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Dionysus discovered the vine,
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and being driven mad by Hera
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he roamed about
Egypt and
Syria. At first he was received by Proteus, king of
Egypt,
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but afterwards he arrived at Cybela in
Phrygia.
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And there, after he had been purified by Rhea and learned the rites of initiation, he received from her the costume and hastened through
Thrace against the Indians. But Lycurgus, son of Dryas, was king of the Edonians, who dwell beside the river Strymon, and he was the first who insulted and expelled him.
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Dionysus took refuge in the sea with Thetis, daughter of Nereus, and the Bacchanals were taken prisoners together with the multitude of Satyrs that attended him. But afterwards the Bacchanals were suddenly released, and Dionysus drove Lycurgus mad. And in his madness he struck his son Dryas dead with an axe, imagining that he was lopping a branch of a vine, and when he had cut off
his son's extremities,
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he recovered his senses.
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But the land remaining barren, the god declared oracularly that it would bear fruit if Lycurgus were put to death. On hearing that, the Edonians led him to
Mount Pangaeum and bound him, and there by the will of Dionysus he died, destroyed by horses.
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