ionysus was reared by the Maenads, wild and savage forest women, and is associated with dark, irrational, female (not feminine) powers. He was suckled on wine rather than milk, but he is not to be confused with the Roman god, Bacchus. Dionysus is not the god of wine, as Bacchus is; rather he is the god of drunkenness, the god of insanity, the god of sexual frenzy and battle lust. He is the god of the death throes. Dionysus' dominion includes all states of being that entail the loss of self-awareness and rationality, of abandonment of the self to those urges in human nature that overthrow codes of behavior and public responsibility. However, all states of being that are necessary to the survival of the tribe and the race of humankind are the province of Dionysus.

Bacchus was his Roman counterpart. What Dionysus represented is important for our understanding of how humans can be transformed from rational to irrational, from moral to immoral, from good to evil creatures. Classicist Walter Otto has analyzed the spiritual and psychological significance of the myth and cult of Dionysus, the god of ecstasy and paradox.

"The turbulence which accompanied the arrival of Dionysus has swept it away. It being 'the world in which man has settled himself so securely and snugly'. Everything has been transformed.... The primeval world has stepped into the foreground, the depths of reality have been opened, the elemental forms of everything that is creative, everything that is destructive, have arisen, bringing with them infinite rapture and terror. The innocent picture of a well-ordered routine world has been shattered by their coming, and they bring with them no illusions or fantasies but truth-- a truth that brings on madness.... Everything that has been locked up is released. The alien and the hostile unite in miraculous harmony. Age-old laws have suddenly lost their power and even the dimensions of time and space are no longer valid."

©2006-2008, Philip G. Zimbardo