In the sixth century BC, the tyrant of Athens Pisistratus sought to solidify the support of the common people against rival aristocrats.  One measure he employed to achieve this end was to give prominence to the worship of the immensely popular nature god Dionysus. Pisistratus transformed traditional rural festivals in honor of Dionysus, into a grand urban festival called the Great or City Dionysia, which gradually grew in stature to such a degree that it became an international festival, vying with the Olympics in prestige and popularity. The festival began with a procession escorting an idol representing Dionysus from the town of Eleutherai on the boundary between Attica and Boeotia to the sacred precinct in Athens that included a theater and temple dedicated to Dionysus.  The procession was in commemoration of the introduction of Dionysus’s worship into Athens in the distant past.
 
 

The idol was actually a wooden shaft with a mask attached, garlanded with ivy - perhaps the most common way of depicting Dionysus in the Greek world.  Here we see a mask of the god Dionysus and clothing attached to a pole, much in the manner of a scarecrow.  Three women dressed as maenads, female worshippers of Dionysus surround the idol.  The maenad on the left of the idol is ladling wine into a drinking cup, while the other two maenads dance ecstatically.  The maenad on the right is playing a tambourine.

This representation of Dionysus was set in the theater so that the dithyrambs and tragic and comic dramas could be performed in front of it.  These musical and dramatic performances were originally intended as acts of worship rather than pure entertainment.  Accordingly, the chief human spectator is the priest of Dionysus, who along with other priests and high officials, sat in special seats right at the edge of the orchestra in an area called the prohedria, ‘front-seating’.

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