Dionysus and the Pirates

In Greek mythology Dionysus was the God of wine. 

Dionysus taught his followers the art of tending to grapes and making wine from it. Dionysus was sometimes a bringer of great joy but on the other hand he was also responsible for uncontrolled anger.

It was believed that Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele.

Zeus was one of the main Greek God and his wife was Hera. However Zeus had many lovers and Hera was very jealous of this. 

When Hera learnt that Zeus had fallen in love with a mortal called Semele, Hera wanted revenge. 

Hera went to Semele in disguise and convinced Semele to ask her lover to show his true form.

Semele did not know who Hera was or what Hera wanted. So Semele made Zeus promise her to show her, his true form. 

Unfortunately when Zeus showed his true form, Semele was burnt to a crisp. 

Zeus managed to save Dionysus who was in Semele’s womb. 

Because Dionysus was born from Zeus, Dionysus became immortal.

However Hera was still jealous of Dionysus. 

The Titans were the previous Gods before the Greek Gods led by Zeus came to power. 

After Hera realized that Zeus had saved Dionysus, Hera arranged with some of the Titans to kill Dionysus. 

This time Dionysus was saved by Rhea, who was Zeus’s mother. 

After that Dionysus disguised himself as a human and roamed around the Earth. 

Once when Dionysus was going across the Lands of Greece as a human, Dionysus was seen by some Tyrrhenian pirates.

The pirates kidnapped the human and took him to their boat. The pirates wanted to sell the human into slavery. But no matter how much they tried to bind the human, the pirates could not do it. Further the human also did not say anything nor was he worried at his own predicament.

The pirate ship's pilot was Acoetes.

Acoetes instantly felt that there was something wrong with the human whom they had caught. 

Acoetes tried to plead with the other pirates to free the young man whom they had caught. 

It was at this time that Dionysus revealed his true form. 

The entire pirate ship was filled with vines and terrible beasts. 

The pirates saw this and they were terrified and they dived into the sea. It is said that Dionysus converted these pirates (other than Acoetes) into dolphins and that was the origin of the first dolphins.

Adapted from Greek Mythology