Dionysus (or Bacchus) and his festivals, ancient Greece and Rome

The Attic festivals of Dionysus were four: The Rural or Lesser Dionysia, the Lenaea, the Anthesteria and the City or Great (or Urban) Dionysia (March 9-14).

Dionysus (or Dionysos, pronounced dy-uh-ny'-suhs), later known to the ancient Romans as Bacchus, was the Greek god of wine, revelry and ecstasy. He was the son of Zeus, the supreme god, and Semele (in Eleusis, Zeus and Demeter).  

Etymologically, his name is the ‘Zeus of Nysa’. He seems to be the Vedic god Soma, by similarities of legend and function, and many scholars believe his cult was born in Thrace. He seems to be a god who has two distinct personas. He was the god of wine, agriculture and the fertility of Nature; patron god of the Greek stage, of poetry, song, festivities and parties; promoter of civilisation; a lawgiver and lover of peace. However, he also represented the primary features of mystery religions, such as those practised at Eleusis: ecstasy, transcendence from the mundane world through physical or spiritual intoxication, as well as initiation into secret rites. 

He might in fact be a conflation of a local Greek Nature god, and another more potent god imported rather late in Greek pre-history from Phrygia (the central area of modern day Turkey) or Thrace. However, it might be that the deity's origin was in the Mediterranean, in Minoan Crete, as Dionysus was one of the names of gods discovered on the Linear B tablets of Mycenae. Dionysus, who was one of the oldest gods in the Greek pantheon, a life-death-rebirth deity, and was strongly associated with the satyrs, centaurs and sileni (half-man and half-horse). Dionysus is rarely mentioned at all in the Homeric epics, and when he is mentioned, it is not always favourably, although the following hymn extols him:

I sing of Dionysus, the son of glorious Semele. He 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 …
Hail, child of fair-faced Semele! He who forgets you can in no wise order sweet song. Homeric Hymn 7 to Dionysus

He is the son of the supreme god Zeus and the mortal woman, Semele (daughter of Cadmus of Thebes). Zeus's wife, Hera, a jealous and vain goddess, discovered this adulterous relationship while Semele was pregnant. Appearing as an old crone, Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that her husband was actually Zeus. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semele's mind. Curious, Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood. Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he agreed. While Dionysus was still in her womb, Semele was struck by Zeus’s lightning bolts for mortals cannot look upon a god without dying, so she perished. Dionysus was rescued and underwent a second birth from Zeus after developing in his thigh. Zeus then entrusted the Nysaean nymphs with the task of raising the infant Dionysus. 

In birth-bowers new did Zeus Cronion
Receive his scion;
For hid in a cleft of his thigh,
By the gold clasps knit, did he lie
Safe hidden from Hera's eye
Till the Fates' day came.

Another version of the myth tells us that Dionysus, also referred to as Zagreus in this account, was the son of Zeus and Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Hera asked the Titans to lure the infant with toys, upon which they tore him into seven pieces (but not before he had transformed himself, progressively, into: Zeus, Chronos, a young man, a lion, a horse, a serpent and finally a bull), throwing these into a cauldron standing on a tripod and devouring everything but Zagreus’s heart, which was protected by either Athena, Rhea, or Demeter. Zeus remade his son from the heart and implanted him in Semele (sometimes it was said that he gave Semele the heart to eat to impregnate her) who bore a new Dionysus Zagreus. Hence, as in the earlier version, Dionysus is called “twice born”. Both versions of the story emphasise death and rebirth, which is the main reason he was worshipped in mystery religions, as his death and ‘resurrection’ were occasions of mystical reverence.

Originally just god of wine, later he was the deity of vegetation and warm moisture, then of pleasures and of civilisation, then, according to Orphic conceptions, a kind of supreme god. First he was depicted as a bearded man, later a rather effeminate beardless youth.

Dionysus while still young discovered the culture of the vine and the mode of extracting its precious juice; but Hera struck him with madness, and drove him forth a wanderer through various parts of the earth. To cure himself he went to oracle at Dodona, on the way crossing a marsh on the back of an ass, which he rewarded by giving the ability to speak. In Phrygia the goddess Rhea cured him and taught him her religious rites, and he set out on a journey through Asia teaching the people how to cultivate grapes for wine. The most famous part of his wanderings is this expedition was his stay in India, which lasted several years. Returning in triumph to Greece he undertook to introduce his worship into that country. However, he met the opposition of some princes who feared the introduction of winemaking and a cult of drinking because of the disorders and madness associated with them.

