similar custom was present among the Thracians' Macedonian neighbours, according to which a youth gained the right to sit with adults at feasts only after defeating a boar with his bare hands, and both Thracian and Macedonian art depicted hunters on horseback, denoting the hunt as an aristocratic tradition. In the myth of Harpalyce, this was reflected by how she a skilled huntress was able to avoid traps with great agility and cunning, and was captured only when the members of her tribe used her own traps against her. Completion of the initiation The gender transformation of the initiate was also present in the ritual temporary death which marked completion of the young Thracian warrior's initiation, after which he was reborn into a new status, since the boy could only be reborn as a man and warrior after crossing the gateway into the afterlife. This transition in social status was itself represented in Thracian myth by the violent death of the hero by dismemberment, burning, and devouring, commonly at the hands of a terrifying monster. In ritual it involved the act of tying down using a net (the youth's typical hunting weapon, and an attribute of initiation), as reflected in the myth of Harpalyce, where she traps her prey in nets and eventually dies after being caught in the nets of her father's subjects. This connection between the act of tying and the warrior function in Thracian religion is visible in the name of the goddess , who was a patron of initiation and warriors in her form as a spinner or a huntress with nets, and whose name was derived from the Indo-European root , meaning "to bind". During the initiation rite of the Bendideia, which was held in honour of the goddess and was associated with warriors and the goddess in her huntress form, young men in Thrace showed their skills in mounted torch races. During this rite, the youth were "born" as men and warriors through the passing of burning torches from one to another. A similar custom was practised by the ancient Greeks of Athens, where horse races were held in honour of the city's patron goddess Athena during the Panathenaic Games. Once the Thracian warrior's initiation was completed, he was offered a belt to mark its fulfilment. The warrior and the wolf Due to the association of the wolf with the warrior-god, wolves and dogs