6), one of the nymphs of Dodona, the nurses of Dionysus; in
Euripides (frag. 177), the mother of Dionysus; in Hyginus (fab. 9. 82),
the daughter of Atlas, wife of Tantalus and mother of Pelops and Niobe.
Others make her a Titanid, the daughter of Uranus and Gaea (Apollodorus
i. 1). Speaking generally, Dione may be regarded as the female
embodiment of the attributes of Zeus, to whose name her own is related
as Juno (= Jovino) to Jupiter.

DIONYSIA, festivals in honour of the god Dionysus generally, but in
particular the festivals celebrated in Attica and by the branches of the
Attic-Ionic race in the islands and in Asia Minor. In Attica there were
two festivals annually. (1) The lesser Dionysia, or [Greek: ta kat
agrous], was held in the country places for four days (about the 19th to
the 22nd of December) at the first tasting of the new wine. It was
accompanied by songs, dance, phallic processions and the impromptu
performances of itinerant players, who with others from the city
thronged to take part in the excitement of the rustic sports. A
favourite amusement was the Ascoliasmus, or dancing on one leg upon a
leathern bag ([Greek: askos]), which had been smeared with oil. (2) The
_greater_ Dionysia, or [Greek: ta en astei], was held in the city of
Athens for six days (about the 28th of March to the 2nd of April). This
was a festival of joy at the departure of winter and the promise of
summer, Dionysus being regarded as having delivered the people from the
wants and troubles of winter. The religious act of the festival was the
conveying of the ancient image of the god, which had been brought from
Eleutherae to Athens, from the ancient sanctuary of the Lenaeum to a
small temple near the Acropolis and back again, with a chorus of boys
and a procession carrying masks and singing the dithyrambus. The
festival culminated in the production of tragedies, comedies and satyric
dramas in the great theatre of Dionysus. Other festivals in honour of
Dionysus were the Anthesteria (q.v.); the Lenaea (about the 28th to the
31st of January), or festival of vats, at which, after a great public
banquet, the citizens went through the city in procession to attend the
dramatic representations; the Oschophoria (October-November), a vintage
festival, so called from the branches of vine with grapes carried by
twenty youths from the ephebi, two from each tribe, in a race from the
temple of Dionysus in Athens to the temple of Athena Sciras i