Bacchus is the Roman god of wine, grape-growing, and fertility. Stories connect him with nights that slip out of control — drinking, dancing, and sex without a lid on them. In Greek myth the same god is called Dionysus; the Romans borrowed him and used this Latin name. You will meet Bacchus in paintings (a young man with vines, a cup, or a ring of followers), in old poetry, and in the adjective bacchanalian. He is a figure from myth that English still uses as a shorthand for wine and wild celebration. Though actually, in Roman religion he was worshipped as a real god, not only as a symbol. He is not a person in history, and Bacchus is not his Greek name.