Who was the Roman god of wine and revelry?

Bacchus was the Roman god of wine and revelry.

Bacchus was Rome’s name for the Greek Dionysus, a deity associated not only with wine but also with vegetation, fertility, festivity, ritual ecstasy, theatre, and religious transformation. Wine represented more than intoxication in his worship: it could signify communal celebration, altered consciousness, seasonal renewal, and the boundary between ordinary life and divine experience.

His cult reached Rome through the Greek communities of southern Italy and other Greek-influenced regions. Romans also connected him with Liber Pater, an older Roman god of wine, fertility, and freedom. This overlap means ancient sources may use Bacchus, Dionysus, or Liber in related contexts, but Bacchus is the standard answer to a Roman wine-god question.

The Bacchanalia, ecstatic festivals held in his honor, became controversial in Rome. In 186 BCE, the Senate issued restrictions on the Bacchanalian rites, although devotion to Bacchus continued. He is often shown with grapevines, ivy, a thyrsus, and an entourage of ecstatic followers.