Dionysus and Politics Constructing Authority in the Graeco-Roman World

List of Figures

List of Contributors

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Filip Doroszewski, Dariusz Karłowicz

1. Dionysos, the Polis and Power

Cornelia Isler-Kerényi

2. The Politics of Euripides’ Bacchae and the Preconception of Irresolveable Contradiction

Richard Seaford

3. On the Necessity of Dionysus: the Return of Hephaestus as a Tale of the God that Alone Can Solve Unresolvable Conflicts and Restore an Inconsistent Whole

Dariusz Karłowicz

4. Alexander and Dionysus

Richard Stoneman

Part II

Dionysus in Rome

5. Dionysos against Rome? The Bacchanalian Affair: a Matter of Power(s)

Jean-Marie Pailler

6. Augustus and the Neoi Dionysoi

Fiachra Mac Góráin

7. The State as Crater: Dionysus and Politics in Plutarch’s Lives of Crassus, Antony and Caesar

Filip Doroszewski

8. Dionysus and Legitimisation of Imperial Authority by Myth in First- and Second-Century Rome: Caligula, Domitian and Hadrian

Sławomir Poloczek

9. The Role of Bacchus/Liber Pater in the Severan Religious Policy: the Numismatic and Epigraphic Evidence

Małgorzata Krawczyk

Part III

Late-Antique Reflection on Dionysus

10. The Rule of Dionysus in the Light of the Orphic Theogony (Hieroi Logoi in 24 Rhapsodies)

Marek Job

11. Dionysus in the Mirror of Late Antiquity: Religion, Philosophy and Politics

Index

Biography

Filip Doroszewski is Assistant Professor at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, Poland. His recent publications include a co-edited volume Nonnus of Panopolis in Context III (2021) and a monograph Orgies of Words. Mystery Terminology in the Paraphrase of St. John’s Gospel by Nonnus of Panopolis (forthcoming).

Dariusz Karłowicz is a Polish philosopher and a lecturer at Warsaw University, Poland. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the philosophical magazine ‘Political Theology’. His books in English include The Archparadox of Death: Martyrdom as a Philosophical Category (2016) and Socrates and Other Saints (2017).

"Réunissant les articles de plusieurs spécialistes du dieu Dionysos, l’ouvrage constitue un point de repère important pour les futures recherches sur le rapport entre l’imaginaire bachique et la représentation du pouvoir. Le choix d’une chronologie large guide le public dans l’évolution de l’imaginaire dionysiaque et de son lien avec les processus de construction de l’autorité politique dans les mondes grec et romain. La lecture des diverses contributions permet également d’envisager d’autres pistes de recherche qui pourraient être explorées en lien avec la thématique du volume."

(Bringing together articles from several specialists of the god Dionysus, the book constitutes an important point of reference for future research on the relationship between the bacchanalian imagination and the representation of power. The choice of a broad timeline guides the audience in the evolution of the Dionysian imaginary and its link with the process of construction of political authority in the Greek and Roman worlds. Reading the various contributions also makes it possible to consider other avenues of research that could be explored in line with the theme of the volume.) - Kernos

"This volume will prove to be an invaluable resource both for its compilation and incisive analyses of a remarkable breadth of material and for its compelling vision of the persistence and complexity of Dionysus across antiquity and beyond."
-Courtney J. P. Friesen, University of Arizona, Religious Studies Review