Dionysos the Queer

This week we are discussing Dionysos as a manifestation of all things Queer. 

They are constantly shown moving between gendered expressions, never really settling on any one for long. This creates a being able to manifest the raw creative power of the primordial cosmos into the most powerful Olympian deity. 

Dionysos is also shown in long lasting relationships with men and women in different stories. But where many Gods viewed their human loves as conquests, Dionysos shows far more respect and long-lasting affection than most. 

In all, neither Dionysos' gender nor sexuality conform to societal expectations.

Dionysos is an archetypal Queer!

Transcript

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Hello everybody and welcome to Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity podcast, your home for all things LGBT in the ancient world. I am Dominica Raven, Episode 11, Dionysus the Queer. Dionysus' actual mother Semele was killed by Hera out of vindictive spite, so they're brought up in Phrygia by Rhea Kybele and Attis. The feminine coded intersex deity and transwoman couple raise Dionysus as a girl and a nymph, and they flourish in this affirming, though unconventional environment. Dionysus learns to hunt and play sports like wrestling and javelin throw, as well as the feminine wiles and deception which will serve them so well throughout their life. Then Dionysus meets a young satyr named Ampelos. Ampelos and Dionysus become infatuated at the sight of one another. Starting as playmates, they hike and frolic in the hills and the mountain streams together. They make music on drums and cymbals. Then they play with Caibala's lions as if they were house pets. They even go hunting and wrestling together. Dionysus eventually becomes lovesick, even going so far as to say they would willingly forsake Olympus if it meant spending a life on earth with Mpelos. The two were inseparable for a long time until Mpelos tries to ride a wild bull. The bull eventually bucks and tramples Mpelos, killing him outright. Dionysus is so distraught that the forest and the stones weep along with them. First they lay out Ampelos' body, cleaning it and purifying it ritually with ambrosia. The satyrs all gather round and lament the death of their kin. Dionysus starts speaking and gives out a literary trope called Egoas. Critically, Dionysus curses the loss of future happiness which had been taken by this untimely death. They imagined carrying Mpelos to the bridal chamber to enjoy life replenishing marriage together. It ends with a long prayer that Zeus take away Dionysus' immortality so they can join Mpelos in death. But this is not the end. Ampelos is not fated to die but to live on as the grapevine. Ampelos literally means the vine. Thus the wine god and the grapevine are able to live together forever, in a slightly altered form. I would like to draw your attention to two discreetly queer elements at work here. First is that male figures traditionally lament in a more dignified and emotionally controlled expression of grief. Wealthy Greeks and Romans might even go so far as to hire professional mourners so they could remain stonefaced and stoic in public. Women are able to sing the Goas. Dionysus is literally crossing gender boundaries to mourn like a woman over the loss of beloved Empelos. Second, this is the part of the story where Dionysus is being raised as a nymph by Rea and Attis. Though Nonos uses masculine language throughout this passage, it's crucial to keep in mind this disconnect. Dionysus is wearing a purple chitun and a dappled fawn skin. Dionysus is crossing gender boundaries linguistically and physically throughout this section. So everything about this story is capital Q queer. Dionysus neither represents gender nor sexuality with an acceptable societal norms. Dionysus is an enigma to all who study them. Pretty much nothing that could be said which holds true in one place holds true in another. Though Dionysus is among the best attested deities from antiquity, we're never able to confirm or prove anything decisively. Even all the research I've ever done creates unknowable riddles, not answers. Dionysus is habitually portrayed as a gendered synthesis, but what does that actually mean? In the dawn of the universe, before the sun, the stars, or the earth, there was nothing but chaotic space and a single cosmic egg. The egg was the first thing, and it created itself. This is Protagonus, the firstborn, who was called Phanes. Phanes was a bigender deity, they're called Defes or two natured, which implies two gendered natures. In those early days of the cosmos all physical traits were not yet divided from one another. This is why the primordial beings tend to be polyform figures. This is where creatures with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail, or a vaguely human-looking figure with four arms and four legs, or a human like Kecrops, the founder and first king of Athens, who was half man, half snake. In the early universe, Physis, the embodiment of nature, hadn't divided or defined the forms creatures would eventually take. This is an epoch of Protean Chimera creatures. But beyond physical traits, the early universe was also a period before gender had been properly defined. Figures from this era, like Phanes and Proteus, and Physis were all mixtures of genders. It was by mixing forms that these figures were shown to have great power. Now, while it is a chaotic power, it is an overwhelming power nonetheless. The simple fact that Phanes could create themselves when there was no other being in the universe is proof of this power. They were able to procreate with themselves and bore a child, Nyx, Sacred Night. The ability to create life from oneself alone is a manifestation of supreme power. Consider Zeus, whose creative power is often linked to intercourse. Most Christian retellings focus on the promiscuity or sexual assault so they can emphasize the amorality, but in truth, it is a miracle. There were just too many stories of immaculate conception floating in the antiquity ether. They wanted to cheapen all these