Dirce

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Dirce

Dirce (pronounced Dirke, modern Greek pronunciation Dirki, meaning "double" or "cleft") was the wife of Lycus

Lycus (brother of Nycteus)

In Greek Mythology, Lycus was a ruler of the ancient city of Thebes, Greece. His rule was preceded by the regency of Nycteus, and he was succeeded by the twins Amphion and Zethus....
in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, and aunt

Aunt

An Aunt is a person who is either the sister of a parent or the wife of a brother of a parent. A man with an equivalent relationship is an uncle, and the reciprocal relationship is that of a nephew or niece....
to Antiope

Antiope (mother of Amphion)

In Greek mythology, Antiope was the name of the daughter of the Boeotian river god Asopus, according to Homer; in later poems she is called the daughter of the "nocturnal" king Nycteus of Thebes, Greece or, in the Cypria, of Lycurgus, but for Homer her suites is purely Boeotian....
whom Zeus

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
impregnated. Antiope fled in shame to King Epopeus

Epopeus

Epopeus was a Greek mythology king of Sicyon, with an archaic bird-name that linked him to epops , the hoopoe, the "watcher". A fragment of Callimachus' Aitia appears to ask, "Why, at Sicyon, is it the hoopoe, and not the usual "splendid ravens", that is the Auspice?"...
of Sicyon

Sicyon

Sikyon was an ancient Greece city situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth, Greece and Achaea. The king-list given by Pausanias comprises twenty-four kings, beginning with the autochthonous Aegialeus; the penultimate king of the list, Agamemnon, compels the submission of Sicyon to Mycenae; after him comes the Dorian usurper Pha...
, but was brought back by Lycus through force, giving birth to the twins Amphion and Zethus

Amphion and Zethus

Amphion and Zethus , in ancient Greek mythology, were the twin sons of Zeus by Antiope . They are important characters in one of the two founding myths of the city of Thebes, Greece, because they constructed the city's walls....
on the way. Dirce hated Antiope, and treated her cruelly after Lycus gave Antiope to her; until Antiope, in time, escaped.

In Euripides

Euripides

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Dirce (pronounced Dirke, modern Greek pronunciation Dirki, meaning "double" or "cleft") was the wife of Lycus

Lycus (brother of Nycteus)

Greek mythology

Aunt

Antiope (mother of Amphion)

Zeus

Epopeus

Sicyon

Amphion and Zethus

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
' play Antiope, Antiope flees back to the cave where Amphion and Zethus were born, now living there as young men. They disbelieve her claim to be their mother and refuse her pleas for sanctuary, but when Dirce comes to find Antiope and orders her to be killed, the twins are convinced by the shepherd who raised them that Antiope is their mother. They kill Dirce by tying her to the horns of a bull.

Dirce was devoted to the god Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
. He caused a spring to flow where she died, either at Mount Cithaeron or at Thebes

Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
, and it was a local tradition for the outgoing Theban hipparch to swear in his successor at her tomb.

Dirce in Roman culture

The death of Dirce is depicted in a marble statue, 1st Century AD Roman Copy of a 2nd century BC Hellenistic Greek original, known as the Farnese Bull

Farnese Bull

The Farnese Bull is a massive sculpture attributed to the Rhodian artists Apollonius of Tralles and his brother Tauriscus. We know this thanks to the writings of Pliny the Elder....
, now in the collections of the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. The colossal piece was first excavated in the 16th century in the Baths of Caracalla. Some scholars identify it with the Dirce bull mentioned in Pliny's Natural History, but this is disputed.

This scene was apparently recreated in spectacles in the Roman arena. Clement

Pope Clement I

Pope Saint Clement I, , also known as Saint Clement of Rome , is listed from an early date as one of the first Bishops of Rome. He was the first Apostolic Father of the early Christian church....
, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, recounts how Christian women were martyr

Martyr

The term martyr is most commonly used today to describe an individual who sacrifices his or her life in order to further a cause or belief for many....
ed.

Through envy, those women, the Danaids and Dircae, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments, finished the course of their faith with steadfastness, and though weak in body, received a noble reward.

Sources

Tripp, Edward. Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology. New York: Thomas Crowell Press, 1970.