Dionysos at Smyrna

The σύνοδος of the μύσται and τεχνῖται of Dionysos Breiseus at Smyrna has long been known to students from several series of inscriptions. These, although defective in themselves, can be supplemented by the inscriptions of analogous associations, so that the details of the society's organisation are tolerably familiar, and for the present require no further discussion. But certain questions have not so far been decided. Such concern the origin of the god, the meaning of the epithet, and the situation of his temple at Smyrna. The present paper is an attempt to answer these questions, some new evidence having recently come to hand.The earliest certain home of Dionysos Breiseus seems to have been Lesbos, where the name of Brisa has been known for many centuries. Homer's heroine will be recalled: Androtion knew a Lesbian promontory called Βρῆσα: the Lesbos of to-day has a hill and a village called respectively Βρίσιον and Βρίσια.