Every Greco Roman Deity Explained - Zagreus - blood and rebirth - Wattpad

Every Greco Roman Deity Explained

Behold, dear reader! Every Greco Roman deity explained! Where I'll provide you with the basics and lesser known details about each Gerco Roman deity, using only information from actual ancient texts. Because modern retelling get everything wrong and...

Overview of Zagreus

Basics
God of: blood, rebirth, hunting. Has some evidence of being associated with the moon too. Prince of the underworld.
Chthonic/olympian/other: chthonic, underworld prince. Rustic, woodland god.
Young and masculine presenting
Roman counterpart: none, by Rome he'd mostly been lost but was still mentioned every so often as Zagreus.

Relations

• Mother: Persephone. His mother is ALWAYS Persephone across all myth making him crown prince of the underworld.
• Father: Earliest account says Hades, but later became associated with Zeus.
• Siblings: Melinoe, Maracia.
• Consort: none we know of
• Children: none we know of

What to worship him for

• Renewal and rebirth, hunting, protection, unveiling or keeping secrets, blood health.

Attributes

• Blood and flesh, specifically raw flesh (in Ancient Greece, consuming raw flesh was a ritualistic thing in some mystery cults).
• The river Styx
• Fire
• Red and black
• Hunting supplies
• The moon
• Horned animals
• Snakes
• Mystery

Epithets

• Nocturnal
• Night-ranging
• The devouring/ devourer
• Mēn and Sabazius (see 'Zagreus and other gods' for explanation)
• Insatiable

Notes on Zagreus

• Zagreus literally means "great hunter" meaning he was at some point a hunter god.
• Has been described as a horned god, so probably has horns and has something to do with animals.
• Most excerpts talk about Hades being his father, it seems Zeus came into the story as Zagreus started to become Dionysus.
• Possible connections with the gods Mēn and Sabazios.

Key Myths

• Aeschylus, Fragment 124 Sisyphus (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.):
  "Now I came to bid farewell to Zagreus and to his sire, the Hospitaler (Hades)."
  This fragment shows Zagreus as Hades' son and the prince of the underworld.

• Kretes by Euripedes, ~400 BC:
  "Pure is the life I have maintained since I became a herdsman of nocturnal Zagreus, after performing feasts of raw flesh."

Zagreus and Other Gods

Zagreus likely existed in Greece so early, we don't have a single remaining record of how he was worshipped and depicted when he was first named. He absorbed aspects of Mēn and Sabazios and became the blood, rebirth, prince of the underworld we know him as now.
When Orphism came along, Dionysus split off him and became his own god, leaving Zagreus largely in the past.

Conclusion

So, that concludes Zagreus. The massive mystery god of blood and rebirth who absorbed other gods and split off a whole new god. History is wild.