Dionysos Zagreus, some info Options

http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Zagreus.html

This post has been edited by BlueSolarEagle: Nov 29 2007, 04:36 PM

Hey there,

Try not to post one liners or links without giving some kind of an explanation, or your thoughts/experiences with the related subject - or even questions about the subject matter. This is a discussion forum, and if there's no food for discussion, then, well, there's not much discussion to be had, is there?

Is there a particular reason you brought this olympian godform to the attention of the people here? Have you had some experience with this one in particular, or is it simply a bit of obscure information you wanted to share?

I've worked with the roman versions of some of the olympic godforms in the past, particularly Mercury and Venus, but haven't had much experience with most of the others in that vein, much less Dionysos Zagreus. My mythology is pretty tight though, and i haven't heard of 'Zagreus' before, so either I haven't hit the books hard enough in a while, or he's pretty obscure in the first place.

Talk to us, why this one?

ZAGREUS was the "first-born Dionysos," a god of the Orphic Mysteries. He was a son of Zeus and Persephone, who the god seduced in the guise of a serpent. After he was Zeus set him upon the throne of heaven armed with lightning bolts. The Titans, inspired by the jealous goddess Hera, sneaked into Olympos, tricked the godling into setting aside the lightning bolts with the temptation of toys, then seized and dismembered him with knives. Zeus recovered the child's heart and making it into a potion, fed it to his love Semele. From the drink she conceived the younger Dionysos, as a reincarnation of the first.

In another tale, the genitals of Zagreus were recovered by the Kabeiroi gods of Samothrake. They deposited them in a sacred cave on the isle and instituted the Samothrakian Mysteries in his honour.

peace