Bacchus was the Roman god of vine, grape-harvest, wine-making, wine, fertility, ritual madness, religious ecstasy and theatre. He was one of the many sons of Jove, with his mother being the mortal woman Semele, who was accidentally killed when the chief god revealed himself to her in his divine glory. Despite the mother being dead, the foetus of Dionysus was still alive, being sown to the thigh of Jove to continue to develop.