Dionysus

a.k.a., Dionysus the Thracian.

a.k.a., Bacchus, god of the vine ( associated with wine). Often considered to be a little nutty and sorta wild.

According to myth, he was a student of Aristarchus of Samothrace who wrote the first systematic Greek grammar. (He must have been pretty smart!)

Dionysus was born in Thebes, the son of Zeus and the Theban princess, Semele. He was the ONLY god whose parents were not both divine.

Pretty cool, huh?? How can that be? Well.....Before Dionysus was born, Semele asked Zeus to reveal himself to her in all his splendor as King of Heaven. Before the glory of the burning light that this created, she died. But Zeus took her child who was near birth a His death was terroin side until he was ready to be born. He was raised by nymphs. These nymphs were supposedly placed in the sky as stars which bring rain when they near the horizan. Soooooo.......the god of the vine was born of fire and nursed by rain.Thank you Edith Hamilton for that story. But wait! There's more . . . . Dionysus was a very interesting god: there are some really spooky Christian parallels that can be drawn from Dionysus' life.