Chapter Text
Meanwhile, Zeus continued to impregnate unlucky mortal women. He preferred wives and daughters of human kings because, whenever Hera found out, he claimed that it was in the best interests of all gods to install his sons as mortal kings. So, whenever a king or an heir to the throne married, Zeus sneaked to his wife and became the birth father of the new heir. Hera of course never accepted the excuse as valid.
Zeus’ lust usually brought only misfortune to mortal women, especially if they were unmarried. As I had learned from the Bronze Generation, human laws mandated harsh punishments, sometimes even death, to maidens who would become pregnant without a husband. This almost happened in Argos during the reign of Io’s descendant Acrisius. Because the king had no son, Zeus secretly visited his daughter Danae. She gave birth to a boy whom she named Perseus. Acrisiuis put his daughter and grandson in a chest and threw it into the sea. Fortunately, Thetis saw it and saved their lives by bringing the chest to the shore of the islalnd of Seriphus.
Later on, when Perseus grew up, Zeus used him to hurt his old opponent Phorcys. To achieve this, Zeus suggested to the king of Seriphus to send Perseus to kill Phorcys’ youngest daughter, the Gorgon Medusa. Zeus would have happily exterminated the entire family of Phorcys but they are immortal. Only Medusa was mortal (more accurately ambrosia-dependent but deprived of ambrosia), so she was killed. To me, Perseus deserves no blame. He knew nothing of his victim, and because Medusa had severe dysmorphia, he perceived her as a “monster” rather than a sentient being. Zeus, as usual, evaded responsibility, hiding behind the king of Seriphus. However, Perseus received much help from Athena and Hephaestus, which clearly shows that his "labor" was ordered from Olympus. The young man was even supplied with our technology that had never been given to a mortal before, and was never again given after that.
Perseus fulfilled the task but never received gratitude or mercy from his father Zeus. Indeed, when he was caught in an uneven battle with other heroes, Athena came to his help. But he never tasted ambrosia and when his time came, he died. The sons of Zeus born by moral women and then immortalized can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The first and strangest such case is Dionysus. He was begotten in Thebes during the reign of Cadmus. Zeus saw that Polydorus, the king’s only son, was weak. Thinking that the boy would soon die and his eldest sister Semele would become heiress, Zeus decided to lay with her. However, something unexpected happened. While the other mortal “loves” of Zeus never submitted to him voluntarily and he had to rape them or incapacitate them with wine, Semele fell in love with him. He told her who he was but she didn’t believe him. She thought that he was a commoner who had discovered some secret entrance to the palace, and lamented that he considered her foolish enough to mistake him for Zeus. She said that she loved him for who he was, and demanded him to reveal his true identity. The problem was that Zeus also wanted to be loved for who he was, and because he had ascended to the throne quite young, he was the Thunderer, the tyrant of Olympus and nothing else.
Smitten by the unusual experience of being loved, which Zeus had not had since his ill-fated romance with Metis, he decided to convince Semele by firing a thunderbolt in front of her eyes. He discussed his idea with Eros who strongly advised him to leave the thunderbolt launcher at home. Alas, Zeus didn’t heed this advice, and the only result of the conversation was that Hera overheard it. Her husband’s betrayal apparently hurt her deeply, enough to make her loose the protective lid of the thunderbolt launcher. And when Zeus brought it to Semele to show it, a mere light touch turned it on – inside her room. This was the first and happily the only case of a thunderbolt released behind closed doors. Of course, a horrific fire ensued, and Semele was doomed. However, before perishing in the flames, she prematurely gave birth to her baby boy. Zeus grabbed him, pressed him to his thigh torn by the explosion, and managed to bring him unhurt out of the burning palace. After this incident, Olympians insisted that the key to the thunderbolt storage room should be given to Athena for safekeeping, but Zeus angrily dismissed the suggestion.
The boy was given to be fostered by the nymphs of mount Nysa, and named Dionysus. He could no longer fulfill the role of royal heir that Zeus had wanted for him, not only because he was estranged from his mortal kin and they didn’t know that he was alive, but also because his uncle Polydorus survived after all.
When Dionysus grew up, he devoted himself to wine-making and taught it to humans. The official history even includes the ridiculous claim that he was the first to plant vines and produce wine. It is true, however, that post-flood humans had no inebriating drinks until Dionysus gave them wine. They had no vineyards, and when they had honey, they ate it directly, leaving nothing for mead production. They never had enough food, and even if Deucalion and Pyrrha remembered how mead was produced, this was their last priority, and the recipes for making inebriating drinks were forgotten.
Dionysus was surely a good wine-maker, but he wasn’t motivated by any desire to benefit the poor mortals. Quite the opposite, since his tenderest years he considered himself a god and looked at the humans from above. He made a plan to subdue them by making them addicted to wine. He wandered from one city to another in the company of perpetually drunk satyrs, unhinged human women and other scum of society. Everywhere, he demanded that the locals would accept him as a god, meet his magnificent retinue with proper honors, devote themselves to endless orgies and drink wine till oblivion, abandoning their work and families. Woe to those who would refuse! Dionysus intoxicated his followers and the locals with strong wine in which he added herbs causing temporary madness. Affected people often killed themselves or committed horrible atrocities. They attacked whomever Dionysus pointed to, literally tearing the victim to pieces.
This was the fate of young Pentheus, son of Cadmus’ daughter Agave and ruler of Thebes for a short time. Dionysus drove Theban women to insanity, and made the young man’s mother and aunts tear him apart. Dionysus rejoiced at his first cousin’s death and the total chaos and ruin that engulfed the city, because he hated the Thebans more than any other human tribe. According to him, they were obliged to honor his dead mother as a goddess; instead, they remembered her as a mortal maiden who allowed herself more freedom with men that the laws and customs allowed. After the carnage in Thebes, of course, no human ever dared to say a word against Semele. It was clear that honoring her was the only way to keep one’s head and limbs attached to the body.
