Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

When Dionysus first came into Attica, he was received by Icarius of the deme Icaria, who offered hospitality. In return the god gave him the vine and taught him to make wine—the first mortal vintage in the Attic aetiology. Icarius loaded skins onto a wagon (or carried jars) and offered the new drink to neighboring shepherds. Unused to wine, they drank deep, grew wild with drunkenness, and thought themselves poisoned. They beat Icarius to death and buried or hid the body. Erigone, Icarius’s daughter, searched with the dog Maera. The hound led her to the corpse (or to the well where he had been thrown). In grief Erigone hanged herself from a tree above her father’s body; Maera leapt into a well or wasted away. Dionysus punished the Athenians with madness: their maidens hanged themselves as Erigone had done, until an oracle ordered expiation—the institution of the Aiora (Swing Festival) and honors for father and daughter. Zeus or Dionysus set them among the stars: Icarius as Boötes (or Arcturus’s driver), Erigone as Virgo, Maera as the Dog Star (or a lesser dog). The myth is Attica’s warning and charter for wine: hospitality rewarded, ignorance of the gift turned to murder, and ritual swinging that remediates hanging-deaths.