The Latin word pardalis indicates the spotted panther skin, connected in myth to the god Dionysus. The deity, together with his followers, satyrs and maenads, all wore panther skins. The panther was a sacred animal to the god of wine, and in the mosaic floors of the late antiquity residence there ...

Lycurgus is remembered in various stories and versions, but in all of them he represents the mythical figure of a sovereign, in perennial conflict with the god Dionysus. Homer describes the episode in which Lycurgus drove the bacchae and satyrs out of his kingdom, together with the god himself. Oth...

Lycurgus is remembered in various stories and versions, but in all of them he represents the mythical figure of a sovereign, in perennial conflict with the god Dionysus. Homer describes the episode in which Lycurgus drove the bacchae and satyrs out of his kingdom, together with the god himself. Ot...

The maenads were the three daughters of Minyas, King of Orchomenus, a city near Thebes. According to the mythological story, the young women were not interested in worshipping Dionysus, who, irritated, drove the sisters to madness. The story ends with the intervention of Hermes, the Roman Mercury, w...

Originally the ancient tales refer to the sileni as mythological figures who, together with the fauns, satyrs and nymphs, populated the woods. In this context, the sileni are considered spirits of water and springs. Their representation was very widespread in iconographies, both in wall paintings an...

The deity Pan did not live in Olympus among the other gods because he was the god of forests and nature in general. He could be found in the woods, where he accompanied other satyrs and protected the rivers. His appearance was coarse, depicted covered in hair, with goat legs and sometimes horns. He ...

In Greek mythology, Eros represents the god of physical love and the divine principle that drives men towards beauty and harmony. According to tradition, Eros is the son of Aphrodite and Ares, known as Venus and Mars to the Romans, who indicate Eros as Cupid, generally depicted as a winged child wi...

The sources of the mythological motif of the fight between Eros and Pan are essentially iconographic: in fact, the fight between the two gods recurs in artefacts from the Greek-Roman period in which the representation is divided into different groups of actors: as a gymnasium exercise in which, in a...

A deity revered by the Greeks and called Bacchus by the Romans, he is generally known as the god of wine. His worship, perhaps of Phrygian origin, was highly celebrated in Athens, so much so that the theatre of Dionysus represented by the biggest Greek tragedians between the 6th and 5th centuries BC...

A deity revered by the Greeks and called Bacchus by the Romans, he is generally known as the god of wine. His worship, perhaps of Phrygian origin, was highly celebrated in Athens, so much so that the theatre of Dionysus represented by the biggest Greek tragedians between the 6th and 5th centuries BC...