Olivia, London
Despite being one of the twelve Olympians, most people know very little about the god Dionysus and immediately associate him with drunkenness. Of course, as the god of wine, he is often depicted as drunk. However, he is far more multifaceted than this image makes him appear and may be one of the best male gods to have existed in Greek mythology from a modern perspective.
Dionysus is one of the only Greek gods to not conform to the gender binary; the only other somewhat known exception is Hermaphroditus. This also coincides with the fact Dionysus is to have potentially originated from Africa or Asia, rather than Greece like the other prominent deities in Greek mythology. Essentially, he was often portrayed as an outlier among the deities, yet he remains one of the 12 Olympians and was widely celebrated despite the controversiality of many of his characteristics.
Dionysus challenged stereotypes of gender expression in two main ways: his own stereotypically feminine appearance, and the band of Maenads that followed him.
In Diodorus Siculus IV. 1 – 18, the historian writes: “but the Dionysus who was born of Semelê in more recent times, they say, was a man who was effeminate in body and altogether delicate; in beauty, however, he far excelled all other.”
It should also be noted that certain people believe there were two separate deities named Dionysus in Greek mythology, one of which was depicted as a bearded man, and the other a far more controversial, youthful, effeminate man, which is why Siculus states which one he is talking about. This Dionysus is also believed to have emerged later in Greek mythology.
(Below) Two distinctively different depictions of Dionysus
Dionysus’ band of female followers, Maenads, were a contentious group. Maenads were women (including nymphs, satyrs, and mortals) who gave up their societal positions and families to follow him, surrendering themselves entirely to the ‘animal state’ it was believed all women had within them. These women are portrayed as incredibly aggressive, violent, and usually drunk, for example in Euripides Bacchae, when he describes them tearing apart a group of men. Despite this apparent negative presentation of the Maenads, it was also believed that Dionysus sometimes sent them into towns where he believed men had mistreated women to slaughter them. Although this idea was most probably frowned upon at the time, this makes Dionysus somewhat the most respectful god vis-à-vis women, depending on which sources you look at.
If we maintain this positive stance on Dionysus, we could also look at the fact that he was the only Olympian who showed any sort of true love and respect to his wife, something which was probably used to emphasise his lack of stereotypical masculinity.
Most of the gods in the pantheon are not at all adverse to raping any women they feel attracted to, whenever they wish. Dionysus, on the other hand, when he comes across Ariadne, having been abandoned by Theseus, treats her with kindness and eventually marries her consensually. Although, he does have other lovers during his marriage to her, like Ampelos and Pallene, there is no suggestion in mythology that she was discontent (unlike Hera with Zeus) at any point during their relationship.
(Above) Ampelos (left) and Dionysus (right)
This makes him, from this point of view, the only male deity with a grain of respect for women in mythology. There are however some representations of Dionysus where he is said to render Aura (a Titan-goddess) drunk before raping her, so whether he was actually good is debatable. However, these depictions of Dionysus could be attributed to the ‘other’ Dionysus if we maintain that there were two of them in Greek mythology. I prefer to take this stance because it maintains that he was a genderfluid feminist icon rather than just another sexist Greek god.
The other reason Dionysus caused such an issue among the ‘conservative’, category-loving Greeks is, not only his common depiction as an effeminate god – with long locks of hair and stereotypically feminine facial features – but also his childhood, which he is often said to have spent dressed as a girl to hide from jealous Hera: in certain texts Dionysus is said to be the offspring of Zeus and the mortal princess Semele, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. As vengeance for her husband’s infidelity (because she couldn’t possibly punish her disloyal husband instead of the innocent mortal), Hera tricked Semele into death while Dionysus was still in her womb. Dionysus is often referred to with the epithet Twice Born’, because it is said Zeus saved him from death by ripping him out of Semele’s womb and sewing him into his own thigh from which he was later ‘reborn’.
There is no coherent story about the first stage of his life after this, but different sources claim he was then sent to live with Ino, his aunt and the queen of Boeotia, and her husband, Athamas. They raised Dionysus as a girl in an attempt to hide him from Hera. However, Hera
was not fooled for long and caused Ino to go mad, eventually jumping into the sea and transfiguring into the sea goddess Leucothea. She is first mentioned in homer’s Odyssey in which she saves the hero from drowning.
After this, Hermes took Dionysus to be raised in Phrygia by the titaness, Rhea, through his adolescence, before he finally became independent and capable of evading his stepmother’s wrath alone.
Despite being one of the 12 Olympians, Dionysus is an outsider in Greek mythology for many reasons. Firstly, he possibly did not originate in Greece. Secondly, his effeminate depiction and childhood hiding as a girl, contradict Greek stereotypes of men, as does his attitude towards women as described in certain texts. Finally, he is the only god to have been born immortal with a mortal parent.
Alongside these factors he was also the god of wine, theatre, and ritual madness among other things. There is a clear trend in these things related to self-expression. Greek theatre allowed the actor (always male) to express themselves freely as male or female, or sometimes both. Wine, on the other hand, causes drunkenness – a state in which people express themselves very differently – often more rawly – than usual, with little or no control over oneself. Ritual madness is similar and is the state Maenads inhabited.
What is surprising about Dionysus is that, despite his difference from other deities and the things he stood for, he was worshiped across Greece with great devotion. There was even a yearly ceremony in many Greek cities where so-called ‘Bacchis’ (referring to his Latin name: Bacchus) bands of women would gather to celebrate the god. On this day it was lawful for women to carry a thyrsus and offer sacrifices to the god while engaging in frenzied festivities, to mirror the presentation of the Maenads, his devoted followers. There were also a great number of cults dedicated to his name at the time.
Due to this, and the fact there may have been two separate versions of Dionysus in Greek mythology, it is very hard to assess what general attitudes towards Dionysus, with regards to his gender expression, were at the time. However, it is nonetheless clear that, since this widespread depiction of Dionysus existed at the time, some idea of gender fluidity did exist, which can be reinstated by the presence of the god Hermaphroditus in mythology.
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