A mythical king of Thrace, and specifically of the Edoni, he was the son of Ares or of Dryas and the father of Phyllis. When Dionysus wanted to cross Thrace, Lycurgus not only refused him permission but seized the Bacchantes and the Satyrs in his train. But the Bacchantes were miraculously freed and Lycurgus in a fit of madness killed his son, mistaking him for a grapevine. In another version of the story, it was Dionysus himself who blinded the king, tortured him and crucified him. After this incident his oracle pronounced that the soil of Thrace would be barren. In order to restore the fertility of their land, the Edonians punished Lycurgus, tearing him into four pieces on Mount Pangaeon; in other versions he was merely abandoned on the mountainside. Another tradition says that, in the grip of a madness inflicted by Dionysus, Lycurgus tried to rape his own mother and in the end killed both her and his son. It is also related that while fighting with the Bacchantes the king attacked a nymph called Ambrosia, who turned herself into a grapevine to hide from and strangle him.
