The Muses, as well as being associated with Apollo the sun-god are also spoken of in connection with Dionysus, or Bacchus, the god of animal life and vegetation and especially of the vine. He is thought of as the god of the happiness and exuberance that comes from youth or from wine, and is represented as wearing a crown of vine leaves or ivy. He was worshipped with strange ecstatic rites that seemed to lift the people out of their consciousness into communion with the gods. It is in these rites of Dionysus that drama is supposed to have had its origin, and for this reason, perhaps, more than any other, he is associated with the Muses. We have noticed, in the differentiation of the Muses, that Melpomene and Thalia, the muses of drama, were given wreaths of ivy - the ivy sacred to Dionysus. The worship of Dionysus had in it always more of wildness, and more of madness than the worship of Apollo. If a poet is to be regarded as inspired in the sense that the Dionysian revelers were inspired, a certain quality of insanity must belong to him.
For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not as work of art, but because they are inspired and possessed: like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers, when they are under the influence of Dionysus, but not when they are in their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they themselves tell us; for they tell us that they gather their strains from honeyed fountains out of the gardens and dells of the Muses; thither like the bees they wing their way. And this is true. For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles - for not by art does the poet sing but by power divine.
The power of the gods was believed to reach man through a series of intermediary forces and, through certain material things sacred to the gods, to be communicated to men. Thus, the power of Apollo and Dionysus was delegated to the Muses who should distribute it to the worthy among men. Everything, then, connected in story with the Muses or the gods was supposed to have their power. In the case of poetic inspiration we may see how various places or things associated with the belief in Apollo, Dionysus, or the Muses came to be regarded as sources or as symbols of inspiratory power. Throughout literature we shall find significant mention of the mounts of Parnassus, Helicon or Olympus, of the various holy springs or places of the oracles, of the lyre, the laurel, or the ivy, as denoting power of bestowing inspiration such as the Muses are called upon to give.
ā The Idea of Poetic Inspiration in the Eighteenth Century by Lillian Bean
Dion were not related only to Zeus. There is a notable mention of them in relation to Dionysus on an inscription dating to the period of the last Macedonian King. On the pedestal of an honorary statue of Perseus (179-168 B.C.) it is mentioned that the āMousaistai,ā i.e. the worshippers of the Muses and Dionysus who formed a group together, offered the statue of the King to the Muses and to Dionysus to honour his virtue, his benevolence towards their āKoinonā and his piety [ā¦] The sanctuary of the Muses at Dion has not been found; there is, however, suggestive and reliable evidence that it might have been situated near the sanctuaries of Olympian Zeus and Dionysus, which were close to one another, in an area rich in water supply.
ā Cults of Female Deities at Dion by Semeli Pingiatoglou
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