supposed to act as a charm in awakening vegetation from
its winter sleep. The conception of Zagreus, or the winter Dionysus,
appears to have originated in Crete, but it was accepted also in Delphi,
where his grave was shown, and sacrifice was secretly offered at it
annually on the shortest day. The story is in many respects similar to
that of Osiris. According to others, Zagreus was originally a god of the
chase, who became a hunter of men and a god of the underworld, more akin
to Hades than to Dionysus (see also TITANS).

Dionysus further possessed the prophetic gift, and his oracle at Delphi
was as important as that of Apollo. Like Hermes, Dionysus was a god of
the productiveness of nature, and hence Priapus was one of his regular
companions, while not only in the mysteries but in the rural festivals
his symbol, the phallus, was carried about ostentatiously. His symbols
from the animal kingdom were the bull (perhaps a totemistic attribute
and identified with him), the panther, the lion, the tiger, the ass, the
goat, and sometimes also the dolphin and the snake. His personal
attributes are an ivy wreath, the thyrsus (a staff with pine cone at the
end), the laurel, the pine, a drinking cup, and sometimes the horn of a
bull on his forehead. Artistically he was represented mostly either as a
youth of soft, nearly feminine form, or as a bearded and draped man, but
frequently also as an infant, with reference to his birth or to his
bringing up in "Nysa." His earliest images were of wood with the
branches still attached in parts, whence he was called Dionysus
Dendrites, an allusion to his protection of trees generally (according
to Pherecydes in C. W. Muller, _Frag. Hist. Graec._ iv. p. 637, the word
[Greek: nysa] signified "tree"). It is suggested that the cult of
Dionysus absorbed that of an old tree-spirit. He was figured also, like
Hermes, in the form of a pillar or term surmounted by his head. For the
connexion of Dionysus with Greek tragedy see DRAMA.

See Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, v. (1910); also O. Rapp,
_Beziehungen des Dionysuskultus zu Thrakien_ (1882); O. Ribbeck,
_Anfange und Entwickelung des Dionysuskultes in Attica_ (1869); A.
Lang, _Myth, Ritual and Religion_, ii. p. 241; L. Dyer, _The Gods in
Greece_ (1891); J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek
Religion_ (1903); J. G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, ii (1900), pp.
160, 291, who regards the bull and goat form of Dionysus a