other miracles as crude when compared with their own. But Zeus doesn't really have the power to create alone. Now Athena was carried in Zeus's head, but she was conceived by Metis, the original goddess of wisdom, and Zeus just carried the child to term. Similarly, Hera tried to procreate with only herself, and the result was the crookshanked craftsman Hephaestus. So Zeus, the most powerful god, can only carry fetuses conceived by others to term, while Hera, the most powerful goddess, produced the only disabled and imperfect of all the immortals. In time, Zeus would merge with Phanes and gain that power of celestial creation for himself. Now we come to Dionysus. The story goes that before humanity was even created, Zeus claimed Primanacta and slept with Persephone before she was wed to Hades. The resulting offspring was called Zagreas, who would become the critical Chthonic or underworld deity. The underworld is a cosmic collection bin for all the souls of humans and gods and titans. Parts were pleasant like the Elysin fields, while other parts were torturous, like Tartaros. Because the topography of the underworld is so confusing, the souls need a guide to ensure they received their proper reward. Zagreus was ultimately the one who guided souls through the underworld to their destined reward. Because Zagreus was the most powerful of all Zeus's children, he chose Zagreus as his successor, even put the child on the cosmic throne of Olympus. Hero was furious that this illegitimate child of Zeus was given such a treatment, so she schemed to kill Zagreas before they could take the throne of the gods. Eventually she set some titans on the child who tried to escape by changing bodily forms. Zagreus flashes between elemental bodies like lightning and fire and every animal imaginable. But it was not enough. Those titans destroyed Zagreas, dismembering the child with their bare hands and eating the flesh in a ghastly meal. Zeus was so distraught at Zagreus' death that he executed the Titans with a cobalt lightning blast. The ash of their destroyed bodies rained down on the earth. Later, when Prometheus, god of forethought, scooped up the clay to make humanity, there was Titanic ash included in the mix. So there is something divine included in the souls of all human beings. This is the part of the soul Zagreus can transport to the blessed afterlife, or punishment. Because Zagreus was also dead, they were able to play intermediary intercessor for the souls of the dead. But here's where the stories all tie together. After Zeus is done mourning, he has Athena search for any remains of Zagreus that survived. The heart is the only part Athena can find of her younger sibling. Zeus consumes the heart so he could recreate Xagreus. The heart of Zagreus was combined with Thanes, whose essence was still merged with Zeus. Then Zeus selected Semele, daughter of Cadmus the dragonslayer, to bear the child. After an immaculate conception, Semele carried Dionysus. But she wanted to behold Zeus in all his glory, and she was fated to die when she saw the lightning of Zeus' true essence. So Zeus stitches Dionysus into his thigh and carries that fetus to term himself. There's a lot to unpack in these stories, but most critically, Dionysus is a manifestation of life whose power is drawn from that same place as those primordial gods. Because Phanes was a combination of gendered expressions, so too was Dionysus. It's important here to remember how in those early days man and woman weren't meaningful concepts any more than a lion without a serpent's tail. The early universe manifested the untapped, unregulated, unorganized potential of life and creation into hybrid animals and beings. Phanes was able to reproduce because they contained both male and female in one perfected, united deity. Later generations were more limited by sexual reproduction, as we see with Hera and Zeus. When Dionysus becomes one with Phanes, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between male and female in the figure of Dionysus. Dionysus' gender is fundamentally a synthesis, a mixture of both male and female. This is actually the original meaning of androgynus. Androguinos means man and woman at the same time. It can mean physical traits such as a eunuch or intersex, but it also means gendered expectations and social roles too. Dionysus as a deity is a mixture of male and female from the beginning. If you recall when we talked about Dionysus helping Prometheus create queer people, this dynamic is brought into the human world as well. Dionysaic ritual spaces and festivals habitually involved a blending of gendered expectations within the sacred sphere. A scholar of the Dionysaic tradition, Walter Otto, once said that when Bacchus comes to town, the whole world is bewitched with its own primeval nature. He meant that when Dionysus appears in Greek myth, everything becomes wholly foreign from its current state. Society is turned on end. Women are out in public, unescorted. Men don a woman's cheetone dress and dance in public. Women and men become ritual equals, if only for a little while. In stories, milk and wine flow freely out of the earth like springs in the mountainside, just like they did in that primeval world. It is not surprising that mythological figures, as well as historical kings and Roman emperors, found this extremely distressing. Gender roles were thrown out the window, and the social order they had worked so hard to construct and maintain crumbled. None of these scenes are permanent, but rather temporary ritual states. The Greeks and Romans often connected such breaches of gender as madness brought on by the raving mad god Dionysus. Even in ancient times there was a sense that queer people must have been driven mad to act in such ways. Though there was no DSM or ICD in antiquity, it was clear to all that queer people whose genders and sexualities did not necessarily match societal expectations had something fundamentally wrong with them. So we've covered Dionysus' gender, or lack thereof, but what about sexuality? Dionysus was known to have a divine relationship with Aphrodite. Their