Dionysus (Bacchus) is the god of wine, vine, ecstasy, theater, and fertility — a liminal, dual-natured god whose festivals (the Dionysia) were central to Athenian civic and religious life [S4][S5][S6]. He is the only Olympian born of a mortal mother: his mother Semele, a mortal princess, was persuaded by Hera to demand proof of Zeus's divinity (a bolt of lightning), and was destroyed by it; Zeus saved the unborn child by sewing him into his thigh until he was ready to be born [S5]. (This is the standard account; a variant gives a double birth.) [S5] He is the patron of the theater — the great tragedy and comedy festivals at Athens were in his honor [S6]. He is a god of transformation and ecstasy, and his followers (the Maenads) are in a state of divine frenzy [S5][S6].