Thread by @VeraCausa9

"They [Tyrrhenian pirates] leapt out overboard...all into the bright sea,escaping from a miserable fate & were changed into dolphins"
-Homeric Hymn 7 to Dionysus-6th-7th c. BC

Black-figure kylix: Dionysus after turning the Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins-530 BC-Exekias painter

Exquisitely done by Exekias, the greatest black-figure potter/painter. Dionysus reclines on a dolphin-shaped boat while grapevines laden with seven bunches miraculously sprout beside its mast, and seven dolphins/pirates swim in a coral-red sea around the boat-ca. 530 BC

The Tyrrhenians is an exonym used by Greek authors referring to non-Greeks but according to Strabo they're Etruscans for whom the Tyrrhenian Sea is named after. However, Herodotus associates them with non-Hellenic people, the Pelasgians in Thrace. [1]

The Black-figure kylix tondo showing Dionysus & Tyrrhenian pirates turned into dolphins-[530 BC-Exekias painter] is at the Antikensammlungen, Munich. [1]

The English word dolphin derives from ancient Greek δελφίς [delphís] related to δελφύς [delphus] "womb". Thus the name dolphin could be interpreted as "a fish with a womb."

Dolphin bronze sculpture-Greece-ca. 300 BC-AD 100 @LACMA

This gold ring has a wonderful iconography with an intaglio of a Lion attacking a Dolphin-Greek made around ca.425-400 BC. In the Hymn 7 to Dionysus, the wine god changed into a dreadful lion on the ship before turning the Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins @mfaboston

Black-figured amphora depicts Dionysus sharing wine w/ his son Oinopion [detail]-c. 540-530 BC

Another exquisite Exekias work: Dionysus holds in his left hand vine-branches that swoop upwards/downwards in a beautiful use of amphora space.
@britishmuseum

Dionysus taught the art of wine-drinking to his son Oenopion [as seen in the above amphora]. His name Oenopion derives from Ancient Greek: Οἰνοπίων, Oinopíōn, or "wine drinker"/"wine-rich."

Michelangelo-Bacchus-marble detail 1496-97-Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

According to myth, Oenopion was the son of Dionysus & Ariadne, making him the grandson of the Cretan king Minos. He later became king of Chios. [1]

Dionysus' epithet Akratophoros (Ἀκρατοφόρος), meant he was the giver of unmixed wine & according to Pausanias worshiped as such at Phigaleia in Arcadia.

Red-figured neck-amphora: Dionysos ivy-wreathed, in long sleeved chiton holding oinochoe & vine with two branches-c. 490 BC