| Ariadne | [ar-ih-AD-nee] Daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, king and queen of Knossos on Crete, and sister of Phaedra. After helping Theseus to kill the Minotaur and fleeing Crete with him, Theseus abandoned her on the island of Naxos, where Dionysus married her and made her immortal.
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| bacchae | Female worshipers of Dionysus (Bacchus).
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| bacchants | Ecstatic worshipers of Dionysus (Bacchus).
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| Bacchus | [BAH-kuhs] Another name for Dionysus.
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| Boreas | Personification of the North Wind.
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| Cybele | [SIB-e-lee] Asiatic mother goddess whom the Greeks identified with Rhea. Many of her priests were eunuchs, supposedly imitating the self-castration of Cybele's lover Attis.
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| Dionysus | [dye-oh-NYE-suhs] Son of Zeus and Semele, and god of the vine that produces wine, he was a male fertility .gure who represented a great variety of natural forces, including the vegetative cycle of life, growth, death, and rebirth, and the conflicting power of human passions. He is also called Bacchus, Bromius, and Liber.
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| Dionysus Zagreus | [dye-oh-NYE-suhs ZAG-re-uhs] In the Orphic version of the Dionysus myth, a son of Zeus and Persephone swallowed by Zeus and reborn as the son of Zeus and Semele.
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| dithyramb | [DITH-ram] Ecstatic dance or choral song performed in honor of Dionysus, out of which tragedy is said to have evolved.
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| Ino | Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia who nursed the infant Dionysus after Semele's death. When Hera drove her mad, she threw herself into the sea and was transformed into Leucothea, the white goddess of sea foam, a friend to sailors.
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| maenads | [MEE-nadz] Female worshipers of Dionysus, commonly called Bacchae or Bacchants, who dressed in fawn skins and carried a thyrsus while performing ecstatic dances.
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| Orphism | A particularly obscure mystery cult in which devotees were initiated into the secrets of moral transfiguration and future immortality.
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| Osiris | Egyptian guide and judge of the dead, brother and husband of Isis, and (posthumously) father of Horus. He underwent sparagmos, resurrection, and deification, which suggested to the Greeks that he was an African manifestation of Dionysus.
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| paean | (1) A song of thanksgiving or triumph; a hymn of praise. (2) A choral ode invoking the healing power of Apollo. (3) In later times, a song chanted to Ares before marching to war.
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| satyr | [SAY-ter] Generally human in appearance, but with a horse's tail and ears, the satyr was characterized by lust and cowardice, a symbol of the amoral and animalistic aspects of human nature.
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| Semele | [SEM-uh-lee] Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, sister of Agave, and mother (by Zeus) of Dionysus, she was consumed in Zeus's lightning when she demanded to see him in his true form. Dionysus later rescued her from Hades and escorted her to heaven.
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| Silen | [sih-LEEN] Human-animal hybrid usually portrayed as an old man whose bestial appearance and antic behavior belie an inner wisdom.
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