baroque), and even music. The cult of Dionysus was addressed by composers of the 19-20 centuries - A.S.Dargomyzhsky "The Triumph of Bacchus", the divertissement by K. Debussy "The Triumph of Bacchus" and his own opera "Dionysus", the opera "Bacchus" by J. Masne and others.

Bacchanal processions, accompanied by mad dances of the maenads, replete with wine, orgies and music, have inspired and inspire to this day figures of all kinds of art.

Bibliography

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Dionysus. Myth and cult

What is Dionysus?

God of fascination and nightmare, wandering in the thicket and happy deliverance, a mad god whose presence plunges into madness. His conception, his birth, is mysterious and dramatic.

Son of Zeus and the mortal woman Semele. Even before giving birth, she burned up in the flame of the lightning of her heavenly lover.

Poets say she wished to do God,

And lightning smashed Semele's house,

And, struck by the deity, gave birth

In the thunder and storm of the great Bacchus.

Hölderlin

The father did not abandon the child, covered it with thick ivy in order to save him from the destructive heat, replaced his mother: he accepted an unviable being into his divine body - after the expiration of the set moons, the son was born.

Thus, the "twice-born" rose above the human and became a god - a god of joyful intoxication. And yet, suffering and death were determined for him - the giver of joy, and persecution and destruction descended on the mother's house, struck by heaven. However, Semele's mother, who underwent a fiery death in conjunction with the thunderous god, rose from the dust into the circle of the Olympic Theon.

Semele is one of the four daughters of the Theban king Cadmus. “Peleus and Cadmus,” says Pindar, “were the happiest of people: muses sang at their weddings, the gods ate their food. The royal sons of Kronos saw them on golden benches, accepted gifts from them ... But the time came for the three daughters of Cadmus: to the fourth, the beautiful Tione, father Zeus came to the bed of love. " And in another place: “Great misfortunes fell to the lot of the daughters of Cadmus, but the harsh sorrows dissipated in an abundance of good: Semele, struck by lightning, lives among the Olympians, Pallas loves her, her father Zeus loves her and his son adorned with ivy. In the sea, as they say, among the daughters of Nereus, Ino leads a serene life. "

Of the four daughters of Cadmus, only Ino and Semele are mythologically significant. Others - Agave and Antoya - are known as the mothers of Pentheus and Actaeon, who were torn to pieces by beasts of prey - a motive similar intonationally to the Dionysian myth.

Incidentally, the number four is significant in ancient myths. In Pindar, in connection with Cadmus's daughter Semele, her three sisters are often mentioned, in Theocritus in Lena, Ino, Agave, Antoia lead the phiaz to the mountains to the sacred Dionysian fire and erect twelve altars there: three for Semele and nine for Dionysus. Ino, Agave, Antonoya each lead by three phiases in the drama of Euripides "Bacchae". In a well-known document from Magnesia on the Meander, it is mentioned that, on the advice of the Delphic oracle, three maenads from the clan Ino came to Thebes for the founding of the Dionysian cult, and each brought three phiaz. The cult of Dionysus and Semele correlates with the myth of the heavenly bride and her three sisters. On a sacred inscription from the Cologne Museum, next to Semele's name are the names of her “divine sisters”.

The cult of Semele is attested by numerous testimonies, as well as the honors given to Ino, the foster mother of God. The ashes on the site of the house of Semele, the smoke of which Dionysus, according to Euripides, saw on his return to the city of Thebes, was shown to astonished strangers in later centuries near the sanctuary of Dionysus Cadmeos - this is what the inscription of the third pre-Christian century preserved in Delphi says. They did not forget Semele at the festivities in honor of Dionysus' epiphany, and did not forget her salvation from the kingdom of the dead as a divine son. On the Attic Lenaia, it was the "son of Semele" who was called. On the island of Mykonos, a sacrificial fire dedicated to Semele burned in the eleventh month, dedicated to Dionysus - in the twelfth. Orphic hymns leave no doubt on this score.

One of the most important was the holiday in honor of the liberation of Semele from death and the underworld - it was held, according to Plutarch, in Delphi and other places every eight years. In Lerna, it was believed that it was here that Dionysus threw himself into the bottomless abyss of the Alcyonian Sea in search of Semele in the kingdom of the dead, and in Trozen they even showed the place of the return of Dionysus and Semele.

Her cult is always part of the cult of her great son. "Lena" Theocritus, where three daughters of Cadmus and the terrible fate of the too curious Pentheus are represented, are the glorification of not only Dionysus, but also Semele and her three sisters. In honor of Dionysus and Semele, a marble altar was erected in Magnesia.

The human mother of a divine son is crowned with immortality and shares cult worship - this is one of the conclusions of the myth about the birth of a son of lightning fire from the womb of an earthly woman.

