6. Dionysus Made Lycurgus Slay His Own Family, Then Got His Subjects to Slay Him
Unsurprisingly, Dionysus was not too happy with Lycurgus and his disrespectful and impious attitude. So he set out to visit divine vengeance upon the Thracian king, took away his sanity, and reduced him to a raving nut. In his madness, Lycurgus slew his wife and family. In a tragic divinely ordained twist, Dionysus made the king who ordered all grape vines cut down imagine that his own son was a vine. So the crazy king chopped him to death with a sword, and pruned away his ears, nose, fingers and toes.
That was not enough vengeance for Dionysus, however, who was not done yet with the Thracian ruler. The wine god laid a curse upon Lycurgus’ kingdom, and rendered its soil barren and incapable of producing fruit. The desperate Edonians sought advice from an oracle, who told them that fertility would not return to their land until Lycurgus was killed. So the Edonians seized their ruler, tied him up, and flung him to a man-eating horse that tore Lycurgus to pieces.
