Dionyysus And Xanthias

The motif for this scene is disguise and cleverness. This is conveyed in the drawing by Odysseus being dressed in old robes, hiding his identity as a young king. Penelope is drawn to the conclusion that Odysseus had gotten lost at sea, or killed during his journey, having multiple tests to marry a suitor that would take Odysseus’ place as the king of Ithaca. When Odysseus arrives, he is confronted by a suitor, “Still disguised as a beggar, Odysseus enters his home. He is confronted by the haughty suitor Antinous.”

This sculpture was given the title, “Dionysus,” and is dated at 50 – 150 A.D. During that period, the Roman Empire went through a civil war, multiple rebellions, a couple disastrous fires, the building of the Colosseum, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the peak of Roman military expansion and thirteen different Emperors. One of which started the Flavian Dynasty, which would bring stability to the empire that was crumbling because of financial strife. With all of these events happening, good and bad, it seems difficult to pin point the inspiration or message behind this sculpture. But if you break that period of time down into parts, it may be easier to get a feel for what the artist was feeling so strongly about, whether it was inspired by

Pentheus foolishly suspects that the stranger is weak based solely on his effeminate appearance. The audience is quickly made aware of Pentheus’ ignorance in expecting the conventional, because they know that Dionysus is far from it. The king’s shallowness proves to be fatal when he is convinced to enter the domain of the Bacchae and is brutally killed by them, just as Dionysus had planned. Euripides and many of his contemporaries were masters of dramatic irony.

The Apollonian and the Dionysian is a philosophical concept based on different mythologies, many Philosophers and figures have invoked this dichotomy in critical and creative works. Both are one of the important themes within Nietzsche’s first major work, The Birth of Tragedy and they are terms used to designate the two central principles in Greek culture.

In Ovid Metamorphoses, the Roman literature described the ruthless act of Pluto of rape, to seize and carry away Proserpine without the consent of Ceres and in parallel in the Homeric Hymns of Demeter; Persephone was seized and carried away by Hades without the consent of Demeter. The invariant theme that was identified in both the Greek and Roman literature was the loss of innocence of Persephone/Proserpine. Despite the various differences the story was presented, it reinforced the innocence that was stolen from the god of the underworld, Hades or also known as Pluto. Throughout this paper, it will discuss the similar characteristics of the two myths such as the motive that led and encouraged the god of the underworld to kidnap

Amphinomus is clearly depicted as an antagonist in The Odyssey. He is one of the dozens of suitors who plague Odysseus’ home, eat all his livestock, drink all his wine, and vie for his wife’s hand in marriage. Perhaps worst of all, Amphinomus is part of the conspiracy to kill Telemachus. However, his status as a villain is not entirely dependent on his poor moral character. In fact, some of his actions show that he isn’t a terrible person. Amphinomus does initially oppose putting Telemachus to death before he can call an assembly when the suitors hear news of his return. In addition, he does show some degree of hospitality to Odysseus, compelling Odysseus to warn him about the impending slaughter. These redeeming qualities may make it appear

1. Dionysus was the god of wine and festivity but is also considered a patreon of the arts.

Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, theater, fertility and ritual madness, and was worshipped for centuries, but how he was depicted varied greatly throughout time. The “Dionysus Cup,” (fig. 2) a black-figure painted clay pot, was created by the Athenian artist Exekias between 540 and 530 BCE, at the end of the Archaic period. The “Free-standing Dionysos with a panther,” (fig. 1) a marble statuette, was sculpted by an unknown artist between 150 BCE and 100 CE, at the end of the Hellenistic period, or up to the height of Roman dominance in the Mediterranean. These two images of Dionysus are dramatically different in their composition and content. The differences between these objects reflect the shifting role of Dionysus in Greek mythology

Through his stories, Herodotus expresses a connection between the involvement of hubris in the downfalls of two kings, Cyrus and Croesus. Cyrus and Croesus would stop at nothing to get the power they thought they deserved¬¬¬– a common flaw they shared. During the period of their reigns, both men constructed strong and powerful empires. For years, the cycle consisted of conquering then automatically dispatching forces into another area, even splitting the troops and commanding them to attack multiple places at once.

Euripides uses the god Dionysus in The Bacchae in order to emphasize that humans need to embrace irrational behavior in their day to day lives. In Thebes, Dionysus finds a structured and ordered society, with their goal simply being to work as hard as possible, while Dionysus aims to simply live to have fun and make merry. Due to the disrespect given to him by the Thebans as a result of their differences, Dionysus aims to take revenge and force the people to worship him by destroying their society and recreating it in his image. Dionysus and Theban society are complete opposites. Dionysus is considered to be the god of wine and merriment.

Ten years after the fall of Troy, the victorious Greek hero Odysseus has still not returned to his native land Ithaca. A band of rowdy suitors, believing Odysseus to be dead, has overrun his palace, courting his faithful—though weakening—wife Penelope, and going through his stock for food. With permission from Zeus, the goddess Athena, Odysseus' greatest immortal ally, appears in disguise and urges Odysseus' son Telemachus to seek news of his father at Pylos and Sparta. However, the suitors, led by Antinous, plan to ambush him upon return.

By looking at the epic The Odyssey by Homer, there are a lot of contacts between human and immoral, the relationship between Athena and Odysseus, which make me interesting, also this is important for the story. The relationship between Athena and Odysseus is the key for the story, because Odysseus had received a lot of help from Athena, their relationship is the reason to explain why would an immortal Athena who never interesting or attracted by any male either mortal or immortal, but only a human male, Odysseus, and helps Odysseus in either direct and indirect ways to get back home and take average to all the suitor in order for Odysseus to get back his family and his land.

Dionysus is an important figure of Greek mythology. He is the Olympian god of wine, vegetation, festivity and pleasure. He represents humanity’s longing for pleasure and desire to celebrate. Dionysus is also the god of hallucination, theatre, reincarnation and homosexuality. He is called: “the youthful, beautiful, but effeminate god of wine. He is also called both by Greeks and Romans Bacchus (Bakchos), that is, the noisy or riotous god…” (Roman 201).

“Since his [Aristophanes’] plays were often sharply critical of Athenian policies, his ability to make people laugh was essential to conveying his message. He was a practitioner of what we now call Old Comedy, an irreverent form that ridiculed and insulted prominent people and important institutions” (80).

In the ‘Frogs’ and ‘Wasps’ written by the “eminently best” comedian of the fifth century, Aristophanes, we see he utilized humour to exact the important message that Athens is corrupt, and on the verge of chaos. The Athenian audience would expect to be thrust into a world of humour in the City Dionysia, somewhere parallel to their own (e.g. the Athenian jury in the ‘Wasps’, and the failings of the government in ‘Frogs’). It is vital, then, that Aristophanes conveys his political and social views through slapstick, farce, and caricature to interest the audience. This is an important component in both plays as the audience is able to simultaneously accept his diplomatic views whilst being entertained. After all his main point for producing his plays were to produce something with a “little fable, with a moral”.