O vinho, a videira e o cacho em tradições da Antiguidade: Contextos simbólicos, de culto e representação

A perspective of the cultural evolution, origins and expressive representations of the symbolism of the vine and wine is here presented. Archaic models and behaviours would be underlying this same symbolism, involving beliefs and rituals that, in former ages, are not always able to be properly retrieved, but which already participated in myths of immemorial condition. Later records, however, bore witness to the progressive transformation, especially alluding to the fundamental importance of agriculture in ancient societies, and to which they are in particular associated, as in the case of biblical descriptions. In classical civilizations, the symbolism of wine, the vine and the bunch, besides being well presented in the Arts, has its exponent in the Cult of Dionysus-Bacchus. Such Cult, coming from the Near East, entered the Greek cities through nearby regions. Thus, among the Greeks, first, and then among the Romans, while the Dionysian cult still remained a fierce expression of tribal behaviour, it ended up converging in public practices, becoming part of festive calendars and establishing days to evoke fertility and commemorate abundance, whether in winter festivities or during spring at the feasts that celebrated the new wine.