Apollo & Dionysus IV: Euripides & Rasputin ‘the Holy Devil’

The Bacchae by Euripides depicts Dionysus and his followers initiating the ancient city of Thebes in his orgiastic ‘bacchanals’. The play begins with Dionysus expressing his anger at Thebes — the land of his mortal mother, Semele — for denying his divinity:

DIONYSUS. I am the son of Zeus, Dionysus. Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, bore me once in a birth…