Dionysus

DIONYSOS (Dionysus) is the Olympian god of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, madness and wild frenzy. He is an effeminate, long-haired youth. His attributes included the thyrsos (a pine-cone tipped staff), a drinking cup and a crown of ivy. He is usually accompanied by a troop of Satyrs and Mainades (wild female devotees).

Dionysos was a son of Zeus and the princess Semele of Thebes. During the course of her pregnancy, the god's jealous wife Hera tricked Semele into asking Zeus to appear before her in his full glory. Bound by oath, the god was forced to comply and she was consumed by the heat of his lightning-bolts. Zeus recovered their unborn child from her body, sewed him up in his own thigh, and carried him to term.

After his birth from the thigh of Zeus, Dionysos was first entrusted to the care of Seilenos (Silenus) and the nymphs of Mount Nysa, and later to his aunt Ino, Semele's sister, and her husband Athamas. Hera was enraged when she learned of the boy's location and drove the couple mad, causing them to kill both their children and themselves.

Brief description of the physical characteristics of the god: "He [Dionysos] appeared on a jutting headland by the shore of the fruitless sea, seeming like a stripling in the first flush of manhood: his rich, dark hair was waving about him, and on his strong shoulders he wore a purple robe."

Dionysos' sacred animals are the panther (leopard), tiger, bull and serpent. The god rode on the back of a panther or drove a chariot drawn by a pair of the beasts. His sacred plants were the grapevine, ivy, bindweed (prickly ivy) and pine tree. Devotees of the god wore wreaths of ivy and carried pine-cone tipped staffs.

Abilities: He can manipulate and generate alcohol, induce and cure madness, control plants, especially vines, and transform himself or others into different forms