“... the plays of the Attic tragedians, whose titles should tempt your imagination…”
Hades and Dionysus define indestructible life (zoë), and ironically, are the same god.[1] Mentioning the Attic tragedians early in the ethics is nice to see. Best friends that finish each other’s…
The cult of Dionysus is also a "cult of the souls"; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead. He is sometimes categorised as a dying-and-rising god. Sound familiar? The mythology of Dionysus get points for originality, subsequent allusions are attempts reincarnated of Dionysus.
Karl Kerényi notes in his book that the Homeric Hymn "To Demeter", votive marble images and epithets all link Hades to being Dionysus. He also notes that the grieving goddess Demeter refused to drink wine, as she states that it would be against themis for her to drink wine, which is the gift of Dionysus, after Persephone's abduction, because of this association; indicating that Hades may in fact have been a "cover name" for the underworld Dionysus. He suggests that this dual identity may have been familiar to those who came into contact with the Mysteries. One of the epithets of Dionysus was "Chthonios", meaning "the subterranean". ↩︎