Dionysius was no more Asiatic than his Theban kin

Evidence

But what ‘Asiatic origin’? Dionysius was the son of Zeus and Semele, the Theban daughter of Cadmus, who in turn was grandfather of Pentheus. It follows that Dionysius is no more Asiatic than Pentheus. The only grounds for possibly thinking of him as an Asiatic was that he had conquered a large part of Asia (but, on those grounds, one would also have to regard Warren Hastings and General Allenby as Asiatics). — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 39

Categorization

• XREF: Directly rebuts Said’s reading of The Bacchae; connects to the book’s through-line of Orientalism as projection.