Download or read book Dionysus written by Walter F. Otto and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1965 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This study of Dionysus . . . is also a new theogony of Early Greece." —Publishers Weekly "An original analysis . . . of the spiritual significance of the Greek myth and cult of Dionysus." —Theology Digest

Download or read book The Cult of Dionysus written by Leon Davalos and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-11-19 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cult of Dionysus is strongly associated with satyrs, centaurs, and sileni, and its characteristic symbols are the bull, the serpent, tigers/leopards, the ivy, and the wine. The Dionysia and Lenaia festivals in Athens were dedicated to Dionysus, as well as the Phallic processions. Initiates worshipped him in the Dionysian Mysteries, which were comparable to and linked with the Orphic Mysteries, and may have influenced Gnosticism.

Download or read book Ancient Theatre and Performance Culture around the Black Sea written by David Braund and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-28 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a landmark study combining key specialists around the region with well-established international scholars, from a wide range of disciplines.

Download or read book Plague and the Athenian Imagination written by Robin Mitchell-Boyask and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-13 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The great plague of Athens that began in 430 BCE had an enormous effect on the imagination of its literary artists and on the social imagination of the city as a whole. In this book, Professor Mitchell-Boyask studies the impact of the plague on Athenian tragedy early in the 420s and argues for a significant relationship between drama and the development of the cult of the healing god Asclepius in the next decade, during a period of war and increasing civic strife. The Athenian decision to locate their temple for Asclepius adjacent to the Theater of Dionysus arose from deeper associations between drama, healing and the polis that were engaged actively by the crisis of the plague. The book also considers the representation of the plague in Thucydides' History as well as the metaphors generated by that representation which recur later in the same work.

Download or read book Cults and Rites in Ancient Greece written by Michael H. Jameson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume assembles fourteen highly influential articles written by Michael H. Jameson over a period of nearly fifty years, edited and updated by the author himself. They represent both the scope and the signature style of Jameson's engagement with the subject of ancient Greek religion. The collection complements the original publications in two ways: firstly, it makes the articles more accessible; and secondly, the volume offers readers a unique opportunity to observe that over almost five decades of scholarship Jameson developed a distinctive method, a signature style, a particular perspective, a way of looking that could perhaps be fittingly called a 'Jamesonian approach' to the study of Greek religion. This approach, recognizable in each article individually, becomes unmistakable through the concentration of papers collected here. The particulars of the Jamesonian approach are insightfully discussed in the five introductory essays written for this volume by leading world authorities on polis religion.

Download or read book Masks of Dionysus written by Thomas H. Carpenter and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Representing some of the most fruitful recent approaches to the phenomenon of Dionysus and well illustrated, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of classical literature and ancient history, the history of ancient religion, art history, classical philology, and archaeology." -- Back cover

Download or read book Redefining Dionysos written by Alberto Bernabé and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-06-26 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contributes to the understanding of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine, dancing, theatre and ecstasy, by putting together 30 studies of classical scholars. They combine the analysis of specific instances of particular dimensions of the god in cult, myth, literature and iconography, with general visions of Dionysos in antiquity and modern times. Only from the combination of different perspectives can we grasp the complex personality of Dionysos, and the forms of his presence in different cults, literary genres, and artistic forms, from Mycenaean times to late antiquity. The ways in which Dionysos was experienced may vary in each author, each cult, and each genre in which this god is involved. Therefore, instead of offering a new all-encompassing theory that would immediately become partial, the book narrows the focus on specific aspects of the god. Redefinition does not mean finding (again) the essence of the god, but obtaining a more nuanced knowledge of the ways he was experienced and conceived in antiquity.

