<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Dionysus (Bacchus in Roman mythology) was the Greek god of wine and fertility. In much of rural Italy he was connected with the god Liber.

The son of Zeus (Jupiter), he was brought up by the nymphs at Nysa in India.

Many stories are told of his adventures. He flayed Damascus alive, who opposed him in Syria.

Dionysus drove Lycurgus, king of the Edones, mad, so that he killed his own son, and when he became sane, caused him to be torn in pieces by horses; he also overcame the Amazons.

Dionysus taught men to cultivate the grape vine and to make wine. He collected bands of worshipers, mainly women, and, surrounded by them, seated in a chariot drawn by panthers or leopards, passed through many countries.

He was represented in some works of art as an infant, but generally by the Greeks as a beautiful boy, while in the Middle East he was pictured as a man of middle age, clothed in long robes.

Festivals in his honor were first held in Thrace, but the most famous were at Athens and were four in number; the country festival in December, when the vintage was just over; the wine-press festival in January, when the wine was just made and the presses cleaned; the flower festival in February, lasting three days; and the Great Festival in March, which was known for its drunken orgies.

In Rome the March Great Festival (Bacchanalia or as it was sometimes called, the Liberalia) was celebrated every third year. But after the rise of Christianity, Bacchus festivals were declared immoral and dangerous that the church forbade the observance.

In modern time, the Liberalia, a secular wine and drinking festival, has come to be celebrated in Italy on March 16. Italian immigrants brought the celebration to New York, where it coincided with a holiday of another immigrant group, the Irish, who celebrated St. Patrick's Day on March 17. The melding of the two holidays is how in the United States, St. Patrick's Day is known as a drinking holiday.