The Festival Of The Gods Of Wine And Fertility

The City Dionysia Festival was a celebration of the god Dionysus’ arrival in Athens in mythical times and was usually held annually between March and April. The festival and theater performances were ways of honoring the god Dionysus, who is the god of the grape harvest,

Dionysos is defined as the god of wine, festivity, vegetation, pleasure, and divine intoxication. In the Hope Dionysos, he is depicted as a peaceful and joyful figure that represent happiness in Greek mythology. The statue is sculpted from marble as its medium and is classified as a stone

Theatre became important to Greek cultures when it became a part of the festival honoring the god Dionysus (The god of wine and fertility).”( Greek Mythology in Theater by Bruce Tucker October 27, 2016) The theater festival was founded to bring unity among the Attican tribes.( Greek Mythology in Theater by Bruce Tucker October 27, 2016) Athens was the main center of these traditions. Everyone came to sing and dance in hope for a good harvest. At one point, a Greek named Thespis began to sing praises to the god, with others responding, which led to the actor and chorus. During the festival everyone would dance and sing in a circle, in the middle of which was the altar to Dionysus. Over time the festivals started giving thanks to other themes, and eventually had nothing to do with Dionysus or any god, but began to turn into classical Greek plays. (First Ancient History, Oxford University Press 2000 pg.166)

Theatre flourished in Greece, particularly in Athens, between c. 550 BC and c. 220 BC. During its beginnings theatrical performances were part of Dionysia, a festival held in honour of the god Dionysus. The plot of the plays was always inspired by Greek mythology, a theme that is still common today. Many modern plays and movies have been directly based on or incorporated elements of Greek mythology or simply mythology in general. Every play had a chorus, though the size and importance of it varied. The

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

Dionysus’ birth was imaginatively created by the Greeks to fit along with Dionysus’ role in the world.

At the back of the ancient Greek theatre stood the ‘skene’. The word ‘skene’ means stage building. The ‘skene’ was a wooden building where the actors could change and this building could also be used for as a house or temple or any other part of scenery (Gill). At the front of the

Dionysus is the god of wine and fertility, however also became considered a patron of the arts. Along with the variety of things Dionysus was associated with, he is associated with some important concepts. These are, being able to bring a dead person back from the underworld, rebirth after death represented through the symbol of his tending to vines to bear fruit for the making of his wine. There is also the feeling of being possessed by a greater power – which he demonstrated via the influence had from wine. This means that the greater power is the wine – that at these times a man might be greater than himself and do works he otherwise could not.

One piece of evidence that the gods were important to these people is found when the people took time out of their lives to worship their gods together. In the video, about the history of the Greek Theater, people are said have gathered together to dance and sing and praise Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility.

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).

The theatre that you are most familiar with today generally comes via the movie version of an originally staged play. But if we go back further, we find that most of the theatre that is written and performed today can be traced back to Greek origins through various

     Once plays started being written, the number of interested spectators increased. In order to satisfy the Greeks amphitheaters were constructed all over Greece. Three well-known theaters were the theater at Delphi, the Attic Theater and the theater of Dionysus built at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens. During their prime time, the plays attracted crowds of 30,000 and more. The stands were built around the orchestra and up hillsides; somewhat like a baseball stadium today. This made it possible to seat more than 17,000 spectators at a time.

Though both genres of theatre are closely tied to religion, Greek theatre and medieval drama have different religious motivations that impact the ways in which the theatrical event is utilized. In Greece, theatre was used to entertain or please the Gods, more specifically the God Dionysus, during the most important of the four Athenian festivals: the Great Dionysia. The first known Greek playwrights, such as Thespis and Euripides, were chosen to compete in the festival and submit three tragedies and one satyr play to be performed in front of approximately 15,000 spectators. In classical Greece, theatre was the center of citizenship and society; religious ideologies towards Dionysus were not only realized by performances, but strongly encouraged by the state. For example, if a citizen could not afford to attend the

Many aspects of ancient Greek theaters have long been studied and debated. Much of the information about these theaters is based on speculation due to the fact that so little of them still exist today. This lack of remnants especially applies to the architecture of the early Greek Theaters. However, through archeological finds and years of studying the people, the plays, and the architecture of the time, we are able to make many conclusions about these early structures.

Comedies were performed in the Great Dionysia just like tragedies; also comedies were entered in contests in other festival, known as the Lesser Dionysia, and it was celebrated in the winter. Comedies combined poetry with coarse language. For example they featured buffoonery, slapstick, obscenity, and horseplay.