a term paper for Art History 147

by Delia Morgan

3 June 1999

God of mystery and ecstasy, god of fertility and death, god of wine and drama, god of sweet bliss and terrifying madness -- human and animal and yet utterly divine, the figure of Dionysos stands alone as perhaps the strangest and most compelling deity ever conceived. A major Greek god through the classical and Hellenistic eras, his religion swept the ancient world like a fever whose heat still lingers today. He has exerted a fascination upon later generations, and theories and interpretations of the Dionysian religious phenomenon are as diverse and paradoxical and shape-shifting as the god himself. Many, if not most, interpretations have relied more heavily upon literary rather than artistic sources; but this yields an incomplete picture of Dionysos, especially in the archaic period, where textual references to the god are scarce. There is a rich vein of evidence for early conceptions of Dionysos, especially in Attic vase paintings, where Dionysos is by far the most frequently represented mythological figure.

Two books by Thomas H. Carpenter, one on archaic art and one on fifth-century Athens, aim specifically to address the question of Dionysian imagery and its interpretation. Carpenter traces a number of iconographic elements to their presumed origin, and argues for some radically different interpretations of the early Dionysos than have heretofore been put forth. The picture that emerges is one of humble beginnings as a simple wine god, who later adopted other, more dramatic elements, some of which can be traced to Eastern influence and some of which were stylistic innovations of vase-painters.

Yet in the end one must take Carpenter’s ideas with a grain of salt; while he claims to simply follow where the visual evidence leads, it seems to lead with remarkable frequency away from any conception of religious profundity and toward the realm of the mundane but entertaining. The awe-inspiring side of Dionysos does not come through here at all, and indeed it would seem that Carpenter would prefer that we all view the god as he does, with less awe and more humor. He rejects attempts to see Dionysian images as ‘sacred’ and, finding ‘nothing inherently admirable’ about Dionysos, states that depictions of the Dionysian ‘carry...no demands for religious awe.’ (FCA, p 120) It is the very adamancy of this stance that might lead one to question some of his interpretations. One may also keep in mind that the artists were painting for varied customers and were motivated by many reasons, most of which were not religious; the paintings thus do not necessarily portray the religious sentiments of the time any better than a modern Christmas card may reflect the central tenets of biblical Christianity. However, one may differ with his interpretations and still find that Carpenter’s works are on the whole a valuable overview of the artistic evidence for Dionysos in ancient Greece.

First let us review the familiar iconography from later classical and Hellenistic times. Dionysos was usually shown with a wreath of ivy and a drinking vessel; he was often accompanied by leopards or panthers and carried a thyrsus, a stalk of fennel topped with a pine cone or wrapped in ivy. He was first shown as a mature, bearded figure dressed in a long chiton and himation and later as a beardless youth naked except for a leopard-skin cape. His male companions were satyrs, mythic half-animal and half-human figures who were usually ithyphallic and were often shown cavorting, pressing grapes, carrying wine, dancing or engaged in sexual activities. His female companions were maenads, ecstatic women devotees possessed by Dionysos, who ran off to live a wild life in the mountains, dancing in religious intoxication for the god. They too were shown with ivy wreaths and carrying the thyrsus, out of identification with the god. In addition to wine and grape scenes, there were often scenes of tragedy and comedy, since Dionysos was god of theatre. Also, many depictions show Dionysos as a hunter, tearing apart wild animals, and the maenads are also shown copying this behavior.

In addition to standard Dionysian motifs, there were at least three mythological narratives in which Dionysos was present from archaic times. These were: the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, which was a precursor to the Trojan War; the return of Hephaistos to Olympus after being thrown out by Hera; and the Gigantomachy, the battle between the gods and the giants. Changes in iconography of Dionysos can be seen in the evolution of vase art depicting these myths, as well as in art themes specifically focused on Dionysian activities such as cult worship, wine-pressing or theatre.