Current research does not recognize this surprising finding. Semele should be a goddess from the very beginning - she was declared the daughter of Cadmus by a poet of the seventh pre-Christian century out of any relevant considerations, not suspecting that later the human nature of Dionysus's mother would acquire such a serious accent.

Paul Kretschmer, in one notable work, drew attention to the following: the name of Semele is more of a Thracian-Phrygian origin and denotes the goddess of the earth (Semele): this name on the Phrygian burial vault is adjacent to the name of the god of heaven (duus or deos). Although Kretschmer's conclusion regarding the Phrygian source named Dionysus (son of Zeus) did not seem convincing due to the lack of confirmation, the interpretation of Semele won the approval of Nilson ("Kritomikene religion") and Williams ("Faith of the Hellenes") when proving the Thracian or rather Phrygian origin of the cult Dionysus. It would have been easier for Kretschmer to appeal to Apollodorus, who equated Semele and Gaia, or to Diodorus - the latter, as you know, believed that Tiona-Seme-la were earthly goddesses. In this way, according to modern theory, the mother of Dionysus appeared as a "Thracian-Phrygian goddess of the earth" - later, at the whim of the poet, she turned into a mortal woman and daughter of Cadmus.

What can you say? According to Phrygian sources, the mentioned goddess was highly revered two or three hundred years before our era. Probably a thousand years earlier, she was held in high esteem. How, then, did the great Phrygian goddess of the land in Boeotia, separated from Phrygia by a short sea voyage, turn at someone's whim into the daughter of Cadmus? And yet there is not the slightest mention of her theistic greatness in either myth or cult. Other analogies equally need argumentation.

And not only this. The legend of the daughter of Cadmus lends extraordinary power to the traditionally preserved myth. Semele, an ordinary mortal, but not a goddess, which is sharply emphasized, gave birth to a god. In the Iliad, Thebes are named her homeland, and Hesiod not only mentions the “daughter of Cadmus,” but emphasizes: she, a mortal woman, gave birth to an immortal son. The image of "the son of the greatest father and daughter of Cadmus" (Pindar), the mortality of the mother is the focus of the Dionysian tradition. The name of Semele, originally divine, later became purely human - proof of this is the second name of the mother of Dionysus - Tion. As the beloved of Zeus, Semele is named by Pindar as Tiona. After her son freed her from the kingdom of the dead, she was exalted by immortality on Olympus. “Semele, later named Tiona,” reads the Homeric hymn. This name is found among the Bacchantes, Dionysus himself is sometimes called Tionides. Is it conceivable for a name accented as a human to refer to a goddess? In Thebes, the deceased Semele was venerated - such is the nature of her images in the space of the Theban acropolis dedicated to Dionysus. In the forty-fourth Orphic hymn, it is mentioned that she owes such honors to Persephone.

The modern hypothesis, ignoring the clarity of the myth, asserts that this myth owes its striking twist to willful proofreading. This assumption annihilates the essence of the story of the appearance of Dionysus. If the mother was not mortal, what is the meaning of being reborn? When Semele died, Zeus tore a six-month-old child out of the flame and sewed it into his thigh so that he would mature in a heavenly body and become a god. The symbiosis of two different views is assumed. According to one, Dionysus is the fruit of the union of Semele with the heavenly father, according to the other, Dionysus owes his birth solely to his father, like Athena. This introduces new confusion. If the theophany of Athena is spared all female participation, which is in accordance with the goddess of wisdom and indestructible strength, then how to explain the purely masculine birth of the feminine Dionysus, always surrounded by women?

Semele, mortal, conceived a son from the heavenly god, the earthly beloved was incinerated by the passion of flashing lightning. In the deadly flames of a thunderstorm, she prematurely gave birth to a boy, the future god. But is such a task conceivable for an earthly woman? That is why the father took his son and completed the birth.

The idea of ​​the goddess of the earth, torn apart by heavenly flames, is incredible.

Why is it even necessary to explain the greatness of a son by the same condition of his parents? Wouldn't it be better to consider the depth and significance of the myth before attributing to some poet a whimsical clash of inequalities? Ino, the adoptive mother of the god, turned from an ordinary woman into a goddess and received the name Leucotheia. As in the "Theogony" of Hesiod emphasizes the human origin of Semele, so in the "Odyssey" it is said: "Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, was a mortal woman and became a deity of the waters of the sea, her name is Leucotheia." Ino's connection with Dionysus, confirmed by the cult, is undeniable: the goddess of water is essentially close to Dionysus, judging by the numerous images and legends. We meet among the Nereids and two other sisters - Agave and Antoya.

Ino and Semele are at first earthly women, then goddesses with other names.

Dionysus - the myth of his birth, despite the dissolution in historical accidents, quite clearly reflects the nature of the deity.

The appearance of Athena corresponds to the style and image of this goddess. However, the mysterious, ambivalent god of contradictions, in our opinion, should have a generic relationship to people.