In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 Semachos was a doublet of Ikarios, the recipient of Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

' gift of wine

Ancient Greece and wine

The influence of ancient Greece on wine is significant not only to the Greek wine industry but to the development of almost all European wine regions and to the history of wine itself...

, who welcomed Dionysus to Attica

Attica

Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...

, with a tragic outcome. Semachos was the founder-hero of the Athenian priestesses of Dionysus, the Semachidai.

The name could be given a Hellenic twist by linking it with machia, "battle", but M.C. Astour recommended a derivation from a Northwest Semitic word

Northwest Semitic languages

The Northwest Semitic languages form a medium-level division of the Semitic language family. The languages of this group are spoken by approximately eight million people today. The group is generally divided into three branches: Ugaritic , Canaanite and Aramaic...

, represented by the Hebrew šimah, "made to rejoice".

Dionysus was welcomed by the women of Semachos' oikos

Oikos

An oikos is the ancient Greek equivalent of a household, house, or family....

. His daughter received the gift of a deer skin (nebris), which Karl Kerenyi

Karl Kerényi

Károly Kerényi was a Hungarian scholar in classical philology, one of the founders of modern studies in Greek mythology.- Hungary 1897–1943 :...

 identified as the bestowal of the rite of maenad

Maenad

In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus , the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones"...

s in rending limb from limb the animals they sacrificed to Dionysus: "nebrizein also means the rending of an animal."

The date of the introduction of wine making to Greece, which certainly occurred during the Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

, was given the confident precision of 1497 BCE by Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

 in his adaptation

Chronicon (Jerome)

The Chronicle was a universal chronicle, one of Jerome's earliest attempts in the department of history...

 of Eusebius' Chronicon

Chronicon (Eusebius)

The Chronicon or Chronicle was a work in two books by Eusebius of Caesarea. It seems to have been compiled in the early 4th century. It contained a world chronicle from Abraham until the vicennalia of Constantine I in 325 AD...

.

An inscription records the site of the heroon

Heroon

A heroon , also called heroum, was a shrine dedicated to an ancient Greek or Roman hero and used for the commemoration or cult worship of the hero. It was often erected over his supposed tomb or cenotaph....

of Semachos, which lay along the pathway that led to Laurion.