Bacchus

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The god Dionysus, the ‘twice-born’, the god of the vine. The son of Jupiter and Semele. His worship was celebrated with orgiastic rites borrowed from Phrygia. His female followers are the Maenades. He carries the thyrsus, a wand tipped with a pine-cone, the Maenads and Satyrs following him carrying ivy-twined fir branches as thyrsi. (See Caravaggio’s painting –Bacchus – Uffizi, Florence)

Bk III:273-315. Snatched from his mother Semele’s womb when she is destroyed by Jupiter’s fire, he is sewn into Jupiter’s thigh, reared by Ino and hidden by the nymphs of Mount Nysa. (See Charles Shannon’s painting – The Childhood (or Education) of Bacchus – Private Collection)

Bk III:528-571. His worship comes to Thebes and is opposed there by Pentheus and at Argos by Acrisius.

Bk III:597-637. Acoetes tells how Bacchus was discovered on Chios. Bacchus asks to be put ashore on Naxos his home. Acoetes may be a manifestation of Bacchus himself.

Bk III:638-691. Bacchus transforms the ship and crew.

Bk III:692-733. His Maenads destroy Pentheus.

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