underworld and his similarity to Dionysus rests in his role as one of the initiators of the Eleusinian Mysteries, themselves founded by the Thracian Eumolpus and dedicated to the chthonic deities Demeter, Persephone, and Hades, to whom was later added Dionysus as the son of Persephone because of his association in Anatolia with the Mother of Gods, who in the Eleusinian Mysteries were personified by Demeter and her daughter Persephone. Orpheus thus founded the Eleusinian Mysteries, that is the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone, and introduced the mystery cult of Dionysus, which arrived into Greece from Thrace, with that of the Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter, that is of the Great Mother of the Gods, whose cult arrived from Crete or Phoenicia to Greece via Thrace. Orpheus's wife Eurydice soon died of a snake-bite: Dionysus's Meanads fastened their animal skins and their wreaths with snakes and allowed them to lick their faces without being bitten since they were under the protection of the god; however, Eurydice's protection was removed by Dionysus and therefore died from interacting with snakes as a warning of the god to Orpheus before his final punishment. Unconsolable at the death of Eurydice, Orpheus calmed down Cerberus and pleased Hades and Persephone with his music and they allowed him to take Eurydice back from the underworld on condition that he should not look at her before the Sun-god he worshipped had seen her, only for him to lose her again because he looked at her before the Sun could. This myth of Orpheus's descent into the underworld is another record of the chthonic association of Orpheus, and it also paralleled the Greek myth of Dionysus's own descent into the underworld, from where he was successfully able to free his mother Semele. Dionysus finally sent the Maenads to punish Orpheus: the women of the Cicones, whom Orpheus had forbidden to participate in the orgiastic rites of Dionysus although the god's retinue was composed of only women, and who resented that Orpheus had deprived them of their men by convincing them to accompany him on his wanderings, decided to kill Orpheus. Initially afraid to act out of fear of their husbands, the women found the courage they needed when they drank wine: it was by the direct intervention of Dionysus, who roused them through the wine, that they became Maenads, dismembered Orpheus and scattered the pieces of his body. The