Καταβάσεις και άνοδοι του Διονύσου παρατηρήσεις στην αττική και κατωιταλιωτική αγγειογραφία

Abstract

Dionysiac descents and anodoi in Attic and South-Italian Iconography. This paper examines three groups of Dionysiac iconography:
a) Depictions of Dionysos in the Underworld, such as on the well known south- italian crater by the Darius Painter
b) Depictions of Dionysos’ head emerging from the earth (mainly, but not exclusively, on Attic vases of the late 6th-early 5th c. B.C.), and
c) Depictions of Dionysos in Eleusinian iconography, especially those cases (from the mid-4th c. B.C. onwards) where he is shown together with Herakles and the Dioskouroi, who were initiated into the Mysteries.
I suggest that in all cases Dionysos is shown as a prominent chthonic deity and that Dionysos, Herakles and the Dioskouroi had been connected with the Eleusinian Mysteries (each at a different time and possibly for a different reason) because they all went down to the Underworld, while still alive, and they successfully managed to come back.