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Author Topic: Dionysos or Zeus  (Read 1747 times)

dionysos

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Dionysos or Zeus
« on: March 05, 2017, 07:30:51 am »
Is Zeus still ruler of Olympos or did Dionysos take over? I've read that Dionysos took the place of Zeus as final ruler of Olympos. But of course there are many different myths that tell different stories. Dionysos is also said to have taken the place of Hestia.

In Orphic cosmology Dionysos-Zagreus was originally meant to take over from Zeus as ruler before the Titans tore him apart.

Also If Dionysos has taken over from Zeus or Hestia, then what happens to these immortal beings? Has Zeus retired? Has he taken a ''lesser'' role? When Zeus took over from Kronos, Zeus imprisoned Kronos.

There will be no right or wrong answer but I am interested to know what others think. As for myself, I don't know what I think but I don't believe Dionysos replaced Hestia, as for Zeus I'm not sure.

jverdant

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Re: Dionysos or Zeus
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2017, 10:33:25 am »
Personally, I don't take any myths to be literally true, just metaphorically true. So as far as I'm concerned, neither Zeus nor Dionysus really "rules" anything, it's just a metaphor for their relative importance to sustaining human life and civilization.

In Orphism, Dionysus was barn to Persephone and Chthonic Zeus in the underworld. That makes a lot of metaphorical sense to me even though I don't believe any gods are "related" to each other the way mortals with DNA are. This myth tells us that together, the god of the sky and the goddess of the earth made the god of life. He then ascended to take his father's place but was killed by the titans, inhabitants of the earth, and cast down to the underworld. I interpret this as an example of this god's dying and rising nature - once in the underworld, he makes the next god of life with the earth goddess, and the cycle repeats (eternal return).

I understand many people will take these myths more literally, but the more literally you take them, for me, the harder it is to reconcile the differences in details that developed over time and culture. I think the broad strokes are what matter.


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Re: Dionysos or Zeus
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2017, 12:40:20 pm »
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Re: Dionysos or Zeus
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2017, 08:00:02 pm »
Quote from: dionysos;203449
Is Zeus still ruler of Olympos or did Dionysos take over? I've read that Dionysos took the place of Zeus as final ruler of Olympos. But of course there are many different myths that tell different stories. Dionysos is also said to have taken the place of Hestia. .

 
It's been a while since I was into Greco-Roman mythology.  I am not aware of Zeus stepping down and Dionysus taking over?  Can you reference the myth in question?

There is a myth that Hestia gave up her seat to Dionysus.  Basically, this was a way to poetically integrate Dionysus into the pantheon.  Dionysus was after all a "foreign" deity whose cult had become insanely popular. Despite the authorities sometimes looking askance on the antics of his rural orgies, Dionysus was there to stay, and he had to be acknowledged.  The Athenian festivals centered around his place as god of wine making and theater were less rambunctious than some of his other cults.  

But myth is myth. Every city-state had its own set of acknowledged local cults and Hellenic polytheism diverged widely at the polis level.

dionysos

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Re: Dionysos or Zeus
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2017, 05:28:28 pm »
Quote from: hraefngar;204082
It's been a while since I was into Greco-Roman mythology. I am not aware of Zeus stepping down and Dionysus taking over?  Can you reference the myth in question?

There is a myth that Hestia gave up her seat to Dionysus.  Basically, this was a way to poetically integrate Dionysus into the pantheon.  Dionysus was after all a "foreign" deity whose cult had become insanely popular. Despite the authorities sometimes looking askance on the antics of his rural orgies, Dionysus was there to stay, and he had to be acknowledged.  The Athenian festivals centered around his place as god of wine making and theater were less rambunctious than some of his other cults.  

But myth is myth. Every city-state had its own set of acknowledged local cults and Hellenic polytheism diverged widely at the polis level.

 
http://www.hellenicgods.org/six-kings---aex-vasilaeohn---ex-basileon

Eastling

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Re: Dionysos or Zeus
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2017, 03:15:36 am »
Quote from: dionysos;203449
Is Zeus still ruler of Olympos or did Dionysos take over? I've read that Dionysos took the place of Zeus as final ruler of Olympos. But of course there are many different myths that tell different stories. Dionysos is also said to have taken the place of Hestia.

In Orphic cosmology Dionysos-Zagreus was originally meant to take over from Zeus as ruler before the Titans tore him apart.

Also If Dionysos has taken over from Zeus or Hestia, then what happens to these immortal beings? Has Zeus retired? Has he taken a ''lesser'' role? When Zeus took over from Kronos, Zeus imprisoned Kronos.

There will be no right or wrong answer but I am interested to know what others think. As for myself, I don't know what I think but I don't believe Dionysos replaced Hestia, as for Zeus I'm not sure.


I don't recall seeing any tellings of myths that explicitly recounted Dionysos "taking over" from Zeus. This is probably because this aspect of Dionysos seems to center on him being a Divine Child rather than a mature ruler--he is the embodiment of Zeus's power and potential as his son, but Zeus remains the main guy in charge.

This isn't to say that Dionysos has no mature adult aspects; the oldest artistic depictions of him as the god of wine show him bearded and clearly adult. But that seems to be somewhat separate than later, often Orphic depictions of him as a more supreme being in general.

Dionysos's mythos does share recurring traits with Zeus's: he's strongly associated with bulls, and some sources depict him as sleeping around a lot (although in general Dionysos seems to have a less antagonistic and violent relationship with the women in his life than Zeus does, or at least it's violent in different ways). In Crete in particular they may have been conflated a lot, at least per Kerenyi's take on it.
 
Quote from: hraefngar;204082
There is a myth that Hestia gave up her seat to Dionysus.  Basically, this was a way to poetically integrate Dionysus into the pantheon.  Dionysus was after all a "foreign" deity whose cult had become insanely popular.


I have heard that the "Hestia gives up her seat to Dionysos" myth is actually a fairly recent thing, and it wasn't nearly as clear-cut in ancient times. I don't have a source on this, though.

But it's definitely not true that Dionysos was a foreign god. While elements of his cult probably came from the east (and possibly Thrace in particular), the name Dionysos is attested in ancient Greece as early as the 12th or 13th century BCE. It's very possible to trace most of the elements of his mythos and cult back through Mycenae and Crete.
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Re: Dionysos or Zeus
« Reply #6 on: March 26, 2017, 03:21:59 am »
Quote from: dionysos;204123
http://www.hellenicgods.org/six-kings---aex-vasilaeohn---ex-basileon

 
I've browsed that site a bit. It's an interesting read sometimes, but I'd caution against taking it completely at face value. The authors are very invested in presenting themselves as sole arbiters of How To Do Hellenismos, while simultaneously claiming that Orphism (or rather, their take on it) is the only way to go.

There were many, many overlapping and conflicting cults and associated stories in the ancient Greek world. Be wary of anyone (in the modern day or before!) who tells you there's one true way to interpret the Theoi.
"The peacock can show its whole tail at once, but I can only tell you a story."
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