Editing Dionysus (section)

===Symbols===
[[File:Dioniso seduto, officina neoattica, I sec dc, 6728.JPG|thumb|right|Ancient Roman relief in the Museo Archeologico (Naples) depicting Dionysus holding a thyrsus and receiving a libation, wearing an ivy wreath, and attended by a panther]]
[[File:Dionysos panther Louvre K240.jpg|thumb|right|Dionysus on a [[Panther (legendary creature)|panther]]'s back; on the left, a [[papposilenus]] holding a tambourine. Side A from a red-figure bell-shaped crater, c. 370 BC.]]
The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a [[Ferula|fennel]] staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a ''[[thyrsus]]''. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature describes him as womanly or "man-womanish".<ref>{{cite book |last=Otto |first=Walter F. |title=Dionysus Myth and Cult |year=1995 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=0-253-20891-2 }}</ref> In its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession ''([[thiasus]])'' is made up of wild female followers ([[maenads]]) and bearded [[satyrs]] with [[ithyphallic|erect penises]]; some are armed with the ''thyrsus'', some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a bearded, drunken [[Silenus]]. This procession is presumed to be the cult model for the followers of his [[Dionysian Mysteries]]. Dionysus is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and he thus symbolizes the chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.<ref>{{cite book|title=Gods of Love and Ecstasy|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=QDQK7l13WIIC&pg=PA15|first= Alain |last = Daniélou |page =15|publisher = Inner Traditions|location = Rochester, Vermont|date = 1992|isbn = 9780892813742}}</ref>

Dionysus was a god of resurrection and he was strongly linked to the [[Bull (mythology)|bull]]. In a cult hymn from [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]], at a festival for Hera, Dionysus is invited to come as a bull; "with bull-foot raging". [[Walter Burkert]] relates, "Quite frequently [Dionysus] is portrayed with bull horns, and in [[Kyzikos]] he has a tauromorphic image", and refers also to an archaic myth in which Dionysus is slaughtered as a bull calf and impiously eaten by the [[Titan (mythology)|Titans]].<ref>Burkert, p. 64.</ref>

[[File:Temple Dionysus Delos Stoivadeion 130086.jpg|thumb|left|220px|A sculpted phallus at the entrance of the temple of Dionysus in [[Delos]], Greece]]
The snake and [[phallus]] were symbols of Dionysus in ancient Greece, and of Bacchus in Greece and Rome.<ref>{{cite book|first=James|last=Charlesworth|title=The Good And Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cJlmWuXCCecC&pg=PA222 |year=2010|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-14273-0|pages=222–223}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Walter Friedrich|last1=Otto|first2=Robert B.|last2=Palmer|title=Dionysus: Myth and Cult|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XCDvuoZ8IzsC&pg=PA164 |year=1965|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-20891-0|pages=164–166}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Leo|last=Steinberg|title=The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V5DeBQAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-22631-6|pages=47, 83 with footnotes}}</ref> There is a procession called the ''phallophoria'', in which villagers would parade through the streets carrying phallic images or pulling phallic representations on carts. He typically wears a panther or leopard skin and carries a thyrsus. His iconography sometimes includes [[maenad]]s, who wear wreaths of ivy and serpents around their hair or neck.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jennifer R.|last=March|title=Dictionary of Classical Mythology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v5jwAwAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Oxbow|isbn=978-1-78297-635-6|pages=164, 296}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Csapo |first=Eric |title=Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction |journal=Phoenix |volume=51 |issue=3/4 |year=1997 |pages= 256–257, 253–295 |doi=10.2307/1192539 |jstor=1192539 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Dietrich |first=B. C. |title=Dionysus Liknites |journal=The Classical Quarterly |volume=8 |issue=3–4 |year=1958 |pages=244–248 |doi=10.1017/S000983880002190X |s2cid=246876495 }}</ref>

The cult of Dionysus was closely associated with trees, specifically the [[fig tree]], and some of his [[Epithet|bynames]] exhibit this, such as {{lang|grc-Latn|Endendros}} "he in the tree" or {{lang|grc-Latn|Dendritēs}}, "he of the tree". Peters suggests the original meaning as "he who runs among the trees", or that of a "runner in the woods". Janda (2010) accepts the etymology but proposes the more cosmological interpretation of "he who impels the (world-)tree". This interpretation explains how ''Nysa'' could have been re-interpreted from a meaning of "tree" to the name of a mountain: the [[axis mundi]] of [[Indo-European mythology]] is represented both as a [[world-tree]] and as a [[world-mountain]].<ref>see Janda (2010), 16–44 for a detailed account.</ref>

Dionysus is also closely associated with the transition between summer and autumn. In the Mediterranean summer, marked by the rising of the dog star [[Sirius]], the weather becomes extremely hot, but it is also a time when the promise of coming harvests grow. Late summer, when [[Orion (constellation)|Orion]] is at the center of the sky, was the time of the grape harvest in ancient Greece. Plato describes the gifts of this season as the fruit that is harvested as well as Dionysian joy. Pindar describes the "pure light of high summer" as closely associated with Dionysus and possibly even an embodiment of the god himself. An image of Dionysus' birth from Zeus' thigh calls him "the light of Zeus" (''Dios phos'') and associates him with the light of Sirius.<ref name=Kerenyi/>