[27]. Smith, Dictionary; Keightley’s Mythology; Montalembert, Monks of the West; Michaelis.
Section VIII.—Dionysos.
The god of wine and revelry appears to have been adopted into Greek worship at a later period than the higher divinities embodying loftier ideas. So wild and discordant are the legends respecting him, that it is probable that in the Bacchus, or Dionysos, whom the historical Greeks adored, several myths are united; the leading ones being, on the one hand, the naturalistic deity of the vine; on the other, some dimly remembered conqueror.
Dionysos has never been satisfactorily explained, though the most obvious conclusion is that it means the god of Nysa—a mountain where he was nursed by nymphs in a cave. Others make his mother Dione one of the original mythic ideas of a divine creature, the daughter of Heaven and Earth, and afterwards supposed to be the mother of Aphrodite.
Names given in honour of Dionysos were very common in Greece, and especially in the colony of Sicily, where Dion was also in use. Dionysios, the tyrant, seemed only to make the name more universally known, and most of the tales of tyranny clustered round him—such as the story of his ear, of the sword of Damocles, and the devotion of Damon and Pythias.
In the time of the Apostles, Dionysius was very frequent, and gave the name of the Areopagite mentioned by St. Paul, of several more early saints, and of a bishop who, in 272, was sent to convert the Gauls, and was martyred near Paris. The Abbey erected on the spot where he died was placed under the special protection of the Counts of Paris; and when they dethroned the sons of Charlemagne and became kings of France, St. Denys, as they called their saint, became the patron of the country; the banner of the convent, the Oriflamme, was unfurled in their national wars, and Mont joie St. Denys was their war-cry. St. Denys of France was invoked, together with St. Michael, in knighting their young men; and St. Denys of France was received as one of the Seven Champions of Christendom.
The Sicilians, having a certain confusion in their minds between the champion and the tyrant of Syracuse, have taken San Dionigi for their patron; he is also in high favour in Portugal as Diniz, and in Spain as Dionis. Denis is a very frequent Irish name, as a substitute for Donogh; and, to judge by the number of the surnames, Dennis, Denison, and Tennyson or Tenison, it would seem to have been more common in England than at present. The Russians have Dionissij; the Bohemians, Diwis; the Slavonians, Tennis; the Hungarians, Dienes. The feminine is the French Denise; English, Dionisia, Donnet, Dennet or Diot, which seem to have been at one time very common in England.[[28]]
[28]. Liddell and Scott, Keightley, Michaelis, Smith.