Dirce

Dirce seized Antiope and dragged her away, after years of keeping her imprisoned and treating her cruelly. Antiope was the daughter of Nycteus. After Zeus made her pregnant, she fled to Epopeus, king of Sicyon, and became his wife. Lycus later defeated the Sicyonians, killed Epopeus, and brought Antiope back to Thebes as a prisoner.

On the journey, Antiope gave birth to twin sons, Amphion and Zethus. Lycus ordered them to be exposed on Mount Cithaeron. A shepherd or cattleman found them and preserved their lives. The boys grew up among cattlemen, while Antiope remained in confinement with Lycus and Dirce. One day, her bonds came loose without the jailers’ knowledge. She escaped and went to the dwelling where her sons lived on Mount Cithaeron.

The accounts differ over what happened there. In one, Amphion and Zethus recognised Antiope as their mother and listened angrily to her account of Dirce’s cruelty. In another, they mistook her for a runaway slave and refused her shelter. A cattleman then told them that they had rejected their mother and should fear the Furies. Dirce arrived in a Bacchic frenzy and seized Antiope again. The sons learned the truth and resolved to avenge her.

Amphion and Zethus went to Thebes, killed Lycus, and took Dirce to Mount Cithaeron. There they tied her by the hair to the horns of a wild bull. The bull dragged her over the ground until she died. They threw down her body, and a spring rose where it lay. The spring was called Dirce, or the Dircaean Stream. In another version, Dionysus, avenging Dirce as his devotee, caused the spring to appear or transformed her into it. That account also says that Dionysus drove Antiope mad, until Phocus, a grandson of Sisyphus, cured and married her in Phocis.