Zagreus

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Zagreus (Ancient Greek: Ζαγρεύς, romanized: Zagreus) was a god sometimes identified with an Orphic Dionysus who was dismembered by the Titans and reborn. In the earliest mention of Zagreus, he is paired with Gaia and called the "highest" god, though perhaps only in reference to the gods of the underworld. Aeschylus, however, links Zagreus with Hades, possibly as Hades' son, or as Hades himself. Noting "Hades' identity as Zeus' katachthonios alter ego", Timothy Gantz postulated that Zagreus, originally the son of Hades and Persephone, later merged with the Orphic Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone.

According to Martin Litchfield West, the "most plausible etymology" derives "Zagreus" from zagre, which is "properly a pit for catching animals, but perhaps also one used for depositing animal remains or offerings to a chthonic deity", making Zagreus literally the "god of pitfalls". Based on this etymology, Karl Kerényi concludes that zagreus was the Greek word for a "hunter who catches living animals", and that "an exact translation" of "Zagreus" would be "catcher of game".

As West notes, the word zagre, which only survives in Hesychius, has an Ionic ending. So if "Zagreus" does derive from zagre, then this would suggest an Ionian origin for Zagreus. But, according to Kerényi, Hesychius' definition of zagre, "proves that the name contains the root zoë and zoön", the Greek words for "life" and "Living thing", and according to West "the vocalism, Zā- for Zō-, points to a Doric or North-west Greek home for the god".

The tenth-century Etymologicum Gudianum interpreted the name as "great hunter", deriving the word from za- ("very") and agreuein ("hunt"), an etymology rejected by both West and Kerényi. Others have suggested a relationship with the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. While Michael C. Astour suggests a derivation from the Ugaritic Sġr (pronounced ṣaġru?) meaning "the Young One".

The early mentions of Zagreus, which occur only in fragments from lost works, connect Zagreus with the Greek underworld. The earliest is in a single quoted line from the (6th century BC?) epic Alcmeonis:

Mistress Earth [Gaia], and Zagreus highest of all the gods.

Perhaps here meaning the highest god of the underworld.

Evidently for Aeschylus, Zagreus was, in fact, an underworld god. In a fragment from one of Aeschylus' lost Sisyphus plays (c. 5th century BC), Zagreus seems to be the son of Hades, while in Aeschylus' Egyptians (Aigyptioi), Zagreus was apparently identified with Hades himself.