The ‘eaten' Dionysus: the invention of a vegetarian campaign? There are only two testimonies of the Orphic version of Dionysus' myth in which, after having killed him, the Titans ate him. The first one appears in Plutarch's treatise About the Eating of Flesh, in which the philosopher interprets these criminals' punishment by Zeus as an allusion to the fate reserved for our soul, which is to be castigated in its turn if we eat flesh. Such a version of the myth is particularly convenient for a defence of vegetarianism! We are therefore entitled to wonder if Plutarch has not, at least developed, if not invented, a mythical component which was not as well known as scholars tend to believe. The second testimony is offered by Olympiodorus, who mentions the story of the ‘eaten' Dionysus in order to assert that our body itself, and not only our soul, is divine because of its coming from the ashes of the Titans who devoured the young god. The tenet supported by this exegesis is the ban on committing suicide and consequently, the resort to this particular version of the myth was essential for Olympiodorus, who might have borrowed it from Plutarch. Each time the philosophical context provides the only decisive clue to understanding how such a mythical component can have appeared.