In order to ward off the headaches which every man gets from drinking too much wine Dionysus bound around his head a band (mitra), which was the reason that he received the name Mitrophorus and it was this head-band, they say, that in later times led to the introduction of the diadem for kings.

Appellations

Dionysus I call loud-sounding and divine, inspiring God, a twofold shape is thine: thy various names and attributes I sing, O firstborn (protogonos), thrice begotten (trigonon), Bakkheion king. Rural, ineffable, two-formed, obscure, two-horned, with ivy crowned, and Euion pure: bull-faced and martial, bearer of the vine, endued with counsel prudent and divine: Eubouleos, whom the leaves of vines adorn, of Zeus and Persephoneia occultly born in beds ineffable; all-blessed power, whom with triennial offerings men adore. Immortal Daimon, hear my suppliant voice, give me in blameless plenty to rejoice; and listen gracious to my mystic prayer surrounded with thy choir of nurses fair.
Orphic Hymn 30 to Dionysos

Dionysus was sometimes nicknamed Bromios, meaning ‘the thunderer’ or ‘loud shouter’. Another epithet was Dendrites (‘he of the trees); as Dionysus Dendrites, he was a powerful fertility god. Dithyrambos (he of the double door – the name refers to his premature birth) was sometimes his name, which was applied also to the solemn songs sung to him at his festivals (dithyrambs).

Iacchus, possibly an epithet of Dionysus, was associated with the Eleusinian mysteries. The name might derive from the iakchos, hymns sung in honor of Dionysus. Eleutherios (‘the liberator’) was an epithet that Dionysus shared with Eros. As Lenaeus, he was the god of the wine-press. With the epithet Liknites (‘he of the winnowing fan’) he was a fertility god connected with the mystery religions. Dionysus was also sometimes known as Lyaeus (‘he who releases’) as a god of relaxation and freedom from worry. In the Greek pantheon, Dionysus (along with Zeus) absorbed the role of Sabazius, a Phrygian deity. In the Roman pantheon, Sabazius became an alternative name for Bacchus.

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The Dionysia, ancient Greece

The Rural or Lesser Dionysia (early January) were celebrated in the month of Poseidon. This the most ancient festival of all, when even slaves enjoyed full freedom. There were dramatic contests; Aristotle claimed (Poet. 1449a) that comedy was born in the Rural Dionysia. The peasants would assail the bystanders as they rode by in wagons. According to Plutarch (3.527D), there was a procession of the carriers of a jar of wine and a vine, with someone leading a he-goat, followed by the Kanêphoros (Basket-bearer) who carried a basket of raisins. Then came the carriers of an erect, wooden phallus-pole, decorated with ivy and fillets, and finally the singer of the Phallikon (Phallic Song), which was addressed to ‘Phalês’.

On Askôlia, the second day of the festival, they engaged in the Askôliasmos, a contest to see who could balance the longest on top of a greased, inflated wine-skin (askos). Askôliazô might refer to standing on one leg, because there were many other such ‘one-legged’ contests at the festival.

The Festival of Lenaia (late January) (named after the wine press) was celebrated nine days, beginning on the 12^th day of the lunar month of Gamelion at the Lenaeon, the ancient temple of Dionysus Limnaeus. There was a procession and scenic contests in tragedy and comedy. A goat was sacrificed in the temple and a chorus around the altar sang the dithyrambic ode. This was a time of post-harvest celebration, in which old and new wine were mixed together, sometimes imbibed while saying “Wine new and old I drink, to cure me of illnesses new and old”. The medicine goddess Medetrina was also invoked. The name of the Lenaia probably comes from the lenai, who were infatuated worshippers of Dionysus.

The third festival, the Anthesteria (February-March), was celebrated on the 11^th, 12^th and 13^th of the month of Anthesterion. As its name suggests, it was a festival of flowers (Anthê) for Dionysos Anthios (also Antheus and Euanthês – Fair-flowering), the Blooming God. As Ovid (Fasti 5.345) wrote, “Bacchus loves flowers”, and they heralded his arrival by their appearance in the spring. This is the time when the wine’s fermentation was complete and the new wine was ready for drinking, so a first-fruit offering was made. It was also the time when the vines were pruned in preparation for the next season. Probably dramas to be performed at the Great Dionysia were rehearsed on this occasion. The mysteries of the Dionysus cult were held of a night.

