therefore become the king of the land of music, if he won. This story preserved the story of the Hero 's hierogamy with the great goddess . Orpheus in Thracian Orphism Orpheus's appearance in the Thracian Orphic myth (which is preserved in the Greek myth of Dionysus and Orpheus) is characterised by his reformation of the religion of which makes the knowledge of the mysteries of the god available to men only. In revenge for not allowing them to see or participate in the mysteries reserved for men, the women of the Cicones tribe drink wine and take up the weapons of their men left at the entrance of the chamber where they were celebrating the Orphic mysteries, thus becoming Maenads possessed by divine fury, and dismember Orpheus and throw his dismembered parts in the Hebrus river. The dismemberment of Orpheus, the first teacher of the mysteries of and , replicated the dismemberment of himself. The gods turned his head into a sacred snake and his lyre into a constellation, and from his blood the cithara plant grew on the Mount Pangaeum, which was one of the places considered to be the most sacred to . Henceforth, legend claimed that whenever 's chthonic aspect (Dionysus-Zagreus) was worshipped on this mountain, the cithara plant would resound like a lyre or cithara. After killing Orpheus, the Cicones women are marked with tattoos and their husbands returned to them, and they become the mothers of their clans. Orpheus thus existed as a substitute for the "Dionysian" aspect of , as is demonstrated by both their deaths by dismemberment, the sites of their respective graves being sanctuaries, and humanity being born of the "Dionysian" 's ashes and the Earth becoming barren after Orpheus's death until his head had been found and buried. As substitute for , Orpheus was also a hero in his own right, with his characteristics following the same general pattern of Thracian heroes: he was the son of the Great Goddess, and he fought against the forces of evil to protect the Tree of Life and maintain order in the world. Since the Thracians did not perceive the world in terms of linear time, and therefore conceptualised their religion and myths not as histories of ancient pasts, but as occurring in the present, and there was no difference between the mythical and heroic past and the present in Thracian religion, the