Who is this greek-god?

by Fe1iks

http://imgur.com/a/ypZ0x

This is a statue from a museum in the vatican. I've heard that this is either the god Dionysos or his step-father Silenos. I'm wondering if any of you would know which one it actually is?

I hope this is the correct subreddit to post in.

XenophonTheAthenian

That's Silenus, although if you do a google image search of it there's a surprisingly large number of people who mistakenly think that it's Bacchus. It's not Bacchus, it exhibits none of the features peculiar to statues of Bacchus. Silenus is characterized by looking relatively chunky (his potbelly is not exaggerated in this statue, but he's definitely fatter than...well, every statue of Bacchus) and has a round nose, is bearded, often bald or balding, has this sort of careless garland, and in statues often wears a panther skin. Bacchus shares much of the imagery (particularly the panther skin and the garland) but he's generally a youth without a beard. He's occasionally depicted as bearded but even then Bacchus is always youthful and in excellent physical shape. He's also always handsome and is never bald. I know of literally no images of Bacchus of any kind that have him bald, and Dionysus' long hair is pretty characteristic of the god, as is pointed out in the Bacchae.