Dionysus was the god of wine in ancient Greece. He was also the god of vegetation, pleasure, and festivity.http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Dionysos.html He was the son of Zeus and the mortal Theban princess Semele.http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/greek.gods.html He sometimes appeared as a long-haired youth, and sometimes as an older, bearded man. He was often attended by satyrs and his female followers, the Mainades. His symbols include the drinking cup, leopard, and the pine cone-topped staff known as the thyros.http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Dionysos.html

Dionysus' siblings include Athena, Hephaestus, Hebe, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Apollo and Artemis. His uncles are Poseidon and Hades, and his aunts are Demeter and Hestia. Hera is his step-mother.http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/greek.gods.html When he joined the gods on Mount Olympus, Hestia gave him her seat in order to avoid an argument over where Dionysus would fit in the group's council.

Dionysus was conceived in his mother Semele, but gestated inside the thigh of his father Zeus. Zeus' wife Hera was jealous of his affair with Semele, and so tricked her into seeing Zeus' true form.http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/greek.gods.html This was fatal to mortals, causing them to die a fiery death. Zeus, realizing what had happened when he saw her charred remains, took Dionysus as a fetus from her and sewed him into his thigh. There, Dionysus gestated and was born.http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/greek.gods.html He was then entrusted to nymphs on Mount Nysa to be raised. When he was older, he joined the other gods on Olympus.http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/DionysosMyths.html#Birth

In another myth, Dionysus takes Ariadne as his wife. Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, had helped the hero Theseus escape from the labyrinth. He took her with him when he fled Crete, but abandoned her on the island of Naxos.http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Ariadne.html Dionysus discovered her there, fell in love with her, and took her from the island and married her. In some versions of the myth, she later dies in battle and he ventures to the underworld to bring her back to the land of the living.http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Ariadne.html