Dance, Love and Ecstasy

Dionysos is the Greek god of the grape-harvest and winemaking, of the growth and fertility of vegetation - especially orchards and vineyards - and, lastly, of insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity and theatre. Because of his links to plant growth, he also became associated with death, resurrection and regeneration. He was also known as B-hos to the Greeks, a name adopted by the Romans as Bacchus. The focus here is on the links between Dionysos'' cult and the perennial human preoccupations of drugs, sex and ecstasy.