The sea. An endless expanse of water, gentle and terrible at the same time, a source of joy and pain, home to monsters and gods, theater of myths and legends.

Like a brush on a blank canvas, the foam of its waves outlines the traits of a millennia-long narrative that still fascinates with its textures full of light and shadow. Have you ever wondered what is the seed from which they originated?

STORIES OF GODS AND MEN

Petty, angry, passionate, vindictive, the deities of the Greek Pantheon are the embodiment of vices and, sometimes, human virtues. At the center of this immortal crowd are the Olympians, rulers of the life and death of mortals.

Also known as Dodekatheon, among these the most powerful were the Cronis, (Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Hestia), followed by the gods of the so-called second generation, including the protagonist of our story: Dionysus.

Unique among the deities for his semi-divine origins (he is the son of the Father of the Gods, Zeus, and the mortal Semele) Dionysus is the youngest of the gods, loved and hated in equal measure by the ancients.

With the face of a child, a head of black hair and a purple cape on his shoulders, the young god was bound to the realm of ecstasy, drunkenness, freedom and rebirth. Patron of wine, theater and banquets, it seems that his cult was at first reserved for a small circle for its popular cut (women and slaves could also participate in the mysteries) and detested by many for the orgiastic aspects and collective madness to which the faithful seem to succumb during the mysteries.

THE SWEETNESS OF MADNESS

In addition to wine, the other great attribute of Dionysus is madness, of which he himself was a victim when Hera, in revenge for the betrayal of Zeus, condemned him to wander the world in despair and with a clouded mind.

This wandering took him to numerous foreign lands, where he spread his cult thus conquering immortality and rising to Olympus. And it is here, at the beginning of his return trip to Greece, that our story starts.

Arriving on the Aegean islands from Boeotia, the god decided to pay for the crossing to a ship bound for Naxos. Setting foot on the boat, his beauty, the richness of his clothes and his innocent face led the Tyrrhenian pirates at the head of the expedition to capture him with the aim of demanding a ransom.

Dionysus chose to take revenge on those unwary by germinating in their minds the seed of madness, destining the unfortunate to a fate worse than death.

DIVINE REVENGE

Wine began to flow in rivers on the deck of the ship, coloring the wooden planks red. Bunches of grapes appeared as if by magic on sails and ropes and the mast was suffocated by an immense vine, which with its branches enveloped it completely, breaking it.

Terrified, the entire crew tried to escape by jumping into the sea, but in vain. Their bodies began to writhe, their faces to stretch, their skin to turn gray and shiny.

Those who touched the sea surface were no longer men, but dolphins, whose minds nevertheless remained those of sentient beings, to keep alive within them the memory of the impiety committed, without being able to find peace. Only the helmsman was saved, the only one to understand the divine nature of the young passenger and to try to convince his companions to abandon their intentions.

Dispensed from receiving their own fate, he became a priest of the cult of Dionysus, while the others, now frozen in their new form, decided to repay the crime committed by dedicating their lives to saving shipwrecks and sailors in danger.

The cause of their evil was their contempt for divine law. In ancient times, in fact, one of the most serious actions that a mortal could commit was the one that led him to act with hybris, arrogance, towards the gods. A real crime of lèse-majesté, with an always negative outcome for the perpetrator.

The deities were famous for their vengeful acts and actions. It should therefore not be surprising if the answer to human arrogance was the divine nemesis, the revenge of the gods, which as we have just seen could take the most disparate forms.

METAMORPHOSIS

The myth is full of tragedies and acts bordering on the mania of which Dionysus is the protagonist. And it was on these stories that one of the longest-lived socio-cultural activities in history was consolidated: the theater. The passions, fantasies and transformations of which the cults and mysteries of Dionysus were imbued, made the god the perfect candidate to be the patron of this fundamental aspect in the life of the ancients and from the dithyrambs, particular choral compositions dedicated to him, where poetry, lyric and dance are combined, the tragedy originated.
Yet, despite being born in his name, the representations that see Dionysus as protagonist are not many, indeed, there is a trace in all the ancient dramaturgical production of a single work focused on the god: the Bacchae by Euripides. Represented as a violent and dangerous divinity, prone to the cruelest acts, the Dionysus protagonist of the tragedy is the archetype of the vengeful divinity, a warning for mortals never to stand against the divine, under penalty of death. An attitude very similar to that held by him towards the men who first tried to subjugate him, ending up becoming victims of the most ruthless side of a deity mistakenly considered among the most benevolent, because of his ability to alleviate suffering thanks to wine and physical pleasures.

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Among the most important sacred animals of the Greek pantheon, that of the dolphin is an image that has not only been a source of inspiration for films or toys such as those from which this article takes inspiration for its title, but rather hides the most intricate stories and myths, often linked to vicious gods willing to do anything to affirm their status, Inspiration for the most heterogeneous narratives.

Foolish mortals, you who attempted the impious act against Acratofaro, will never again enjoy the sweet juice of the fruits sacred to him, but forced to wander in feral form for eternity, thus you will explain your sin.