The Thracian ruler Lycurgus also didn’t accept Dionysus – moreover, chased him away, dispersed his retinue and forced him to escape into the sea. Dionysus would have died if good-hearted Thetis hadn’t rescued and sheltered him. He later returned and retaliated by making Lycurgus’ people kill him cruelly.
Gods were initially angered by Dionysus’ claim to be one of them, and wanted Zeus to strike the impostor with a thunderbolt. However, Zeus had a soft spot for the youth. Artemis also insisted that the Dionysus be left alone. She said that he reminded her of some bug which would sneak into an anthill and, in exchange for food, release from its tummy inebriating fluid which the ants licked. They would often forget to take care of themselves, and the entire anthill would die. The same way, Dionysus with his wine could possibly solve the human problem.
However, Artemis’ hopes did not come true. After the first few disasters, the humans began using wine to their advantage. They learned to drink it not pure but mixed with three parts of water. Diluted this way, wine could be drunk safely even by children and pregnant women. It satiated thirst and made people merry without truly inebriating them. And, most importantly, it improved their health by killing many of the invisible disease-causing creatures. While the humans didn’t know of these creatures, they noticed that those who drank mixed wine instead of water tended to stay healthier. So they started to voluntary worship Dionysus as a benefactor of mankind, and honored him by festivals and theatrical performances.
However, despite his reputation, Dionysus was no true immortal but an ambrosia-dependent demigod. He not only aged but also acquired effeminate features because his liver was damaged by excessive drinking. Then Zeus ordered him to be taken to Olympus and given ambrosia. He pointed out to the Council that after the Olympians had let Dionysus present himself as a god for so long, they had to treat him as such, otherwise humans would lose respect to all gods.
Dionysus even convinced the Olympians to accept the woman he wanted to marry: Ariadne, daughter of Zeus’ son Minos. The problem was that she was in love with Theseus, the Athenian friend of Heracles’, and had just eloped with him to get married. Dionysus visited Theseus, made his will known, and ordered him to wait until Ariadne would fall asleep and then leave her on the desert island of Naxos. Theseus was in fact already inclined to abandon Ariadne because he wasn’t keen to marry a maiden able to betray her kin for a stranger, elope and live with him as his wife. However, when Dionysus demanded Ariadne for himself, Theseus suddenly appreciated her and wanted to keep her. However, this was impossible. Everyone knew what fate awaited mortals who disobeyed the god of wine.
As soon as Ariadne awakened on the island, Dionysus presented himself to her and said that her sad fate – to be betrayed and abandoned by her beloved, had moved his heart. Ariadne believed him, fell in love with him and happily married him. Nine months later, she gave birth to twin boys. Unfortunately, Dionysus lacked Deucalion’s wisdom. Instead of simply accepting the children as his, he asked Athena to test them and find out whether they were really his. She first tried to dissuade him, and then told him that they were his. However, he demanded from her to swear by Styx, and she couldn’t. Enraged, he asked Artemis to kill Ariadne. The babies, however, were returned alive to their tribe, and at least one of them survived. Humans later told how Theseus abandoned Ariadne but Dionysus pitied her, fell in love with her, brought her to Olympus as his wife and gave her immortality. Alas, the end of this beautiful legend is at odds with the facts.
Dionysus also demanded his mother Semele to be returned to life. This was of course impossible, but a copy of Semele could be created because Zeus had kept a sample of Semele’s blood carrying her thread of life. After the negative experience with the Daughter of the Night, most Olympians were firmly against creating babies in glassware. Hera of course was most strongly opposed. However, Zeus ordered Athena to fulfill Dionysus’ wish. Semele’s copy was named Thyone and given ambrosia. A rumor of these events reached the humans, and they said that mighty Dionysus had brought his mother back from the realm of Hades.
Once, after my return, I was sitting with Pronoia on a bench in front of Hephaestus’ home when Dionysus passed by. I stared at him because I saw human features in his face – even more than in Heracles. He met my gaze, came to me and asked in a hostile tone why I was looking at him. Pronoia introduced us, and he said: “So this is your titan husband. I hate the titans! When I was a small child, they heard that my father Zeus had made me his heir, and decided to kill me. They distracted me with toys, tore me apart and ate me. Athena just managed to rescue my heart, from which Zeus later revived me.”
Pronoia winked to me and said: “Dionysus, don’t be angry at my husband! He wasn’t there when the other titans killed you. He was chained in the Caucasus, so he is innocent.” Dionysus replied: “I know, but he is a titan like them. I hate all titans!” Apollo later explained that the youth’s liver was so damaged by the wine that his brain was affected and produced confabulations. Even my liver, black with gnawing, compared to his, was as good as new.
Dionysus lated achieved some improvement, thanks to a carefully selected diet and total abstention from wine. However, he remained lonely, unhappy and bitter. I suspect that the root cause of all his misfortunes is his hatred to his human part, not allowing him to be at peace with his own self. I wish him to realize that humans are great, and there is nothing wrong in descending from them.
Thyone is even worse off, because Dionysus has at least spent some years in the human world before his ascension, while her life has begun on Olympus. She grew unhappy and started drinking too much. I knew that it would harm her, and warned her. She didn’t listen to me, and now cannot forgive me that I was right. She eventually got sick, had to seek Apollo’s help and give up wine. I can never understand those who ruin their own livers.
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