Download or read book Dionysus written by Edward Hyams and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description -- This is the story of a sacred plant, Vitis vinifera, the grape-vine, from its pre-historic origins in western Asia to its spectacular expansion north, east, and west, and its final conquest of the world with the planting of vines in the southern hemisphere in the last century. The vine has been a symbol of both pagan and Christian deities from earliest times; indeed its history is so interwoven with the history of religion that god and vine are sometimes scarcely to be distinguished. The author describes how the vine has been cultivated, what sorts of wines have been drunk, how they were made and taxed, and how they have affected people's lives. It is the account of a single plant species through the eighty centuries of its association with man.