CL 28 - Classical Mythology

Lecture 13 - Dionysus and the Greek Theatre

Apollo
Hyperboreans, mythical tribe in extreme north
Boreas, ruler of the North and the North wind
Dionysus
Bacchus, another name for Dionysus (usually Roman)
Zeus
Semele, Dionysus's mother
Hera
Hermes
Ino, Semele's sister
Athamas
Orchomenos
Ampelus, Dionysus's first lover, the origin of wine grapes
Icarius, the first viniculturist
Cybele, eastern fertility goddess
King Lycurgus of Thrace and his son Dryas
Satyrs, half-human and half-goat, part of Dionysus's entourage
Silens / Silenus, humanoid creatures with horse tail and hooves
Maenads, Bacchants or Bacchae, female followers of Dionysus
Tyrrhenian pirates
Midas
Phrygia
Ariadne
Naxos

Oedipus, king of Thebes
Jocasta, his wife and mother
Creon, ruler of Thebes after Oedipus
Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks at Troy
Achilles, Greek hero of the siege of Troy
Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta (and sister of Oedipus)
Orestes, son and slayer of Aegisthus
Pentheus, king of Thebes
Agave, his mother and Semele's sister
Cadmus, founder of Thebes; Agave's father
Tiresias, prophet of Apollo

kantharos
enthousiasmos
ekstasis
thyrsus
timbrel
dithyramb
choryphaeus
sparagmos - omophagia
Great (City) Dionysia
satyr play
Tragedy = "tragos" (goat) + "oide" (song)
catharsis
comedy = "komos" (parade of revelers) + "oide"
hubris
orchestra, skene, proskenion, parados, diazoma

Epidaurus visit the site

Thespis, the first Greek tragic dramatist (about 534 B.C.)
Aeschylus, Oresteia
Euripides (c. 485-406 B.C.)
Peisistratos
Exekias

IMAGES

Birth of Dionysus. Detail of a Classical (late 5th - early 4th c.) Proto-Apulian Red-figure volute krater from Ceglie del Campo, featuring the birth of Dionysos out of Zeus's thigh, in the presence of the other Olympians. Taranto. Museo Nazionale. Carratelli, G. P., ed., The Greek World: Art and Civilization in Magna Graecia and Sicily. New York 1996. p. 486.

Theater of Dionysus, south slope of the Acropolis, Athens, 4th c. BC. UT Saskia CD 1 - JGA0070.

Theatre at Epidaurus, plan. Circular orchestra backed by high-reaching stone seating. Late fourth century B.C. Green, Richard and Eric Handley. Images of the Greek Theatre. University of Texas Press, Austin: 1995. p. 59, fig. 33.

Exterior: maenads (one holding a thyrsos, another playing the double- aulos) dance around an altar and standing image of Dionysos. Red-figure kylix signed by Hieron (potter) and attributed to Makron, ca. 480. Diam. 33 cm. Simon, Erika. Die Griechischen Vasen. Hirmir Verlag, Munich: 1981. Plate 169 above

Detail: Dionysos, holding a kantharos, with 2 maenads (one holding hare, other fawn) dressed in panther skins. Attic Black-figure neck amphora by the Amasis Painter and Amasis (potter), 540 - 530. Names above figures. Side B. H. 33 cm. Simon, Erika. Die Griechischen Vasen. Hirmir Verlag, Munich: 1981. Color Plate XXIII

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