DIONYSSOS: Greek hero, especially national hero of Athens. He was the god of fertility and wine, the son of the god Zeus and the mortal woman, Semele. It is believed that he and Ariadne were the parents of Stafilos, who later became King of Skopelos and his gold sword was found in Stafilos area.

The etymological structure of the name can give us a lot of information as far as the origin of the cult is concerned. "Dionyssos" consists of two components: "dios"and "Nyssos". Dios is the genitive of Zeus, which exact translation would be: Zeus's. "Nyssos" is a word of frygic-thacic origin, synonym of the word "kouros". So Dionyssos is the Kouros of Zeus - the son of Zeus.

In Thrace, Dionyssos was considered to be the god of fertility and he was worshiped with orgies and ceremonies not compatible with the Greek tradition. As his worship spread to the South met with the Greek worship of Dionyssos, where he was considered as the god of wine. The two forms of the same worship got mixed and the new worship of Dionyssos, the god of fertility and wine got born.

THE MYTH: According to one myth, when the Greek hero Theseus reached Athens, he learned of the Minotaur and the sacrifices, and wanted to end this. He volunteered to go to Crete as one of the victims. Upon his arrival in Crete, he met Ariadne, Minos's daughter, who fell in love with him. She offered to help him to disclose the way out of the Labyrinth if he would agree to take her to Athens and made her his wife. When Theseus did, she gave him a simple ball of thread, which he was to fasten close to the entrance of the maze. He made his way through the maze, while unwinding the thread, and he stumbled upon the sleeping Minotaur. He beat it to death and led the others back to the entrance by following the thread. As promised, she left Crete with Theseus and with the Athenian youth and they stopped on the island of Naxos. While Ariadne was asleep, Theseus abandoned her on the shore; maybe he was afraid to bring her with him to Athens, or he had already a new lover. There she was found by the god Dionysus, who fell in love with her and decided to rescue her. Ariadne in the meantime felt extremely unhappy. Dionysus, trying to make her feel better he put on her head a golden crown of Thetis, a work of Hephaestus. After this gift Dionysus immediately married her. Short while after Ariadne gave birth to many famous children: first of all to Staphylos, Thoas and Oinopion.