The City (Urban) or Great Dionysia (c. March 24 - 28), was celebrated about the 12^th of the month of Elaphebolion. It is unknown whether they lasted longer than a day. The festivities commenced with a great public procession, then there were a chorus of boys, a comedy drama, then a tragedy. A crown was awarded to the best dramatist.  

"... there were six other festivals of this name [Dionysia], the ceremonies of which must have borne some resemblance to those already mentioned. There were, in the first place, the ancient Dionysia, which were celebrated at Limnae, and in which appeared fourteen priestesses called Geraerae, who, before entering on their duties, swore that they were pure and chaste. There were the lesser Dionysia, which were celebrated in the autumn, and in the country; the Brauronia of Brauron, a village of Attica; the Nyctelia, whose mysteries it was forbidden to reveal; the Theoina; the Lenean festivals of the wine press; the Omophagia in honour of Bacchus Carnivorus, to whom human victims were formerly offered, and whose Priests ate raw meat; the Arcadian, celebrated in Arcadia by dramatic contests; and, lastly, the Trieterica, which were repeated every three years in memory of the period during which Bacchus made his expedition to further Ind."

Source: Priapeia; sive diversorum poetarum in Priapum lusus, or Sportive Epigrams on Priapus by divers poets in English verse and prose, translation by Leonard C. Smithers and Sir Richard Burton, 1890

The Bacchanalia, ancient Rome
His worshippers threw away inhibitions and went to excess, holding long and intense dancing sessions to the point of exhaustion. Sex and magic were involved and sometimes dancers tore apart wild beasts. Tradition says that the Dionysia were brought from Egypt into Greece by Melampus, the son of Amithaon, and the Athenians celebrated them with more pomp than the other Greeks. Public status came with religious status: the priests who celebrated the religious rites obtained the best seats in the theatre and at public assemblies. 

These festivals, known in Greece as Dionysia and in Rome as Bacchanalia, were drunken revels, engaged in with enthusiastic joy and the boisterous music of flutes, cymbals and drums. Initiation lasted ten days, during which a person was obliged to abstain from all sexual intercourse; on the tenth she or he took a solemn meal, underwent a purification by water, and was led into the sanctuary (Bacchanal). Introduced into Rome (c. 200 BCE) from lower Italy by way of Etruria (Livy xxxix.8), the bacchanalia were at first held in secret and attended by women only, on three days in the year in the grove of Simila near the Aventine Hill, on March 16 and 17. According to the Roman historian, Livy (c. 59 BCE - 17 CE), many vices took place at these Roman festivals. Rites were held at the Bacchanal (sanctuary), but only for women until Pacula Annia, a Campanian matron pretending to act under the direct influence of Bacchus, admitted men to the initiation, in the mid-3^rd Century BCE. The period of celebration grew from three days in the year to five days per month, and was increasingly orgiastic and even criminal (Livy xxxix.13). Men, convulsing and seemingly taken by fits of madness, gave oracles; and the matrons, dressed as Bacchae (Maenads), with unkempt hair and bearing burning torches, ran down to the Tiber River and plunged their torches into the water; the torches, however, containing sulphur and chalk, were not extinguished. Men who refused to take part in the excesses of these orgies were frequently thrown into dark caverns and murdered, while the perpetrators declared that their victims had been carried off by the gods. 

Processions were held, in which women were dressed as Bacchae, Lenae, thyades, naiades, nymphs and so on. Revellers were dressed in fawn skins and wore mitres on their heads. Some imitated the dress and fantastic postures of Silenus, Pan and of the satyrs, covering their legs with goatskins, and carrying the horns of animals. They were adorned with garlands of ivy, vine leaves and pine-branches, and (in imitation of the mythological Bacchae) bearing the thyrsus, or else a tympanum or flute in their hands. The thyrsus was a pole always carried by Dionysus/Bacchus, and by satyrs, Maenads and others who engaged in Bacchic festivals and rites. Sometimes this pole was tipped with a pine or fir cone, as the fir tree was dedicated to Bacchus because its sap was used in wine making. In ancient art, the cone was represented with a bunch of vine or ivy leaves and grapes or berries, arranged into the form of a cone. Bacchus was said to have converted the thyrsi into dangerous weapons by concealing an iron point in the leaves; hence its point was said to invoke madness.  