Download or read book The Dionysian Gospel written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” Dennis R. MacDonald offers a provocative explanation of those scandalous words of Christ from the Fourth Gospel—an explanation that he argues would hardly have surprised some of the Gospel’s early readers. John sounds themes that would have instantly been recognized as proper to the Greek god Dionysos (the Roman Bacchus), not least as he was depicted in Euripides’s play The Bacchae. A divine figure, the offspring of a divine father and human mother, takes on flesh to live among mortals, but is rejected by his own. He miraculously provides wine and offers it as a sacred gift to his devotees, women prominent among them, dies a violent death—and returns to life. Yet John takes his drama in a dramatically different direction: while Euripides’s Dionysos exacts vengeance on the Theban throne, the Johannine Christ offers life to his followers. MacDonald employs mimesis criticism to argue that the earliest Evangelist not only imitated Euripides but expected his readers to recognize Jesus as greater than Dionysos.

Download or read book The Development of the Cult of Dionysus in the Roman Republic and Early Empire written by Sallie Cecilia Higgins and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Dionysus written by Walter Friedrich Otto and published by . This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting an analysis of the spiritual significance of ancient Greek religion, this book presents a study of the myth and cult of Dionysus. It urges to understand the power of this vision not as a bloodless abstraction but as a force animating belief, to see the myth and art of Dionysus as a search to regain the power of the lost god.

Download or read book The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece written by M. Rigoglioso and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-04-26 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greek religion is filled with strange sexual artifacts - stories of mortal women's couplings with gods; rituals like the basilinna's "marriage" to Dionysus; beliefs in the impregnating power of snakes and deities; the unusual birth stories of Pythagoras, Plato, and Alexander; and more. In this provocative study, Marguerite Rigoglioso suggests such details are remnants of an early Greek cult of divine birth, not unlike that of Egypt. Scouring myth, legend, and history from a female-oriented perspective, she argues that many in the highest echelons of Greek civilization believed non-ordinary conception was the only means possible of bringing forth individuals who could serve as leaders, and that special cadres of virgin priestesses were dedicated to this practice. Her book adds a unique perspective to our understanding of antiquity, and has significant implications for the study of Christianity and other religions in which divine birth claims are central. The book's stunning insights provide fascinating reading for those interested in female-inclusive approaches to ancient religion.

Download or read book Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia written by Giovanni Casadio and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Vergil's Aeneid, the poet implies that those who have been initiated into mystery cults enjoy a blessed situation both in life and after death. This collection of essays brings new insight to the study of mystic cults in the ancient world, particularly those that flourished in Magna Graecia (essentially the area of present-day Southern Italy and Sicily). Implementing a variety of methodologies, the contributors to Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia examine an array of features associated with such "mystery religions" that were concerned with individual salvation through initiation and hidden knowledge rather than civic cults directed toward Olympian deities usually associated with Greek religion. Contributors present contemporary theories of ancient religion, field reports from recent archaeological work, and other frameworks for exploring mystic cults in general and individual deities specifically, with observations about cultural interactions throughout. Topics include Dionysos and Orpheus, the Goddess Cults, Isis in Italy, and Roman Mithras, explored by an international array of scholars including Giulia Sfameni Gasparro ("Aspects of the Cult of Demeter in Magna Graecia") and Alberto Bernabé ("Imago Inferorum Orphica"). The resulting volume illuminates this often misunderstood range of religious phenomena.

Download or read book Dionysos written by Richard Seaford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-08-21 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering a wide range of issues which have been overlooked in the past, including mystery, cult and philosophy, Richard Seaford explores Dionysos – one of the most studied figures of the ancient Greek gods. Popularly known as the god of wine and frenzied abandon, and an influential figure for theatre where drama originated as part of the cult of Dionysos, Seaford goes beyond the mundane and usual to explore the history and influence of this god as never before. As a volume in the popular Gods and Heroes series, this is an indispensible introduction to the subject, and an excellent reference point for higher-level study.

