Editing Dionysus (section)

===Osiris===
[[File:Triptych Panel with Painted Image of Serapis - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Painted wood panel depicting Serapis, who was considered the same god as Osiris, Hades, and Dionysus in [[Late Antiquity]]. Second century AD.]]
In the [[interpretatio graeca|Greek interpretation]] of the [[Ancient Egyptian deities|Egyptian pantheon]], Dionysus was often identified with [[Osiris]].<ref>Rutherford 2016, [https://books.google.com/books?id=oBqHCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA67 p. 67].</ref> Stories of the dismembering of [[Osiris]] and his re-assembly and resurrection by [[Isis]] closely parallel those of the Orphic Dionysus and Demeter.<ref>Rutherford 2016, [https://books.google.com/books?id=oBqHCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 p. 69].</ref> According to Diodorus Siculus,<ref>Diod. [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4A*.html#6 4.6.3].</ref> as early as the fifth century BC, the two gods had been syncretized as a single deity known as [[Dionysus-Osiris]]. The most notable record of this belief is found in [[Herodotus]]' '[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Herodotus |title=Histories |publisher=George Rawlinson Translation |at=Book 2 }}</ref> [[Plutarch]] was of the same opinion, recording  his belief that Osiris and Dionysus were identical and stating that anyone familiar with the secret rituals associated with the two gods would recognize obvious parallels between them, noting that the myths of their dismembering and their associated public symbols constituted sufficient additional evidence to prove that they were, in fact the same god worshiped by the two cultures under different names.<ref>Plutarch, ''Isis and Osiris''. Trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, 1936.</ref>

Other syncretic Greco-Egyptian deities arose out of this conflation, including with the gods [[Serapis]] and [[Hermanubis]]. Serapis was believed to be both Hades and Osiris, and the Roman Emperor Julian considered him the same as Dionysus as well. Dionysus-Osiris was particularly popular in Ptolemaic Egypt, as the Ptolemies claimed descent from Dionysus, and as Pharaohs they had claim to the lineage of Osiris.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kampakoglou |first1=Alexandros v |title=Danaus βουγενής: Greco-Egyptian Mythology and Ptolemaic Kingship |date=2016 |publisher=Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies |pages=119–122 }}</ref> This association was most notable during a deification ceremony where [[Mark Antony]] became Dionysus-Osiris, alongside [[Cleopatra]] as Isis-Aphrodite.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Scott |first1=Kenneth |title=Octavian's Propaganda and Antony's De Sua Ebrietate |date=1929 |publisher=Classical Philology |pages=133–141|edition=24th}}</ref>

Egyptian myths about [[Priapus]] said that the Titans conspired against Osiris, killed him, divided his body into equal parts, and "slipped them secretly out of the house". All but Osiris' penis, which since none of them "was willing to take it with him", they threw into the river. Isis, Osiris' wife, hunted down and killed the Titans, reassembled Osiris' body parts "into the shape of a human figure", and gave them "to the priests with orders that they pay Osiris the honours of a god". But since she was unable to recover the penis she ordered the priests "to pay to it the honours of a god and to set it up in their temples in an erect position."<ref>Diod. [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1A*.html#21 1.21.1–3]</ref>