Abstract

The origin of the worship of Dionysus, however, need not concern us here. What matters is that his cult found fertile soil in post-Homeric Greece, and, spreading like an epidemic, was firmly established there no later than the seventh century. Poets, artists, philosophers, kings, and above all the mass of the people, all felt Dionysus' power and responded to his attraction in a variety of ways. Who was this strange god who exerted, in defiance of all opposition, such a great influence on the life of Greece?