Attic herdsmen to whom Icarius first showed wine — who, thinking themselves bewitched by the strange drink, killed him in drunken fear and were later punished when Athens atoned for neglecting his and Erigone's deaths.1
When Dionysus came to Attica in Pandion's time, Icarius received the god, learned viticulture from a vine-branch, and went to some shepherds to bestow the gift. They tasted the drink and quaffed it copiously without water, imagined they were bewitched, and killed him — though by day they understood and buried him.2
Hyginus tells how Father Liber gave Icarius a skin full of wine and bade him spread its use abroad. Icarius loaded a wagon and showed Attic shepherds what wine could do; when the shepherds, drunk, thought he had given them bad medicine, they beat him to death with clubs.3
After Erigone hanged herself, Apollo declared the Athenians had neglected the deaths of Icarius and Erigone; they avenged the shepherds and instituted the swinging festival in Erigone's honour — the collective punished for the murder that set the Aiora rites and the placing of Icarius among the stars.4
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story