The earliest known depiction of Dionysos in Attic vase painting is on a black-figure dinos painted by Sophilos, around 580 BCE, in a depiction of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. (AGA, pl 1A, 2) The god walks barefoot in a procession, wearing a clay-colored chiton and striped himation; his hair and beard are long. He carries a branch of grapevine, and is identified by an inscription. The grapevine is emphasized by its placement directly in the center (above the center floral pattern) and its extension past the line of glaze at the top. The ivy and drinking vessel of later black-figure depictions are absent; Carpenter interprets this as an indication that those iconographic attributes had not yet been established. He also argues that this early depiction of the god is a ‘humble’ one, for a number of reasons. (AGA, p. 8) He is sixth in the procession, walking in the front group of guests, while the ‘major’ gods follow behind in chariots. Dionysos is the only god wearing a clay-colored chiton, while the others wear white. Also, his beard is significantly longer than those of the other figures. However, these details could also be interpreted as emphasizing the significance of Dionysos. His placement in the foot procession allows him to be the central figure depicted; putting him a chariot with the other gods would place him behind the center of action. Also, the fact that the vessel itself is the same color as his chiton could be seen as an extension of his influence over the whole scene. The lengthened beard, which Carpenter takes to be an indication of the god’s rustic background, also serves to set him apart. Finally, the fact that the upper glaze line is broken only by the branch which Dionysos carries, again would seem to point to his prominence in the scene. Carpenter, while agreeing to the emphasis on the grapevine here, insists that the god himself is not central, but merely the bringer of the vine. This is a questionable interpretation, especially since it is based on those details which set Dionysos apart from the other figures in the scene. If a figure on the periphery were marked by these differences in dress, beard style, and mode of transport, it might not indicate any special significance; but when the central figure is made so unique, so set apart from the others, it would seem more reasonable to assume that these very differences are there to emphasize his importance.

In addition to the above dinos by Sophilos, there is another from Athens which contains figures of women and the inscription ‘nusai’ which has been interpreted as a label for the nymphs of Nysa, who raised Dionysos; the god himself was in all likelihood also depicted on this vase, but those fragments have been lost. Despite this lack of evidence, Carpenter asserts that the god as depicted on this vessel was ‘probably’ depicted as a minor figure (AGA, p 9). The basis for this claim is unclear; it would seem that Carpenter is basing it either on the fact that it was painted by the same artist as the wedding dinos, which he has already interpreted as depicting a humble Dionysos, or that he has made some larger assumptions about the significance of the god in archaic Greece. However, if the vessel did indeed depict and label the nymphs of Nysa, it would seem that Dionysos would have been a major thematic element in the painting. Carpenter interprets the label ‘nusai’ as Sophilos’ misspelling of the word ‘mosai,’ thereby eliminating the idea that the women figures were especially associated with Dionysos.

The Francois vase, a famous black-figure krater painted by Kleitias around 570 BCE, also depicts the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, and includes a procession with Dionysos similar to the earlier dinos by Sophilos. (AGA, p 10; pl 1B) Here again the god is missing the later ivy-wreath and drinking vessel, but he is given an even more prominent role than on the previous vessel. He carries both a vine branch and a large amphora which extends above the glaze line at the top; he appears to be in rapid motion, possibly dancing. He is placed in the central position and he faces frontally, an unusual occurance in Greek depictions of gods. Dionysos was the only god commonly depicted this way in later paintings, and the frontal gaze has been interpreted as inspired by the mask of the god, which was a common cult object, as befits the deity of theatre; it has also been considered to have apotropaic power. Others have read into the Dionysian frontal gaze the unsettling nature of the god, Dionysos as the god who confronts. Some also claim the frontal gaze as mask seems to point to Dionysos as fundamentally mysterious, the unknown god hiding behind the anthropomorphic guise. (Otto, p 91) Carpenter interprets the frontal gaze as an ‘appeal’ to the viewer which ‘perhaps, makes us smile.’ (AGA, p 11)

Carpenter sees little or no connection here with the later figure of Dionysos, the powerful god of ecstasy and mystery whose religion swept Greece like wildfire; for Carpenter the charm of these early depictions of Dionysos lies in his portrayal as a simple, rustic god of wine, and their major purpose is entertainment. He claims that the absence of an ivy wreath and a drinking vessel indicate that these attributes had not yet been associated with Dionysos, and that this lack of fixed iconography is evidence that Dionysos was not yet perceived as a major deity, although there may have been a growing popular interest in the time between Sophilos’ dinos and Kleitias’ krater. (AGA, p 12) However, the lack of a fixed iconography may not necessarily be an indication of lesser status, especially in connection with a shape-shifting deity like Dionysos, whose very nature implied fluidity; in addition to his anthropomorphic form, he also had epiphanies in the form of plants (grape and ivy) and animals (bull, panther, lion, serpent, goat). Another possibility is that there actually was a fixed iconography for the god in the archaic period, but that it changed over time to include other attributes; the fact that he was shown with a long beard and holding a branch of grapevine in both vessels might point to this early iconography.

