The The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys hail Osiris as "Thou Lord of the Underworld," and Plutarch wrote, "There is a doctrine which modern priests hint at, but only in veiled terms and with caution: namely that this god (Osiris) rules and reigns over the dead, being none other than he whom the Greeks call Hades and Pluto." (On Isis and Osiris, 78)
Vincent Bridges observed that "As early as 3,000 B.C.E, Osirian funeral artifacts appeared at Abydos. Within a few hundred years, the 1st Dynasty kings of a unified Egypt built tombs and cenotaphs at Abydos in order to be near the tomb of Osiris and the gateway to the Land of the Dead. From then on, Abydos was the center of the Osirian mysteries. (Abydos, the Osireion and Egyptian Sacred Science)
Jaromir Malek observed, "The dead king is...in the Pyramid Texts also identified with the God Osiris. Osiris was originally a chthonic deity. At first, he perhaps assimilated the God Anedjti, and became connected with the town of Djedu (Busiris) in the central Delta, and very early on also Iunu (Heliopolis). His importance grew rapidly, and he may have, as early as the Fourth Dynasty, influenced the changes in the royal pyramid-complexes. In private tombs Osiris began to be mentioned in the Fifth Dynasty, which is also the earliest date at which he was represented in human form. He quickly acquired the status of the universal God of the nether-world, with Djedu (Busiris) and Abdju (Abydos) as his main cult centers. In Abdju, he assimilated the original God Khentiamentiu." (In the Shadow of the Pyramids)
Osiris as Lord of the Underworld is so well-known, that it hardly bears delving into here. (Especially when this is dealt with more extensively under the God's demise and the individual's identification with him in the afterlife.) However, what is not so commonly known is Dionysos' associations with the Underworld, despite the extensive material on the subject.
An Apulian volute crater of the Darius Painter depicts Dionysos at the head of his thiasos, joining hands with Hades who is enthroned in his aedicula opposite a standing Persephone. This could be interpreted a number of different ways - a visual representation of the mystery that Herakleitos revealed in his oft-quoted but little understood line "Hades and Dionysos, for whom they go mad and rage, are one and the same," (Fragment 115) or, as Fritz Graf writes in Dionysian and Orphic Eschatology, "Dionysos interceding with the powers beyond on behalf of his initiates." (pg. 256 in Masks of Dionysos)
As Walter Otto observed, tradition has much to say about Dionysos the God who visits or even lives in the world of the dead. Horace described how the fearsome Kerberos, guardian of the Underworld quietly watched as Dionysos entered with his golden horn, and even licked his feet as he left. (Carmine 2.19) Numerous authors tell the story of how Dionysos descended into the underworld to bring his mother Semele back to the world of the living. In Aristophanes' The Frogs, Dionysos goes down to the Underworld and joins the Eleusinian mystai in their sacred songs and dances. According to Orphic Hymn 46, he himself grew up in Persephone's home, and Hymn 53 says that he sleeps in the house of Persephone during the long intervals before his reappearances. Clement of Alexandria (Protreptikos 2.16) cites the ancient myth whereby Persephone is the mother of the first Dionysos, the Horned Child Zagreus, and there are hints in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter that the God who ravishes Kore and steals her away to his underworld realm is actually Dionysos. (The abduction occurs at Nysa, and later when Demeter in her wandering is offered a drink of wine she angrily refuses.) Both Hades and Dionysos share a number of epithets. Dionysos is called Khthonios or "Underworld" as well as Nyktelios "The Nocturnal One", Melanaigis "Of the Black Goat Skin", and Polygethes "Giver of Riches" - all titles traditionally belonging to Hades. Euripides speaks of "Bacchantes of Hades" (Hecuba 1077) and Aeschylus calls the Erinyes "Maenads" (Eumenides, 500). Euripides compared the maenads to ghosts, calling them both nyktipoloi "night-stalkers", since both became active only after sunset. (Ion 717, 10458-49) And when we turn to actual cult and funerary practices, we see that this connection remains just as strong.
The Neoplatonic Olympiodoros preserves a hexametrical fragment of Orpheus concerning Dionysos' power over the dead, "Men send perfect hecatombs in all hours during the year, and they perform rites, striving after deliverence from unlawful ancestors. But thou having power over them, you will deliver whomever you wish from difficult suffering and limitless frenzy." (OF 232)
Additionally, the Orphics sought Dionysos' intercessary power over Persephone, the Queen and Judge of the Dead. They believed that by undergoing initiation and learning certain secret phrases, they could pass unscathed through the Underworld and find a better existence there. "And then, you will go a long way, a holy one, where also the others - the mytai and bakkhoi - walk in fame." (Hipponium lamella, 15-16) Numerous texts such as this, inscribed on gold leaves, were buried with the dead to help them find their way through the Underworld. Others believed that in becoming a Bakkhos or Bakkhes, they would not have to face the pangs of death, but live on eternally in a Bacchic state. According to Plato, the Orphics believed that in death they would partake in an eternal symposia with ever-flowing wine. "Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Mousaios and his son vouchsafe to the just; they take them down into the world below, where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast, everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands; their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkeness is the highest meed of virtue." (Republic 2.6) And others still found solace in the face of death through Dionysian imagery, whether they held to the eschatological beliefs of the Orphics and similar groups or not. At any rate, Dionysos played an important role in death and funerary practices for the Greeks and Romans.
Susan Guettel Cole informs us that his symbolism connected with death and life is found everywhere: "in vase paintings, wall and floor decoration, reliefs carved on sarcophagi, and ornamentation on tombs and graves." (Dionysos and the Dead, pg. 278 in Masks of Dionysos) She goes on to inform us that "There are about seventy-five sepulchral inscriptions that refer to Dionysos, Dionysiac activities, Bacchic organizations, or Bacchic mysteries." (pg. 278) And those are simply the ones that have come to light thus far! She also mentions that "Bacchic organizations took responsibility for the burial of members. They tended the graves of their leaders and officilas, but members without rank were also provided with tombstones and rites at the grave." (pg. 285)
We have an inscription from one of these groups, the Iobacchoi of Athens, dating from the second century of our era. It states:
"And if any Iobacchus die, a wreath shall be provided in his honor not exceeding five denarii in value, and a single jar of wine shall be set before those who have attended the funeral; but anyone who has not attended may not partake of the wine."
A group of devotees of Dionysos (bebakkheumenoi) at Cumae had their own seperate burial ground (LSS no. 120) and a Campnian bakkhe even had her sarcophagus made in the shape of a meanad. (Hern 1972, 82) An initiate from Southern Italy appears entwined with vines on her sarcophagus, presumably symbolising the intoxicating bliss of the hereafter
Some of the Dionysian funerary inscriptions are truly beautiful, for instance: At Hermopolis Magna in the second century a father found such comfort in the ripening of the grape and the change of seasons that he decided not to weep for his daughter taken by the nymphs in death. (Susan Guettel Cole, Dionysos and the Dead, pg. 282 in Masks of Dionysos) In Egypt, the vines of Bacchus were said to mourn for a barkeeper who had poured "honey-sweet wine for all mortals, the drops that stop pain." (Susan Guettel Cole, Dionysos and the Dead, pg. 282 in Masks of Dionysos) And at Phillipi we find a Latin funerary inscription that suggests that the dead youth will be restored or refreshed (repartus) in the Elysian Fields, dancing as a satyr with the tattooed mystai of Bromios. (CIL 3, no. 686)
Copyright 2005 Sannion
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