One grasped her thyrsus staff, and smote the rock,
And forth upleapt a fountain's showry spray:
One in earth's bosom planted her reed-wand,
And up there through the god a wine-fount sent:
And whoso fain would drink white-foaming draughts
Scarred with their finger tips the breast of earth,
And milk gushed forth unstinted: dripped the while
Sweet streams of honey from their ivy staves.
Euripides, The Bacchae

Sexual imagery in the procession
They rode on asses, and dragged after them goats intended for sacrifice. In the town this frenzied parade was followed by priests carrying sacred vases, the first of which was filled with water; then followed young girls selected from the most distinguished families, and called Canephori, because they bore small baskets of gold full of all sorts of fruit and cakes, and of salt. The principal object among these, according to St Croix, was the phallus, made of the wood of a fig tree. (In the comedy of the Acharnians, by Aristophanes, one of the characters in the play says, "Come forward a little, Canephoros, and you, Xianthias, slave, place the Phallus erect.")

In the Thesaurus Eroticus Linguae Latinae, four kinds of phalli are described:

1 Those made of wood, chiefly of the fig tree (also used at the festivals of Priapus);

2 Those of glass, ivory, gold and silken stuffs and linen, as used by the Lesbian women as dildos;

3 Bread images shaped like penises;

4 Phallic drinking vessels of gold or glass.

After the Canephori girls came the Periphallia, a troop of men who carried long poles with phalli hung at the end of them; they were crowned with violets and ivy, and they walked repeating sexually explicit songs. These men were called Phallophori, not to be confused with the Ithyphalli, who, dressed provocatively and sometimes in women's costume, acting as though they were drunk, wore at their waist-bands huge phalli made of wood or leather. Among the Ithyphalli there were also those who dressed as Pan or the satyrs. Others, known as Lychnophori, looked after the mystic winnowing-fan, an emblem whose presence was held indispensable in these kinds of festivals. Hence the epithet 'Lychnite', given to Bacchus.

The phallus was carried, perhaps as a symbol of Nature’s fertility, but more likely as an emblem of sexual pleasures associated with the festivals. The Greeks believed they owed the gift of their intoxication to the god, and in some places it was considered a crime to remain sober during this festival. The choruses sung at such festivals were called dithyrambs, image-filled songs to the god.

The Liberalia, ancient Rome (March 16)

Bacchanalian feasts, where many kinds of crimes and political conspiracies were supposed to have been planned, were banned in 186 BCE by the Roman Senate, for political reasons and because of extreme licentiousness. (Surprisingly, we learn from Livy's account that the Bacchanalia had gone on for years unbeknown to the Roman magistrates.) 

The consuls Spurius Postumius Albinus and Q Marcius Philippus initiated a 'witch-hunt' and made a report to the Senate (Livy xxxix.14). Except on application to the praetor urbanus, and then by special permission of the Senate, the festivals could not be held, and when approved, could be attended by only five initiates at a time. This was the so-called Senatus auctoritas de Bacchanalibus, inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered near Bari, in Calabria, southern Italy, in 1640, now at Vienna. The punishment inflicted on those 7,000 initiates who were convicted, varied from imprisonment to death for males, while the women were delivered to their parents or husbands, to be punished by them. The consuls were then ordered by the Senate to destroy all Bacchanalia throughout Rome and Italy, with the exception of ancient altars or statues.

However, the Bacchanalia were not stamped out, at any rate in the south of Italy, for a very long time, and the Liberalia, a festival of Bacchus, was celebrated on March 16 for a long period. Adorned with garlands of ivy, priests and old priestesses carried through the city wine, honey, cakes and sweets together with an an altar with a handle (ansata ara), in the middle of which there was a small fire-pan (foculus) in which sacrifices were sometimes burnt.

Bacchus was a cognate of Liber (also Liber Pater). Liber (‘the free one’) was a god of fertility and growth, married to Libera. His festival was the Liberia, celebrated on March 16 or 17. This was a festival of liberation from “the powerlessness of childhood”. Boys aged about  15-17 took off for the last time their purple-bordered purple togas (the toga praetexta) and donned the unbleached woollen toga virilis, or toga libera that represented their manhood (Cicero ad Att. vi.1). They removed the phallic bullae charms - which had protected them in youth - from around their necks and offered them to the household gods. Their fathers took them to the Forum in Rome and presented them as adults and citizens. This was in the days when male rites of passage were encouraged.

Originally the two gods had something to do with germination and creation. Later they were merged with Bacchus. Women called Sacerdotes Liberi (priestesses of the two gods) on this day sat on the footpaths tending foculi, portable altars, and for a fee they sacrificed honey cakes (liba).

