InGreek mythology,Ariadne (/ˌæriˈædni/ⓘ;Ancient Greek:Ἀριάδνη;Latin:Ariadne) was a Cretan princess, the daughter ofKing Minos ofCrete. There are variations of Ariadne's myth, but she is known for helpingTheseus escape from theMinotaur and being abandoned by him (or herself dying) on the island ofNaxos. There,Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping, fell in love with her, and later married her. Many versions of the myth recount Dionysus throwing Ariadne's jeweled crown into the sky to create a constellation, theCorona Borealis.[1][2]
Ariadne is associated withmazes andlabyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of Theseus and the Minotaur.
There were also festivals held in Cyprus and Naxos in Ariadne's honor.[3][4]
LinguistRobert S. P. Beekes has also supported Ariadne having a pre-Greek origin; specifically beingMinoan from Crete because her name includes the sequencedn (δν), rare in Indo-European languages and an indication that it is a Minoanloanword.[8]
Minos put Ariadne in charge of thelabyrinth where sacrifices were made as part of reparations either toPoseidon orAthena, depending on the version of the myth; later, she helpedTheseus conquer theMinotaur and save the children from sacrifice. In other narrations she was the bride ofDionysus, her status as mortal or divine varying in those accounts.[16][17]
Becauseancient Greek myths were orally transmitted, like other myths, that of Ariadne has many variations. According to an Athenian version,Minos attackedAthens after his son,Androgeus, was killed there. The Athenians asked for terms and were required to sacrifice7 young men and 7 maidens to theMinotaur every 1, 7 or 9 years (depending on the source).[18] One year, the sacrificial party includedTheseus, the son of KingAegeus, who volunteered in order to kill theMinotaur.[19] At first sight, Ariadne fell in love with him and provided him a sword and ball of thread (ο Μίτος της Αριάδνης, "Ariadne's string") so that he could retrace his way out of the labyrinth of the Minotaur.[12]
Ariadne betrayed her father and her country for her lover Theseus. She eloped withTheseus after he killed theMinotaur, yet according toHomer in theOdyssey "he had no joy of her, for ere that,Artemis slew her in seagirt Dia because of the witness ofDionysus". The phrase "seagirt Dia" refers to the uninhabited island of Dia, which lies off the northern coast of the Greek island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. Dia may have referred to the island ofNaxos.
Most accounts claim that Theseus abandoned Ariadne onNaxos, and in some versionsPerseus mortally wounds her. According to some,Dionysus claimed Ariadne as wife, therefore causing Theseus to abandon her.[20] Homer does not elaborate on the nature of Dionysus's accusation, yet theOxford Classical Dictionary speculated that she was already married to him when she eloped with Theseus. According to Plutarch, Paion the Amathusian recounted Theseus accidentally abandoned Ariadne only to come back when it was too late.[12]
A Greek Epigrams Pompeii Plate by Geremia Discanno depicting Ariadne abandoned on the island Naxos
InHesiod's work, among others,Dionysus discovered and wedded her on Naxos. In a number of versions of the myth,[21]Dionysus appeared toTheseus as they sailed fromCrete, saying that he had chosen Ariadne as his wife and demanding that Theseus leave her onNaxos for him.[20] Vase painters often depictedAthena orHermes leading Theseus from the sleeping Ariadne to his ship.[citation needed]
Ariadne boreDionysus famous children, including Oenopion, Staphylus, andThoas. Dionysus set her weddingdiadem in the heavens as the constellationCorona Borealis. Ariadne was faithful to Dionysus. In one version of her myth,Perseus killed her atArgos by turning her to stone with the head ofMedusa during Perseus's war with Dionysus.[22] TheOdyssey relates that Theseus took Ariadne away from Crete only forArtemis to kill her in Dia (usually identified with Naxos) on Dionysus's witness.[23] An ancient scholiast wrote that Ariadne and Theseus had sex on a sacred grove, and an angry Dionysus revealed that to Artemis, who proceeded to punish Ariadne with death.[24]