Download or read book Dionysus and Rome written by Fiachra Mac Góráin and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most work on Dionysus is based on Greek sources, this collection of essays examines the god’s Roman and Italian manifestations. Nine contributions address Bacchus’ appearance at the crossroads of Greek and Roman cultures, tracing continuities and differences between literary and archaeological sources for the god. The essays offer coverage of Dionysus in Roman art, Italian epigraphy; Latin poetry including epic, drama and elegy; and prose, including historiography, rhetorical and Christian discourse. The introduction offers an overview of the presence of Dionysus in Italy from the archaic to the imperial periods, identifying the main scholarly trends, with treatment of key Dionysian episodes in Roman history and literature. Individual chapters address the reception of Euripides’ Bacchae across Greek and Roman literature from Athens to Byzantium; Dionysus in Roman art of the archaic and Augustan periods; the god’s relationship with Fufluns and Liber in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE; Dionysian associations; Bacchus in Cicero; Ovid’s Tristia 5.3; Bacchus in the writings of Christian Latin writers. The collection sheds light on a relatively understudied aspect of Dionysus, and will stimulate further research in this area.

Download or read book Dionysos written by Carl Kerényi and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No other god of the Greeks is as widely present in the monuments and nature of Greece and Italy, in the sensuous tradition of antiquity, as Dionysos. In myth and image, in visionary experience and ritual representation, the Greeks possessed a complete expression of indestructible life, the essence of Dionysos. In this work, the noted mythologist and historian of religion Carl Kerényi presents a historical account of the religion of Dionysos from its beginnings in the Minoan culture down to its transition to a cosmic and cosmopolitan religion of late antiquity under the Roman Empire. From the wealth of Greek literary, epigraphic, and monumental traditions, Kerényi constructs a picture of Dionysian worship, always underlining the constitutive element of myth. Included in this study are the secret cult scenes of the women's mysteries both within and beyond Attica, the mystic sacrificial rite at Delphi, and the great public Dionysian festivals at Athens. The way in which the Athenian people received and assimilated tragedy in its immanent connection with Dionysos is seen as the greatest miracle in all cultural history. Tragedy and New Comedy are seen as high spiritual forms of the Dionysian religion, and the Dionysian element itself is seen as a chapter in the religious history of Europe.

Download or read book Dionysos written by Vikki Bramshaw and published by . This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There was 'no god more present' than Dionysos: that is, out of all the ancient gods Dionysos was one of the few who people felt that they could reach out and touch" Chapter 4: A God of Many Forms Dionysos: Exciter to Frenzy is a phenomenal scholarly exploration of one of the most complex, liminal and paradoxical gods of the ancient world. In this journey through the realms of Dionysos, the author Vikki Bramshaw guides the reader through the mysterious world of the multifaceted Dionysos, revealing his hidden faces and forms, demonstrating his presence in different cultures, the growth cycles of nature, the establishment of theatre and even the ancient Greek calendar. The roots of the wine god Dionysos, like his vines, spread throughout the ancient world. From the Cretan Zagreus, to the Thracian Sabazios and the Egyptian Iachen, his stories permeated the myths and traditions of both the untamed wilderness and the culture of cities such as Athens. Joined by slaves and rulers, wild flesh-ripping Maenads and vegetarian Orphics, wine-makers and hunters, the thrice-born Dionysos danced his way through the challenges of rebirth and initiation, with the liberating ecstasy of trance and possession. The god Dionysos unites opposites, he is many-formed, dying yet eternal, chthonian and heavenly. His ancient myths, mystical symbols, pagan rites and incarnations represent a uniquely detailed and relevant perspective of the transformation he brings through prophecy and personal liberation which is still relevant today.

Download or read book Gods of Love and Ecstasy written by Alain Daniélou and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1992-05-01 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shiva and Dionysus are the Hindu and Greek gods of magical power, intoxication, ecstatic sexuality, and transcendence who initiate us into communion with the creative forces of life. Revealing the earliest sources of the traditions of Shiva and Dionysus, Alain Danielou reconstructs the fabric of our ancient relationship with creation, vividly relating practices that were observed from the Indus Valley to the coasts of Portugal at least six thousand years ago.