The Christian Church Father, St Augustine of Hippo (354 CE - 430) (De Civ. Dei, vii.21) speaks of a high degree of licentiousness carried on at this festival.

Oschophoria, ancient Greece (October 3)

The Bearing of Green Branches to commemorate Theseus's return

The Oschophoria was a festival celebrated in Attica, according to some writers celebrated in honour of Athena and Dionysus, according to others Dionysus and Ariadne. Said to have been instituted by Theseus, this was a vintage festival, its name derived from the word for a branch of a vine with grapes.

The Greek myth states that when Theseus left Athens, he took with him three girls and two boys dresses as girls. After he killed the minotaur and returned to Athens he was crowned with a wreath of olive leaves. However, because his father died he put the crown on his staff and not on his head. The festival of Dionysus was being commemorated when he returned, and he placed the two boys that were dressed like women at the front of the procession. Consequently, in the procession during the Oschophorian celebrations, two men dressed like women carried vine-branches from the temple of Dionysus to the temple of Athena Skira. They were accompanied by a herald with a wreath wrapped around his staff. Also in the procession were women who carried the sacred foods for the feast. Some of the meat became a burnt offering for the gods, with the remainder eaten or divided up for the participants to take home. When the procession reached the temple, stories were told and many songs sung. The women usually prepared the dinner and narrated myths. Athletic games were also played during the Oschophoria.

We note that October 3 in the Roman Catholic tradition is also the Feast day of St Dionysius, the Areopagite, Bishop of Athens, martyr.

Dionysus and the zodiacal sign of Virgo

A Greek myth tells of Icarius, of Athens, who was instructed by Dionysus in the art  of grape growing and wine making. When he shared wine with the peasantry they grew drunk and, thinking he had poisoned them, killed him. To cover up their deed the drunken peasants buried Icarius under a pine tree. Erigone went looking for her missing father, and when she found the grave she hanged herself in the tree out of grief. The gods placed her in the sky - the constellation Virgo.    

Consorts and Children of Dionysus

"The Phrygians think that the god is asleep in the winter and is awake in summer, and at one season they celebrate with Bacchic rites his goings to bed and at the other his risings up. And the Paphlagonians allege that in the winter he is bound down and imprisoned and in the spring he is stirred up and let loose."
Plutarch

Festival of the Lênaia to Dionysus (c. Jan 28 – Feb 5)

The Lênaia, which was held at the coldest time of year, was for Dionysus Lênaios, celebrating his birth from Zeus's thigh and his emergence from the Underworld.

For nine days, beginning on the 12^th day of the lunar month of Gamelion, the ancient Greeks honoured the god. The name of the Lênaia probably comes from the lenai, who were infatuated worshippers of Dionysus.

Festival of the Anthesteria (End of February)

Festival of Flowers

(Held during the full moon following the full moon of the Lênaia, and two moons following the full moon nearest the winter solstice)

Today was the first day of the three-day Anthesteria, a floral festival of ancient Greece dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy. The last year’s vintage was tasted amid the celebrations for the god who taught mankind how to make wine. The object of the festival was to celebrate the maturing of the wine stored at the previous vintage, and the beginning of Spring.

Dionysus was commemorated by devotees who sometimes went to the extremes of long dance sessions to the point of exhaustion, sometimes even tearing apart wild beasts in their frenzy. Dionysus, who equates with the Roman Bacchus, took long journeys throughout the world to teach mankind the winemaker’s art.

Dionysus is probably the Greek version of the Vedic god Soma, judging by similarities of their function and legends. He was originally solely a god of wine, later of vegetation and warm moisture, then some kind of supreme god. At first he was depicted as a bearded man, then later as a rather effeminate beardless youth.

The discoverer of the winemaker’s art was stricken by Hera with madness, and went on a long journey to Dodona to consult the oracle there for a cure. On the way, he had to cross a marsh and mounted a donkey to do so. He rewarded the beast with the power of speech.

“On the first day, called Pithoigia (opening of the casks), libations were offered from the newly opened casks to the god of wine, all the household, including servants and slaves, joining in the festivities. The rooms and the drinking vessels in them were adorned with spring flowers, as were also the children over three years of age.

