On the wine

If you go to "El Museo Nacional del Prado" in Spain, among several of the most important pictures in the history of Mankind, you could see "Baco's triumph" by Diego Velázquez. The picture is also known as "The drunken people". In it, a bunch of men are drinking wine and smiling, surrendering a man who receives a special light. Dressed with a pink mantle, and carrying a laurel crown, he seems to be the leader of the party.

The rest of men are old, bearded and ugly, but this young men seems to be perfect, like if he was a God... Well, that is because he is a God. Roman people called him Baco, the Greeks called him Dionisos. Walt Disney's Fantasy shows him as a happy and fat men, alwais enjoying the parties.

Dionisos was the God of the festivities, the happiness, the wine. He taught men how to make wine, how to cultive grapes. Greeks thought good wine required to be a little time in earth and little time in barrel... As the own Dionisos was at his first days. He was the product of the love that Zeus felt for Semele, a mortal princess (the only woman Zeus loathed was "Fidelity"). However, Hera, completely jaleus and searching for a revenge, dressed her like an old woman, and told Semele the truth about Zeus. Then Semele asked the God that he must show with his true aspect "and if you really love me, then you'll do as I want". Knowing what was about to happen, but knowing also that a God cannot refuse to do what he compromises to do, turned him into the father of Gods, with imperial eagle at her side... And carrying the thunderbolt in his hand. So the palace teardown, and Semele died. He was with child, and Zeus, using his magic, grabbed the little one from Semele's belly, and introduced him into his own leg. After several months, dionisos appeared. A few months within his mother's belly, a few months within his father's leg.

But he was not just a gay and drunken God. On the contrary, was one of the few that remain in Mount Olimpus when the giants attacked, turned himself into a huge lion, and then, in his travels, conquered India and Egypt, and probably all the world, as the wine conquered the world.

But obviously, his favorite moments were in company of men, drinking and laughing and singing and making notoriously "Bacanalia", and making the world a little bit happier, as you could see if you go to "El Prado"