t has been suggested that this
is an allusion to the _couvade_ of certain barbarous tribes, amongst
whom it is customary, when a child is born, for the husband to take to
his bed and receive medical treatment, as if he shared the pains of
maternity (see COUVADE, and references there). Dionysus was then
conveyed by Hermes to be brought up by the nymphs of Nysa, a purely
imaginary spot, afterwards localized in different parts of the world,
which claimed the honour of having been the birthplace of the god. As
soon as Dionysus was grown up, he started on a journey through the
world, to teach the cultivation of the vine and spread his worship among
men. While so engaged he met with opposition, even in his own country,
as in the case of Pentheus, king of Thebes, who opposed the orgiastic
rites introduced by Dionysus among the women of Thebes, and, having been
discovered watching one of these ceremonies, was mistaken for some
animal of the chase, and slain by his own mother (see A. G. Bather,
_Journ. Hell. Studies_, xiv. 1894). A similar instance is that of
Lycurgus, a Thracian king, from whose attack Dionysus saved himself by
leaping into the sea, where he was kindly received by Thetis. Lycurgus
was blinded by Zeus and soon died, or became frantic and hewed down his
own son, mistaking him for a vine. At Orchomenus, the three daughters of
Minyas refused to join the other women in their nocturnal orgies, and
for this were transformed into birds (see AGRIONIA). These and similar
stories point to the vigorous resistance offered to the introduction of
the mystic rites of Dionysus, in places where an established religion
already existed. On the other hand, when the god was received hospitably
he repaid the kindness by the gift of the vine, as in the case of
Icarius of Attica (see ERIGONE).

The worship of Dionysus was actively conducted in Asia Minor,
particularly in Phrygia and Lydia. Here, as Sabazius, he was associated
with the Phrygian goddess Cybele, and was followed in his expeditions by
a _thiasos_ (retinue) of centaurs, and satyrs, with Pan and Silenus. In
Lydia his triumphant return from India was celebrated by an annual
festival on Mount Tmolus; in Lydia he assumed the long beard and long
robe which were afterwards given him in his character of the "Indian
Bacchus," the conqueror of the East, who, after the campaigns of
Alexander, was reported to have advanced as far as the Ganges. The other
incidents in which he appears