of trees in general. Thus we are told that almost all the Greeks sacrificed to “Dionysus of the tree.”[1] In Boeotia one of his titles was “Dionysus in the tree.”[2] His image was often merely an upright post, without arms, but draped in a mantle, with a bearded mask to represent the head, and with leafy boughs projecting from the head or body to show the nature of the deity.[3] On a vase his rude effigy is depicted appearing out of a low tree or bush.[4] He was the patron of cultivated trees;[5] prayers were offered to him that he would make the trees grow;[6] and he was especially honoured by husbandmen, chiefly fruit-growers, who set up an image of him, in the shape of a natural tree-stump, in their orchards.[7] He was said to have discovered all tree-fruits, amongst which apples and figs are particularly mentioned;[8] and he was himself spoken of as doing a husbandman’s work.[9] He was referred to as “well-fruited,” “he of the green fruit,” and “making the fruit to grow.”[10] One of his titles was “teeming” or “bursting” (as of sap or blossoms);[11] and there was a Flowery Dionysus in Attica and at Patrae in Achaea.[12] Amongst the trees particularly sacred to him, in addition to the vine, was the pine-tree.[13]
- ↑ Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 3, Διονύσῳ δὲ δενδρίτῃ πάντες, ὡς ἔπος εὶπεῖν, Ἕλληνες θύουσιν.
- ↑ Hesychius, s.v. Ἔνδενδρος.
- ↑ See the pictures of his images, taken from ancient vases, in Bötticher, Baumkultus der Hellenen, plates 42, 43, 43 A, 43 B, 44; Daremberg et Saglio, op. cit. i. 361, 626.
- ↑ Daremberg et Saglio, op. cit. i. 626.
- ↑ Cornutus, De natura deorum, 30.
- ↑ Pindar, quoted by Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35.
- ↑ Maximus Tyrius, Dissertat. viii. 1.
- ↑ Athenaeus, iii. pp. 78 C, 82 D.
- ↑ Himerius, Orat. i. 10, Διόνυσος γεωργεῖ.
- ↑ Orphica, Hymn l. 4, liii. 8.
- ↑ Aelian, Var. Hist. iii. 41; Hesychuis, s.v. φλέω[ς]. Cp. Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 8, 3.
- ↑ Pausanias, i. 31, 4; id. vii. 21, 6 (2).
- ↑ Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. v. 3.
Griechische Mythologie,3 i. 544 sqq.; Fr. Lenormant, article “Bacchus” in Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités grecques et romaines, i. 591 sqq.; Voigt and Thraemer’s article “Dionysus,” in Roscher’s Aus führliches Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, i. c. 1029 sqq.
