Dionysus

Dionysus is the son of Zeus and the mortal princess Semele, making him a unique deity who bridges the gap between the divine and mortal realms. According to myth, Semele perished when she asked to see Zeus in his true divine form, so Zeus sewed the fetal Dionysus into his thigh until he was born.

Dionysus is credited with being the patron and originator of Greek theater. The dramatic traditions of tragedy and comedy originated as performances during the Great Dionysia, an annual religious festival held in Athens to honor him.

The Maenads (or Bacchantes) were frenzied female followers who joined the retinue of Dionysus. Driven into ecstatic states of ritual madness by the wine god, they roamed the mountains and forests performing wild dances and tearing apart wild animals.

The Roman equivalent of Dionysus was Bacchus, from whom we get the term "bacchanal" for a drunken feast. His cult, known as the Bacchanalia, became so popular—and rumored to be politically subversive—that the Roman Senate famously suppressed it in 186 BCE.