Dionysos in Old Comedy : Staging of Experiments on Myth and Cult

Dionysos is a very vivid and creative god who defies simple definitions. It is known that he encompasses polar oppositions. Thus we can read already on the Orphic bone tablets in Olbia: ΒΙΟΣ ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ ΒΙΟΣ (‘life–death–life’), ΕΙΡΗΝΗ ΠΟΛΕΜΟΣ (‘peace–war’), ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ ΨΕΥΔΟΣ (‘truth–lie’). These dichotomies do not suffice – further antitheses between which he oscillates are: man–woman, god–man/animal, polis–countryside, inside–outside, abroad–home, Greek–Barbarian, civilization–nature, cosmos–chaos, idyll–violence, happiness–suffering, laughing–agony/destruction, tranquility–mania, and festivity–ecstasy. Yet Dionysos means neither pure antithesis nor the frequently cited coincidentia oppositorum. Rather, both sides touch upon and refer to each other in a counterbalancing tension, and both poles are to be understood as energetic life forces that are in permanent exchange and in a dynamic reciprocation. Therefore, the series of oppositions are not abstract terms but are to be experienced in cult and myth. Accordingly, Bacchus is not only the violent, ecstatic, and destructive power, but also a central city-god who stabilizes the order of society. Scenarios of inversion are located basically in myth, while phenomena of group cohesion such as festivity, enjoyment, and happiness are based in cult. Moreover, Dionysos is hardly the ‘Other’ per se. However, he epitomizes difference more than any other Greek deity. Furthermore, Dionysos is a god in permanent change and exposes others also to transformations that are to be seen in the whole range of categorical oppositions. His main features and areas of responsibility are: a) wine and inebriation; b) wild nature and animality; c) madness and ecstasy; d) the underworld and death; and initiations can open perspectives on a blessed afterlife; e) Eros and love; f) dance, music, and performance; g) mask and costume; h) fiction, imagination, vision, miracle, epiphany, and presence. Due to just the last items f) to h),