According toPlutarch, one version of the myth tells that Ariadne hanged herself after being abandoned by Theseus.[25] Dionysus then went to Hades, and brought her and his motherSemele toMount Olympus, where they were deified.[citation needed]
Karl Kerenyi theorized that Ariadne, whose name they thought derived fromHesychius's enumeration of "Άδνον", a Cretan-Greek form of "arihagne" ("utterly pure"), was aGreat Goddess ofCrete, "the first divine personage of Greek mythology to be immediately recognized in Crete",[29] once archaeological investigation began. Kerenyi observed that her name was merely anepithet and claimed that she was originally the "Mistress of theLabyrinth", both a winding dancing ground and, in the Greek opinion, a prison with the dreadedMinotaur in its centre. Kerenyi explained that aLinear B inscription fromKnossos "to all the gods, honey… [,] to the mistress of the labyrinth honey" in equal amounts, implied to him that the Mistress of the Labyrinth was a Great Goddess in her own right.[30] Professor Barry Powell suggested that she was theSnake Goddess of Minoan Crete.[31]
Plutarch, in his Life ofTheseus, which treats him as a historical person, reported that in contemporaryNaxos was an earthly Ariadne, who was distinct from a divine one:
Some of the Naxians also have a story of their own, that there were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, one of whom, they say, was married to Dionysos in Naxos and bore him Staphylos and his brother, and the other, of a later time, having been carried off by Theseus and then abandoned by him, came to Naxos, accompanied by a nurse named Korkyne, whose tomb they show; and that this Ariadne also died there.[32]
TheVaticanSleeping Ariadne, long erroneously identified asCleopatra, a Roman marble in late Hellenistic style
An ancient cult ofAphrodite-Ariadne was observed atAmathus,Cyprus, according to the obscureHellenistic mythographerPaeon of Amathus; his works are lost, but his narrative is among the sources thatPlutarch cited in hisvita ofTheseus (20.3–5). According to the myth that was current at Amathus, the second most important Cypriot cult centre of Aphrodite, Theseus's ship was swept off course and the pregnant and suffering Ariadne put ashore in the storm. Theseus, attempting to secure the ship, was inadvertently swept out to sea, thus being absolved of abandoning Ariadne. The Cypriot women cared for Ariadne, who died in childbirth and was memorialized in a shrine. Theseus, overcome with grief upon his return, left money for sacrifices to Ariadne and ordered twocult images, one of silver and one of bronze, erected.
At the observation in her honour on the second day of the monthGorpiaeus, a young man lay on the ground and vicariously experienced the throes of labour. Thesacred grove in which the shrine was located was denominated the "Grove of Aphrodite-Ariadne".[33] According to Cypriot legend, Ariadne's tomb was located within thetemenos of the sanctuary of Aphrodite-Ariadne.[34] The primitive nature of the cult at Amathus in this narrative appears to be much older than the Athenian sanctioned shrine of Aphrodite, who at Amathus received "Ariadne" (derived from "hagne", "sacred") as anepithet.[citation needed]
Ariadneia (ἀριάδνεια) festivals honored Ariadne and were held inNaxos andCyprus.[37] According toPlutarch, some Naxians believed there were two Ariadnes, one of which died on the island of Naxos after being abandoned by Theseus. The Ariadneia festival honors Naxos as the place of her death with sacrifices and mourning.[3][38]Paeon, as stated by Plutarch, attributes the Ariadneia festival in Cyprus to Theseus, who left money to the island so sacrifices could be made to commemorate Ariadne. Sacrifices were held in the grove of Ariadne Aphrodite, where Ariadne's tomb resided. During these sacrifices, a young man shall lie down and mimic a woman in labour by crying out and gesturing on the second day of the month,Gorpiaeus. One silver and one bronze statuette were also constructed in her honor.
Ariadne, inEtruscanAreatha, is paired withDionysus, in Etruscan "Fufluns", on Etruscan engravedbronze mirror backs, where the Athenian cultural heroTheseus is absent, andSemele, in Etruscan "Semla", as mother of Dionysus, may accompany the pair,[39] lending an especially Etruscan air[40] of familial authority.
^Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010).Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Volume I, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek. Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2010. p. 130.ISBN978-90-04-17420-7.
^Homer,Odyssey, 11.320; Hesiod,Theogony, 947; and later authors.
^Pasiphaë is mentioned as mother of Ariadne inApollodorus, --therefore making Ariadne a granddaughter of Helios, the titan of the sun. 3.1.2 (Pasiphaë, daughter of the Sun); Apollonius,Argonautica, 3.997; and Hyginus,Fabulae, 224.
^In creating a "biography" for a historicized Ariadne, Theseus's having abandoned her on Naxos explains her presence there; in assembling a set of biographical narrative episodes, this would have had to be placedafter her abduction from Knossos. In keeping with the office of Minos as King of Crete, Ariadne came to bear the late title of "Princess". The culmination of this rationalization is the realistic historicizing fiction ofMary Renault,The Bull from the Sea (1962).
^Berg, Nicole M. (2020). "Inserting Sources inSpartacus".Discovering Kubrick's Symbolism: The Secrets of the Films. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 207.ISBN9781476680491. Retrieved12 February 2023.In the movie, Bacchus himself is reclining in the arms of Ariadne (the weaving goddess) [...].
^Wedeck, Harry E., ed. (1963). "Tibullus".Classics of Roman Literature. Translated byElton, C. A. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 121–122.ISBN9781442233812. Retrieved12 February 2023. Know, father Bacchus hates the mournful lay. So thou, O Cretan maid! didst once deplore A perjured tongue, left lonely on the shore, As skill'd Catullus tells, who paints in song The ingrate Theseus, Ariadne's wrong. Take warning, Youths! oh blest! whoe'er shall know The art to profit by another's woe. Let not the hanging nymph's embrace deceive, Nor protestations of base tongues believe [...].{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Compare an alternative translation of the equivalent passage from Tibullus's Sixth Elegy byTheodore Chickering Williams:
"Delightful Bacchus at his mystery Forbids these words of woe.
Once, by the wave, lone Ariadne pale, Abandoned of false Theseus, weeping stood:— Our wise Catullus tells the doleful tale Of love's ingratitude.
Take warning friends! How fortunate is he, Who learns of others' loss his own to shun! Trust not caressing arms and sighs, nor be By flatteries undone!"
^Larson, Jennifer Lynn (1995). "The Wrongful Death of the Heroine".Greek Heroine Cults. Wisconsin studies in classics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 141.ISBN9780299143701. Retrieved12 February 2023.The motif of the hanged goddess or heroine is quite widespread. [...] the thread running through most of these stories is that they involve heroines who die a wrongful death. The sameaetion is used all over the Greek world to explain hanging or swinging rituals. Hanging is a particularly feminine form of death in the Greek mind [...].
^Kerenyi (1976),Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, p. 89.
^Barry B. Powell,Classical Myth, 2nd ed., with new translations of ancient texts by Herbert M. Howe, Upper Saddle River,NJ, USA, Prentice-Hall, 1998, p. 368.
^For example on the mirror engraving reproduced inLarissa Bonfante andJudith Swaddling,Etruscan Myths,The Legendary Past series, University of Texas/British Museum, 2006, fig. 25, p. 41.
^"The married couple is ubiquitous in Etruscan art. It is appropriate to the social situation of the Etruscan aristocracy, in which the wife's family played as important a role in the family's genealogy as that of the husband." (Bonfante and Swaddling, 2006, 51f.).
Kerenyi, Karl.Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, part I.iii "The Cretan core of the Dionysos myth" Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
Peck, Harry Thurston.Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898).
Ruck, Carl A. P. and Danny Staples.The World of Classical Myth. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1994.
Barthes, Roland, "Camera Lucida". Barthes quotes Nietzsche, "A labyrinthine man never seeks the truth, but only his Ariadne," using Ariadne in reference to his mother, who had recently died.
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