Also appearing on the Francois Vase is a depiction of the return of Hephaistos to Olympus; this is a mythological motif in which Dionysos was a major element, and it was painted on several Attic black-figure vessels from the early sixth century. The story relates how Hephaistos, the craftsman god and son of Hera, was thrown down from Olympus and became lame. In revenge he sent a golden chair with invisible fetters in which the goddess became trapped, and he refused to release her. None of the gods was able to persuade him except Dionysos, who got him drunk with wine and led him back up to Olympus on a donkey or mule. It has been suggested that the earliest depiction of this scene is on a Middle Corinthian amphoriskos (AGA, p 15, pl 5), where a youth with twisted feet rides a mule; he carries a drinking horn, and is followed by a number of figures, including a robed figure and a man carrying a vine, both of which have been offered as images of Dionysos by other authors. Carpenter disagrees that this depicts the return of Hephaistos, pointing out that figures with twisted feet and figures carrying drinking horns also appear on other vessels. (AGA, p 16) However, the combination of the main elements of the myth are present together in one scene -- the lame man, the mule he rides on, the drinking horn, and even a man carrying a grapevine. While each of these elements alone could occur in other contexts, their conjunction would seem to be compelling evidence that this vessel does indeed depict the return of Hephaistos, including Dionysos.

Carpenter, however, considers the Francois Vase to be the first and most complete depiction of this mythical motif. In Kleitias’ painting, Dionysos and Aphrodite are the central figures, with the wine god leading a procession of satyrs and nymphs as well as Hephaistos on the mule. The mule here is ithyphallic, a detail which recurs frequently in depictions of this event, and which may be connected with the participation of Dionysos; ithyphallic satyrs, the frequent companions of the god, are also shown in this scene. On the other side of the vessel Hephaistos sits on a mule which is not ithyphallic, showing that this not a normal attribute of his mule, but rather a Dionysian influence. Opposite the procession is a group of Olympian gods awaiting the arrival, with Aphrodite in front, facing Dionysos. The role of Aphrodite is not mentioned in literary sources for the myth, so her presence here is somewhat puzzling, but is probably due to her future role as the wife of Hephaistos. Carpenter uses this appearance of Dionysos and Aphrodite together to reinterpret other images of Dionysos shown with a woman. Early depictions of Dionysos often show him with a female figure whose identity is not so well established; most authors assume her to be his bride Ariadne, since later depictions of Dionysos and Ariadne were common wedding themes. Carpenter, while acknowledging the later Ariadne figures, generally interprets the early female companion as Aphrodite, by comparison with the scene on the Francois vase, and offers the idea that her pairing with Dionysos may be metaphorical, reflecting a popular conception that connected wine and love. (AGA, p 25) Aphrodite disappears from the scenes of the return of Hephaistos after around 540 BCE, which may reflect a change in the perception of Dionysos. (AGA, p 28) Soon he is depicted reclining or riding in a chariot, often with a woman companion; these and other iconographic changes seem to indicate both a growing mythic complexity to the wine god, and his growing influence in Attic culture.

Carpenter traces several of the new iconographic elements in Dionysian imagery to Attic vase painters of the Athenian Ceramicus in the mid-to-late sixth century. The artist known as the Heidelberg Painter appears to be the first to depict Dionysos with the familiar ivy wreath and drinking-vessel; in these early depictions from the 560’s the latter is a drinking horn. (AGA, p 31, pl 7A) The god is shown with long hair and beard and dressed in a chiton and himation; he holds a branch of ivy in one hand. The ivy wreath remains a stock feature of black-figured depictions, but the drinking-horn is sometimes later replaced with a kantharos, and sometimes the god carries a grape-vine along with the ivy branch. The Heidelberg Painter worked mainly on Siana cups, which derived from Corinthian vessels and were an early form of the Attic kylix.(AGA, p 32); they were the primary form of Attic cup at the time.

