Author(s):
Gordon, Richard L. (Ilmmünster)
[German version] (Ζαγρεύς/
Zagreús). The name Z. (or 'Dionysus Z.') is used as a useful if also problematic term for Dionysus, the son of Zeus (and the daughter of Zeus Persephone) who, according to the Orphic anthropogony (Orphism), had been killed and eaten as a small child by the Titans. Ancient lexica cite Callimachus's
Aítia (fr. 43,177) as the sole source for the epiclesis of Dionysus Z.; but this is not used until the 6th cent. AD (in Ps.-Nonnus, Commentaria in Greg. Naz. Serm. 5,30 Nimmo Smith) in the context of the Z. myth. The name, which does not occur in surviving orphic texts, was evidently also ignored by the most important later Orphic-theogonic text, the 'Rhapsodia' (Orphism II A; 1st/2nd cent. AD). However, in the context of dismemberment by gods, Plutarch cites Z. as another name for Dionysus in his connection with Delphic theology (Plut. De E 9,389a). On the original nature of Z., there can, as there could in Antiquity, only be speculation. Lexica interpret the name as 'great hunter'; the Greek word ζάγρη/
zágrē means 'pitfall'. It is possible that Z. was a local master of animals who was identified with Hades [3]/Pluto: Both the
Alcmaeonis (fr. 3 Bernabé,
c. 600 BC) and Aeschylus (fr. 5 and 228 Radt) portray Z. as an Underworld deity. Euripides associated a ritual of Z.
Nuktipólos, 'night-bird', connected with the consumption of raw meat, with the ecstatic cult of Idaean Zeus (Eur. Kretes TGF 472 Z. 9 = Porph. De abstinentia 4,19 Patillon-Segonds; [1]). The Orphic Z. myth has been interpreted as a neo-Platonic or even modern …