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The triumph of Dionysus, depicted on a 2nd-century Roman sarcophagus. Dionysus rides in a chariot drawn by panthers; his procession includes elephants and other exotic animals. The Dionysiaca / ˌ d aɪ. ə. n ɪ ˈ z aɪ. ə. k ə / (Ancient Greek: Διονυσιακά, Dionysiaká) is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus.
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. [304] Dionysus was a god of resurrection and he was strongly ...
Water god in an ancient Roman mosaic. Zeugma Mosaic Museum, Gaziantep, Turkey. A water deity is a deity in mythology associated with water or various bodies of water.Water deities are common in mythology and were usually more important among civilizations in which the sea or ocean, or a great river was more important.
The river gods were depicted in one of three forms: a man-headed bull, a bull-headed man with the body of a serpent-like fish from the waist down, or as a reclining man with an arm resting upon an amphora jug pouring water. [citation needed] Notable river gods include:
Nonnus's principal work is the 48-book epic Dionysiaca, the longest surviving poem from classical antiquity. [6] It has 20,426 lines composed in Homeric Greek and dactylic hexameters, the main subject of which is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return. The poem is to be dated to the 5th century.
Several types of water deities conform to a single type: that of Homer's halios geron or Old Man of the Sea: Nereus, Proteus, Glaucus and Phorkys. These water deities are not as powerful as Poseidon, the main god of the oceans and seas. Each is a shape-shifter, a prophet, and the father of either radiantly beautiful nymphs or hideous monsters ...
Attic relief (4th century BCE) depicting an aulos player and his family standing before Dionysos and a female consort, with theatrical masks displayed above. The dithyramb (/ ˈ d ɪ θ ɪ r æ m /; [1] Ancient Greek: διθύραμβος, dithyrambos) was an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility; the term was also used as an epithet of the god. [2]
According to Memnon of Heraclea, Nicaea was a Naiad nymph daughter of Cybele and the river god Sangarius who preferred her virginity to relationships with men. Dionysus courted her, but she kept rejecting his advances; so Dionysus replaced the water in the spring she used to drink from with wine. Nicaea, not suspecting a thing, drank from there.