Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians companion #5.5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,132

warned him it was a bad idea, but the king didn’t listen. He put on his black ninja outfit, painted his face with grease and ash, and sneaked out of town. When he reached the edge of Dionysus’s camp, Pentheus climbed a tree and watched the revels with fascination and horror.

The bacchae parties had gotten pretty wild as the army moved around Greece. Some of the mortals, nymphs, and satyrs were content to drink wine and listen to music. Others put on rowdy comic plays, because Dionysus had become the patron god of theater.

But a lot of his followers got much crazier. They built huge bonfires and leaped through them for fun. Others got drunk and staged wrestling matches to the death. Others…well, I’ll have to let you use your imagination. Personally, I’ve never been to Mr. D’s revels. If I went, my mom would ground me for eternity. But there was some crazy stuff going on.

Dionysus’s most hard-core followers were a group of nymphs called the maenads. During the revels they got so frenzied they felt no pain and had absolutely no self-control. They just did whatever came to mind. You had to be careful when the maenads were in the zone, because they could go from super-happy to super-angry in a split second. They were so strong and vicious…Imagine thirty drunk She-Hulks with razor-sharp fingernails, and you’ve got the general idea. They acted as Dionysus’s bodyguards and shock troops, so nobody would ever dare to whip the god again.

That night, they were dancing around Dionysus as he sat in his makeshift wooden throne, drinking wine and toasting his followers. He usually wore the same outfit—purple robes and a wreath of oak leaves. As a symbol of his power he held a special scepter called a thyrsus, which was topped with a pinecone and encircled with grapevines. If that doesn’t sound like much of a weapon, then you’ve probably never been smacked upside the head by a pinecone on a stick.

Anyway, Pentheus watched the revels from up in the tree. He started to realize that this new god Dionysus was much more powerful than he’d thought. Hundreds of Pentheus’s own townspeople were dancing in the crowd. Then he saw an older woman chatting with some satyrs by a bonfire, and his heart turned to lead.

“Mother?” he whimpered.

He didn’t say it very loudly, but somehow the god sensed his presence. At the other end of the clearing, Dionysus casually stood up. He drained his wine cup and strolled over to the tree. Pentheus didn’t dare move. He knew if he tried to run, he’d never make it.

Dionysus leaped up and grabbed a huge branch. It was heavier than any human would’ve been able to bend, but he pulled it down easily. King Pentheus was completely exposed.

The music died. Hundreds of bacchae stared at the spy in the tree.

“Looky here,” Dionsyus said. “The king is trespassing, making a mockery of our sacred rituals.” He turned to the maenads and the rest of the revelers. “What do we do with trespassers, my friends? Show him!”

The crowd swarmed the tree. They pulled down Pentheus and literally torn him to pieces. Even Pentheus’s own mother, overcome with the party spirit, joined the fun.

So, yeah…wine, music, dancing, the occasional gruesome murder. Dionysus definitely knew how to put on a show.

After that incident, not many cities stood in his way. Dionysus had a little trouble in Athens, but once he explained the situation (by driving a lot of Athenian women insane), the city welcomed him and started a yearly festival in his honor. Dionysus even traveled into Egypt and Syria, spreading the good word about wine. Sure, he had a few problems here and there, but if I told you about every time Dionysus drove a king mad or flayed him alive, we’d be here all day. Dionysus was just a never-ending fiesta of fun.

Hera made one last attempt to destroy him and almost succeeded. She separated Dionysus from his army and drove him insane, but Dionysus got better. He rode a talking donkey to an oracle in Dodona, where Zeus cured him. (Long story, and don’t even ask where he got the talking donkey.)

Then one day, Dionysus got married. It only happened because he got captured by pirates.

The night before it happened, the bacchae had thrown an especially huge party on the coast of Italy. The next morning, Dionysus woke with a massive headache. While the rest of the camp was sleeping, Dionysus stumbled to