Dionysus was the great Olympian god of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, and madness. he was depicted as either an older, bearded god or an effeminate, long-haired youth. his attributes included the thyrsus a pine-cone tipped staff a drinking cup and a crown of ivy. he was usually accompanied by a troop of satyrs and mainades wild female devotees. according to a myth, Dionysus is the son of the god zeus and a mortal woman semele daughter of Cadmus of thebes. semele was killed by zeus ' lightning bolts while Dionysus was still in her womb. Dionysus was rescued and undergoes a second birth from zeus after developing in his thigh. zeus then gives the infant to some nymphs a mythological spirit of nature imagined as a beautiful maiden