ARIADNE (’Αριάδνη = Άριάγντ?, the Cretan form of αγνό? being άδνό?), in Greek Mythology, a personification of the return of Spring, at which period took place, it was believed, Ariadne’s marriage with Dionysos (Bacchus), who also, after an absence throughout the winter, was thought to return amid the rejoicings of spring. This marriage was the great feature in her worship, which appears to have originated in Crete, and to have been mostly confined to that island and to Naxus, where annually it was celebrated by the people with dances and a festival called Theodaisia. But though married to Dionysos, and sometimes called his wife (άκοιτι?, Hesiod, Theogony, 948), she did not generally appear in this character. On the contrary, in the Odyssey (xi. 321-325), it is said that Artemis slew her, with the consent of Dionysos, at Dia (near Cnossus), before she could reach Athens with Theseus. Her death would thus seem a punishment for her infidelity. But in the current legend her connection with Dionysos did not begin till he found her asleep in Naxus after her despair at being abandoned by Theseus, with whom she had escaped from Crete after assisting him against her father, the fierce Minos, to slay the Minotaur. She had given Theseus a clue by means of which, while she retained the other end, he could find his way through the labyrinth, in which he had to fight that monster with human body and bull’s head. In the Iliad (xviii. 591) she is spoken of as the fair-haired Ariadne, for whom Daedalus had skilfully made a dancing-place (χορό?) in Cnossus, and it is probable that the reference here is to the dances with which her marriage was celebrated in Crete. Possibly also the description of her as a daughter of Minos, which is as early as the ...