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. (History of Christian Names, Yonge, 1884).