Even the later tradition of Hesiod, which makes Dionysus the husband of Ariadne, by thus giving him a Phœnician connection, so far sustains his Phœnician origin[512].
~_Dionysus is of the lowest inventive type._~
As Dionysus is one of the most recent of the Homeric deities, so likewise is he one of the most purely heathenish[513]. He has not, even in Homer, a divine maternity assigned to him, and he is the only one of the Homeric deities who stands in this predicament[514]. The anomaly was felt and provided for, in the later traditions at least, by the deification of Semele after death. But perhaps another mode of statement may be adopted. As it is evident that the original tradition made him the son of a woman, and as all those with whom he is classed in Homer are probably historical personages, it seems possible that he may have been one of our own race, whose discovery or extension of the use of wine may, by its rapid and powerful effect upon the countries which it had reached, have led to his adoption into the order of the Immortals, by a process more rapid than took place in the case of Hercules or any other person. Upon this supposition, he stands altogether alone among the gods of Homer. But, be this as it may, he is, when considered in the capacity of a deity, the representation of an animal instinct in its state of gross excess, and of nothing more. He is the god of drunkenness, as Mars is the god of violence, and Venus the goddess of lust: and there are no three other deities, from whom Homer has so remarkably withheld all signs of his reverence.
[514] See the accounts of Pindar, Pausanias, and Apollodorus.
Though I state this as an historical possibility, I think it is certain that, according to the Poet, Dionysus was from his birth one of the Immortals: but it is also very doubtful whether he was one, to whom a place belonged in the smaller Olympian Assembly. Even in later times, he was not one of the _Dii Majores_: and his being the son of a mortal in Homer would tend to make it probable that he was not invested by the Poet with Olympian dignity. Again, he is only four times mentioned in the whole of the poems; nor is a single act of his manhood recorded, except his information against Ariadne. That information seems to imply, that a known Greek island was sacred to him; and it was followed by the death of Ariadne under the darts of Diana. These circumstances may perhaps raise a presumption of his Olympian rank, equal to the adverse one which has been stated above. So far as this inquiry is concerned, the question must remain unsolved. But little of interest can attach to these, the shameful parts of the Greek mythology, which boast, as if it were our strength, of what can scarcely be excused as our weakness, and which treat our shame as our joy. The real point of interest is to learn whether there was a time when man, even though he had lost the clear view of the guiding hand from above, yet revolted against, or had not become familiar with, the deification of vicious passion. And we seem to find the note of such a time in Homer. Only one laudatory phrase is applied throughout the poems to Dionysus; it is the χάρμα βροτοῖσιν, and these words are not the sentiment of the Poet, or of any character that represents his mind; they are put into the mouth of Jupiter, when he is speaking under a paroxysm of sensual passion.