“The second day, named Choes (feast of beakers), was a time of merrymaking. The people dressed themselves gaily, some in the disguise of the mythical personages in the suite of Dionysus, and paid a round of visits to their acquaintances. Drinking clubs met to drink off matches, the winner being he who drained his cup most rapidly. Others poured libations on the tombs of deceased relatives. On the part of the state this day was the occasion of a peculiarly solemn and secret ceremony in one of the sanctuaries of Dionysus in the Lenaeum, which for the rest of the year was closed. The basilissa (or basilinna), wife of the archon basileus for the time, went through a ceremony of marriage to the wine god, in which she was assisted by fourteen Athenian matrons, called geraerae, chosen by the basileus and sworn to secrecy.

“In ancient Greece, Anthesteria was the name of a festival during which the participants ritually expelled the Keres, evil female spirits, from their houses.”

Source: Wikipedia

St Dionysus (Denys, Denis or Dennis) of Paris (Feast day October 9)

(Milky agaric, Agaricus lactiflorus is October 9's plant, dedicated to this saint, and his companions, martyrs)

First bishop of Paris, martyr, and a patron saint of France

Saint George he was for England
Saint Denis was for France.
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Old ballad (Percy: Reliques: St George for England)

Image below: Saint Denis et ses diacres sont décapités, Chapelle Saint-Érige, Auron, France

St Dionysus (Denys, Denis or Dennis) is a Christianised form of the pagan god. There is actually a number of saints by this name, the best known being this St Dionysus, the patron of France (whose feast day the Christian church set at around the time of the Oschophoria – see October 3 in the Book of Days).   

St Denys had his head cut off, he did not care for that,
He took it up and carried it two miles without his hat.
Traditional English

St Denys was the Apostle to the Gauls, and traditional patron of France. He was beheaded at Paris 272 or 258, but after martyrdom (he was beheaded) carried his head for two miles (at the famous Parisian district of Montmartre, ‘Mount of the Martyr’); where he laid it down and was buried. The site where he stopped preaching and actually died was made into a small shrine that developed into the Saint Denis Basilica, which became the burial place for the Kings of France. 

"The tale may have arisen from an ancient painting of his martyrdom in which the artist placed the head between the hands so that the martyr might be identified" (Ivor H Evans, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988). It is worth noting that the ancient Greek festival of Dionysos (the name from which Denis, Denys and Dennis are derived) was held at about this time. Perhaps today’s ancient Christian feast is a relic of the Greek festivities based around Dionysos.

He lived for seven years in the form of a hart, or deer. Or, so it is said. (Richard Johnson: The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom, 1596) (More on Christian saints, stags, deer and the Horned God in the Scriptorium)

St Denys's body was venerated in France, and another at Ratisbonne, Germany.

During the French Revolution, a Paris watchmaker went mad while trying to discover the principles of perpetual motion. He believed he had been guillotined with a number of other people, and that he had had another victim's head sewn onto his body. Once, he was defending the belief that St Denys had lost his head and that the saint had kissed his head as he was walking with it. He received the reply, “How could St Denys have kissed his own head? With his heels?” This jolted him back to reality and the watchmaker's mental illness disappeared. 

St Dionysus/Denys introduced Christianity to France and was executed during the persecution of the emperor Valerian in 272. His body, and those of his companions, was buried by a Christian lady named Catalla, near the place of their death. The chapel built at the spot in the fifth century became a place of pilgrimage, and the abbey of St Denys was erected there in the seventh century. In art, he is depicted as a deacon carrying his head. Denys was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (feast day, August 8). During the Middle Ages, especially in France and Germany these saints were credited with particularly efficacious intercessory power. All of them also had or have individual feast days, but most of them probably never even existed, or are shadowy figures of early Christianity popularised by imaginative and embellished tales.  

St Denis's patronage includes against frenzy, against strife, France, headaches, Paris and possessed people.

Dionysus and Sri Lanka

“Ptolemy provides at least three references to Dionysus in his catalog of island Lanka’s coastal landmarks – all of them in the close vicinity of Kataragama, which was already an ancient cult center in Ptolemy’s day. In most cases, he retains transcribed renderings of local names. But off the island’s desolate southeastern coast, Ptolemy records that the waters were known to Alexandrian mariners as Dionysi Mare (Latin: ‘The Sea of Dionysus’). Some versions of Ptolemy’s Taprobane indicate a coastal landmark near Kataragama called Dionysi Promontorium – ’The Promontory of Dionysus’. Thirdly, but not least, he attests that there was an important settlement near this coast which his mariner-informants called Dionysi seu Bacchi Oppidum – ‘The Town of Dionysus or Bacchus’.”
Dionysus and Kataragama: Parallel Mystery Cults

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