Around this same time was the Amasis Painter, who did not work with Siana cups but rather with amphorae and oinochoai; of all the mythological figures depicted on his vases, Dionysos is by far the most frequent, appearing over thirty times on about fifty vases which include recognizable mythic figures. It was the Amasis Painter who apparently was the first to show the female companions of the god without the satyrs, in a famous vase painting from the 540’s which shows two maenads approaching Dionysos to offer him a hare (AGA, pl 17). In this painting the god wears the familiar ivy wreath and carries a Kantharos; the women are also shown with ivy wreaths and each carries a branch of ivy. Carpenter has an unusual interpretation of the female companions of Dionysos, taking them to be nymphs rather than maenads in the earliest depictions. He also argues that they came to be associated with Dionysos only by way of the satyrs, who were shown with nymphs before they appeared with the wine god. Thus he sees it as an innovation when the Amasis painter shows female votaries or companions alone with Dionysos, and claims that this is the basis for later depictions of women with the god. (AGA, p 125) The usual interpretation of maenads is that they are maddened by ecstasy, being in a state of divine intoxication due to their being possessed by the god. While nymphs were the nurses of Dionysos in his youth, the figures in question are companions of the adult god, and Carpenter’s interpretation of them as nymphs rather than maenads seems to fit in with his general tendency to favor a simple and rustic nature for the early Dionysos, as opposed to the dark, mysterious and overwhelming god of ecstasy.

The third mythological motif in which Dionysos frequently appears is the Gigantomachy, the battle between the gods and the giants, sons of the earth goddess Gaia. The earliest depictions were on Attic vases from the 560’s, and Dionysos was present from the beginning. (AGA, p 55) It is the only early context in which he is shown as a warrior, and his companions in the battle are lions, panthers, and serpents rather than satyrs and maenads. He is identified by his ivy wreath and leopard skin; he wears a short chiton and in early depictions fights with a spear and carries a hoplite shield. (AGA, p 58, pl 15 B). As time goes on, Dionysos comes to be the divine figure most often represented in the Gigantomachy.

With regard to the gigantomachy depictions of Dionysos, Carpenter notes the absence of satyrs or maenads, or any grape or wine motifs, along with the presence of other elements such lions and snakes, which are not found in other early contexts. He uses this to argue for the existence of two different ideas of Dionysos, the familiar wine god already known in Attica, and a newer, more aggressive import form Asia Minor, who perhaps acquired his attributes through his association with the Lydian great mother goddess Cybele. (AGA, p 69, 74-75) The latter is the Dionysos of red-figure painting, who carries the thyrsos and tears animals in two with his bare hands, and from the merging of these two streams of Dionysian imagery comes later iconography of the Attic Dionysos.

In tracing the development of Dionysian iconography back through archaic Greece, it is possible to see considerable evolution in the imagery of the god. Carpenter, while allowing that some of this variation may have been largely stylistic, interprets in such a way as to find the origins of Dionysos in a simple god of wine, without all the later complexity and mystery. However, absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence; and the scarcity of early archaic imagery must be considered when attempting to draw conclusions about religiosity. In focusing on Dionysos’ early role as god of wine, Carpenter seems to ignore the common view that drama, too, had its origins in Dionysian religious festivals. It must also be considered that Dionysos was far from a newcomer to Greece; he is mentioned in Homer and inscriptions of his name have been found in Linear B script dating from Mycenean times. Would he have survived all that time as a ‘minor’ deity, only to explode onto the scene with such compelling power in the fifth century? One suspects that he was a fairly well-developed deity all along, and if archaic vase paintings do not convey this to the same extent that later artwork and textual evidence do, it is perhaps that vase-paintings were only a fragment of the total picture, vessels constructed for their own unknown purposes, and hardly intended as didactic tools for religious education.

Note: Since I have cited several works by the same author, I have referred to these works by title abbreviations, as listed below in parentheses.

1. Burkert, Walter. Ancient Mystery Cults. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1987.

2. Carpenter, Thomas H. Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art. (‘AGA’) Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986.

3. Carpenter, Thomas H. Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century Athens. (‘FCA’) Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997.

4. Carpenter, Thomas H. "On the Beardless Dionysus." (‘OBD’) In Masks of Dionysus, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1993.

5. Carpenter, Thomas H. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. (‘AMAG’) Thames and Hudson, London, 1991.

6. Evans, Arthur. The God of Ecstasy. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1988.

7. Harrison, Jane Ellen. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1991 (1903).

8. Kerenyi, Carl. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1976.

9. Otto, Walter F. Dionysus, Myth and Cult. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1965.

10. Powell, Barry. Classical Myth. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1998.