During the summer of 2011, I was lucky enough to see the well preserved Roman villa; The Villa of the Mysteries, which lies just outside of the ancient city of Pompeii. The Villa is named after one room which depicts luxurious frescos which survived minimum damage from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD becoming Pompeian iconic imagery. At one end of this fresco, the god Dionysos lounges in the lap of Ariadne, whom he rescued after she had been abandoned by the hero Theseus in Greek mythology. This led me to try to understand the relationship between the god Dionysos and his presents in Roman iconography. Mary beard states about the scholarly debate surrounding the frescos ‘to be honest, this is all completely baffling, and no amount of modern scholarship has ever managed to unravel the meaning – or, at least, not wholly convincingly.’ [i] The most credible theory is that the fresco depicts a kind of initiation ritual into the religious cult of Dionysos. But I would like to focus towards the deity himself and how he has was depicted in Greek religion and evidently adopted into the Roman. 
In Plato’s Laws Dionysos is described as the ‘companion of the festival’.[iv] He is a god that is present rather than remote, he is appears among men. He is not just venerated from festivals he is a god who is a companion of the festival, he appears amongst his worshipers. Or on another level his worshipers become him. He is someone who is among mortals rather than Zeus who smites them form afar. This is one reason among many why Dionysos has long attracted the interest of scholars. His very power of being present amongst mortals compared with the more distanced devinities.
Detienne portrays Dionysos as the god that is always arriving; he is seen as the outsider who is coming into Olympus later, as myth constructed.[v] It is important to stress that although the Greeks regarded Dionysos different and other and later, this was the way that they managed to get across his divinity. It didn’t actually mean he was a later arrival than other deities. It is important to stress that his cult goes back to the late bronze age so he actually does have very good credentials as an old Greek god[vi].
Another thing to focus on is Dionysos image of the god of the oppressed. He was thought of in the Ancient World as a liberator who was sort to relieve his followers from every day life; women in his cult would leave aside their normal roles. They would typically leave aside their child care responsibilities in order to commune with Dionysos, and indeed other Dionysian worshipers, in the mountain side. So women would leave aside their domestic roles. He would liberate individuals from their everyday lives and this is something that’s made him endure as a symbol. In the Villa of Mysteries the fresco depicts a woman being initiated into the cult, being whipped then comforted but what it clear is that it was celebrated. Dionysos was favoured by Greek women and Roman women alike.
Dionysos is not often found by himself, he is often linked with his thiasos; his cortège or retinue, because his cult is something that is shared. He is typically found not alone but in the company of various other curious female figures including the mainades/bakchai; frenzied women. Here we can see them dancing frenzied dances, they are very much liked with the natural world which is signalling not necessarily conducting their worship. Whether it is supposed to be how the Greeks conceptualise it. One of the things that would have been done is that rather than animlas being sacrificed through usual methods they set out ritualised methods, animals would more spontaneously be torn apart. What could be being depicted in the Villa is as simple as Dionysos with his mainades/bakchai.What we see in Athens are two key festivals that are particularly significant where Dionysos is the god of wine; the Oschoporia and the Anthesteria. The Oschophoria is a tricky festival to study because we have a lot of evidence for it, but it is very scattered causing it to become problematic. It was linked to Dionysos but also various other figures. The Oschophoria included a race of young men dressed as women and they would run between a sanctuary of Athena and Dionysos. It was a transvestite ritual. Linking two gods with transvestism; Athena wears masculine attire and Dionysos who is linked amongst other things with transvestite rituals - men would sometimes be seen wearing female clothing. These two festivals would complement each other very nicely in that the Oschophoria would take place in the Autumn (at a time of the wine cutting) while the Anthesteria would take place in late February at the time of the opening of the new wine, particularly celebrating the new wine. The Anthesteria was a great communal occasion, a joyful occasion but being drunk can make one either joyful or uncontrolled; both featured becoming outside of one’s self. Dionysos had an epithet Diamorphos Dionysos which meant he was dual formed. This epithet of Dionysos had a particular relation to this festival as yet on one hand it could have been a joyful occasion but on the other a young Athenian hung herself while under the influence of euphoria that wine had entailed in this festival. This is expressing that in related ways to Dionysos; there was a dual nature to the gift of wine that he gave, and that there is responsibility to be taken with the power of wine that he gives. There is often a dark side to the worship of Dionysos, there is always a duality to Dionysos as he often parallels between the two spectrums for example celebration; having a good time and also things can then go too far and the merriment of wine drinking for example can turn the situation darker as the effects of wine can take over.
When the Villa of Mysteries was excavated a wine press was discovered and it has now been restored to its original location. This is plausible that maybe some form of these festivals had been incorporated into the ritual that may have gone on in the Villa, what is certain that wine was a key feature with the god Dionysos. This type of Religion was taboo, not part of Roman state Religion and became out lord in the second century BC, ‘if so, then the room itself might have been some kind of sacred precinct within the house’ hidden away by secrecy of the cult members.[vii] The truth is that these frescos are as mysterious in the modern sense as they could have many meanings entailed; the name for the villa is well chosen. What is evident is that Dionysos’ Ancient image was being appreciated by Roman life, and frozen in time, is still today. All of the images of The Villa of Mysteries are my own, including the short video.
[i] Beard, Mary, (2010), Pompeii; The Life of a Roman Town, 3rd edition, (London: Profile Books) p.131.
[ii] Seaford, Richard, (2006), Dionysos, (London and New York; Routledge), p.39.
[iii] Homer, (2008), The Iliad, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press) 14.325.
[iv] Plato, (1968), Laws in ‘Plato in Twelve Volumes’, (translated by R.G. Bury, Vols. 10 & 11.{ London: Harvard University Press}), Available at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0166. 653d.
[v] Detienne, M and Vernant, J.P (1978) Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, translation by J.Llyod, (Harvestor: Hassocks).
[vi] Linear B Tablets c. 13th Century BC.
[vii] Beard, Mary, (2010), Pompeii; The Life of a Roman Town, 3rd edition, (London: Profile Books) p.132.
"Dia" in Greek is comparable to the Latin "trans", where transforming would be diamorphing... So if it was dual form, it would be "dimorphos" if it is transform it is "diamorphos"
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