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Like other gods of vegetation Dionysus was believed to have died a
violent death, but to have been brought to life again; and his
sufferings, death, and resurrection were enacted in his sacred
rites. His tragic story is thus told by the poet Nonnus. Zeus in the
form of a serpent visited Persephone, and she bore him Zagreus, that
is, Dionysus, a horned infant. Scarcely was he born, when the babe
mounted the throne of his father Zeus and mimicked the great god by
brandishing the lightning in his tiny hand. But he did not occupy
the throne long; for the treacherous Titans, their faces whitened
with chalk, attacked him with knives while he was looking at himself
in a mirror. For a time he evaded their assaults by turning himself
into various shapes, assuming the likeness successively of Zeus and
Cronus, of a young man, of a lion, a horse, and a serpent. Finally,
in the form of a bull, he was cut to pieces by the murderous knives
of his enemies. His Cretan myth, as related by Firmicus Maternus,
ran thus. He was said to have been the bastard son of Jupiter, a
Cretan king.
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