Semele was terrified and overpowered by the sight, and being seized by the fire, she gave premature birth to a child. When all entreaties to desist from this request were fruitless, Zeus at length complied, and appeared to her in thunder and lightning. The common story, which makes Dionysus a son of Semele by Zeus, runs as follows: Hera, jealous of Semele, visited her in the disguise of a friend, or an old woman, and persuaded her to request Zeus to appear to her in the same glory and majesty in which he was accustomed to approach his own wife Hera. Cicero 6 distinguishes five Dionysi, and Diodorus 7 three. 5 It is owing to this diversity in the traditions that ancient writers were driven to the supposition that there were originally several divinities which were afterwards identified under the one name of Dionysus.
The same diversity of opinions prevails in regard to the native place of the god, which in the common tradition is Thebes, while in others we find India, Libya, Crete, Dracanum in Samos, Naxos, Elis, Eleutherae, or Teos, mentioned as his birthplace. Others again represent him as a son of Zeus by Persephone or Iris, or describe him simply as a son of Lethe, or of Indus. Ammon there entrusted the child to Nysa, the daughter of Aristaeus, and Athena likewise undertook to protect the boy.
2 Diodorus 3 further mentions a tradition, according to which he was a son of Ammon and Amalthea and that Ammon, from fear of Rhea, carried the child to a cave in the neighborhood of Mount Nysa, in a lonely island formed by the river Triton. He is also called both by Greeks and Romans Bacchus ( Βάκχος), that is, the noisy or riotous god, which was originally a mere epithet or surname of Dionysus, but does not occur till after the time of Herodotus.Īccording to the common tradition, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus of Thebes 1 whereas others describe him as a son of Zeus by Demeter, Io, Dione, or Arge. The youthful, beautiful, but effeminate god of wine.
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