three children were the graces, or the charities, representing splendor, joy, and good cheer. Dionysus got married to Ariadne. After she had helped Theseus navigate the labyrinth and slay the Minotaur, Ariadne fled Crete with the Athenians. Technically the Minotaur was her half brother, it's a long story, so she committed a murder of a family member. The reasons vary, but Theseus eventually abandons her on Seagirt Dea, the island called Naxos. Dionysus eventually finds her and rescues her from her exile. For some time Ariadne was part of Dionysus' retinue and the two got married, but then Ariadne died. Again the reasons vary, but the most cinematic version is when Dionysus and Perseus duel. Ariadne is turned to stone by Perseus Medusa head. Dionysus was so distraught they apotheosed Ariadne to the heavens, planting her crown up in the sky as Ariadne's crown, the constellation Corona Borealis. Now on the male side, Dionysus was in love with Orpheus, the greatest priest of Dionysus ever to live, who would later form a religious reform movement centered around Dionysus. There was also Empelos the Satyr, discussed in our introduction. Additionally, Dionysus has a wartime boyfriend named Opheltes. Opheltes will eventually be killed, and Dionysus will mourn this death in a wartime funeral, closely mirroring Achilles and Patroclus. The implication is that they were lovers, but it was never explicitly stated in this queer coded romance. So we ultimately have a figure whose gender and sexuality can only be described as queer. There is no distinction between loving men or loving women. In fact, Dionysus generally shows more respect and admiration for the strength of women than any other Greek god. Additionally, many gods see their homosexual encounters as flings, but Dionysus is ready to marry a male. In these stories, a queer reading may well be the only way to actually get anywhere useful. These are not sexual conquests of a powerful deity, rather they are the relationships of a deeply emotional yearning to form strong, queer bonds. For today it was enough to discuss Dionysus as a manifestation of all around queerness. Their gendered expressions are well beyond queer, and their sexual preferences are totally queer. In antiquity there were so many authors from the mythical tyrant Pentheus to a sonatus consultium banning Bacchanals in Italy, all of which associate Dionysaic worship with something fundamentally dangerous. The blending of gendered roles ritually could well have led to a clamoring to change gender roles in the secular world as well. If citizens are able to express some autonomy with respect to their sexuality, the whole system of marriage as an institutional business deal between families is challenged. It's not surprising that many religious authorities, even before the rise of Christianity, felt fundamentally threatened by Dionysaic rituals. It is not surprising that many in the queer community find something to reflect their own experiences when they look at Dionysus. Dionysus devotees remain overwhelmingly queer. Dionysus reflects a section of humanity that is often not reflected in those mainstream gods. Ultimately, we will have much more to say about Dionysus' sexuality in a few weeks when we get to the demisexual episode. It's critical to note that Dionysus could be thought of as nearly asexual, however, when they do form romantic attachments, they're pretty much always eternal. Ultimately, we will have much more to say about Dionysus' gender when we discuss Iakos and Misa in the upcoming gender fluidity episode. It is crucial that while any one aspect of Dionysus might be thought of as male or female, any such distinction breaks down when the context is broadened. There really isn't much more to say today except that Dionysus is a queer. Next week we're going to explore Rea Kaibala, the wild intersex deity. We have already talked about them, but up to this point it has only been in connection with other figures such as Attis or Dionysus. Next week we're finally going to devote a standalone episode to Rhea Kaibele. See you next Monday. Notes and comments. I wanted to apologize again. I am still employed in contract archaeology and recording this in a hotel room. The audio quality here is a bit better than at the last hotel, but it's still an environment where I can't control much of the ambient noise. Thank you for understanding. The Ampelos episode is described in books 10 through 12 of Nonos Dionysia. Nonos was a poet composing his work in the 5th century AD from his home base at the Library of Alexandria. Nonos Dionysiaca is the longest epic from antiquity, containing as many books as the Odyssey and the Iliad combined. Though Nonos wrote at the tail end of antiquity, his book is a wellspring of queer material. Walter F. Otto published his seminal Myth and Cult of Dionysus in 1933, and it was translated to English by Robert Palmer in 1965. You should know that though he lived during the Nazi era, his work was heavily scrutinized as Oto had willingly affiliated with Jewish historians. Though he was eventually co-opted by the Nazis as an archivist, he kept his principles and had to flee for his life when he made the bold claim that he did not approve the direction classics was heading under the influence of Hitler. His work on Dionysus and the Homeric gods in general remains practically required reading almost a century on. I admire him a great deal for his classical insights and integrity in the face of the Nazis. With regards to Ariadne's death, Homer says only that Artemis shot Ariadne after Dionysus told her he saw her on Siegert Dia in the Odyssey Book eleven, three hundred twenty one through three twenty five, when Odysseus is talking to the ghosts of the heroic women. The duo between Dionysus and Perseus takes place in Nonos Dionysia, Book forty seven. The funeral of Opheltes is found in Book 37 of Nonos Dionysiaca. Everything about this scene harkens back to when Achilles mourns Patroclus in a well established, queer relationship. That's all for this week, folks. We'll see you next Monday for our discussion of Rea Kybele.