Bacchus and the Pirates. Plate from Les Images Ou Tableaux De Platte Peinture Des Deux Philostrates Sophistes Grecs, by Blaise de Vigenère, Paris, 1615. Engraving circa 1615, by Leonard Gaultier. Gaultier, or Galter, was a French engraver, born at Mainz about 1561, and died in Paris in 1641. According to Greek Mythology, Bacchus (Dionysus), desired to sail from Icaria to Naxos. He hired a Tyrrhenian pirate ship. However, when the god was on board, they sailed not to Naxos but to Asia, intending to sell him as a slave. So Dionysus turned the mast and oars into snakes, and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes so that the sailors went mad.