Bacchus: the original winefluencer

Ever heard of Bacchus? Roman god of wine. Basically the original party planner, with a grapevine crown and a killer guest list.

While your group chat is still deciding where to brunch, Bacchus was already mixing wine with prayer, theatre, drama and a touch of divine chaos. He wasn't just about the pour. He was about the vibe.

Who was he?

• The Roman god of wine, the Roman name for the Greek god Dionysus. In Rome he was also linked with Liber, an old Italian god of wine and freedom.
• His look: a crown of vine or ivy leaves, a cup of wine, and a staff topped with a pine cone, the thyrsus. Often a panther close by.
• His crowd: the bacchantes, women who danced through the hills in his honour.
• His stage: in Athens, Greek tragedies and comedies were performed at festivals for Dionysus.

The party the Senate tried to stop

His secret rites, the Bacchanalia, spread through Italy. In 186 BC the Roman Senate cracked down: a decree banned them across Roman Italy, except where the Senate itself gave permission. A bronze copy of that decree was found in Calabria in 1640, and the historian Livy tells the whole dramatic story. Wine's first PR crisis.

Bacchus walked so your wine identity could run

So yes, wine has been a lifestyle since ancient mythology. If you've ever called wine your personality, congratulations: you're channelling thousands of years of fermented mythology. Wine has always been more than a drink. It's a way to gather, to celebrate, to tell a story about who you are.

Painters loved him too. Caravaggio's Bacchus, a young man in a vine-leaf crown holding out a glass of wine, hangs in the Uffizi in Florence. More in Bacchus in art.

Some sip for flavour. Others sip for the origin story. We like ours with a little drama and divine energy.

More ancient wine: Pliny the Elder, the first wine blogger and why wine started in clay pots.

Questions people ask