moonpetal

1) Homer, Odyssey 11.320: Artemis kills Ariadne on Dionysus’ request

2) Plutarch, Life of Theseus 20.1: Ariadne was pregnant when Theseus abandoned her and died in childbirth

3) Scholia to the Odyssey 11.325: Ariadne and Theseus had sex on a sacred grove, resulting in 1)

4) D scholia to the Odyssey 11.321 quoting Pherecydes: Artemis killed Ariadne because the latter lost her virginity

5) Nonnus, Dionysiaca 47.665: Ariadne goes to battle alongside Dionysus and Perseus kills her using the head of Medusa

6) Scholia to the Odyssey 11.321: Ariadne marries Theseus and has 2 sons [“That the Odyssey scholia should call Ariadne the wife of Theseus and mother of Akamas and Demophon is stranger still, and surely a confusion with the adjacent Phaidra in the text (Σ Od 11.321).” Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources by Timothy Gantz]

7) Plutarch, Life of Theseus 20.1: Ariadne hanged herself after being abandoned by Theseus

- Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 52

ooooh I remember this line! I was researching Ariadne not long ago and this is one of the earliest mentions we have of her

Robert Eisner in his article Some Anomalies in the Myth of Ariadne suggest that it’s a reference to the version of the myth that is included in the Odyssey:

“Euripides seems to be following the Odyssey version in Hippolytus 339. Phaedra has compared herself to her mother, Pasiphae (337), and now to her sister (Dionúsou dámar). Surely the point is that this is a family of adulterous sinners. For Phaedra to refer here to an upstanding older sister who made a good marriage would be ludicrous. Similarly, the allusion to Ariadne in the Odyssey bears on the main plot. It occurs in the Book of the Dead, which is replete with allusions to unfaithful wives and sexual crimes that received their due punishment. In the Odyssey version, Ariadne's is such a crime.”

The problem is that we don’t have an ancient source where Ariadne cheats on Dionysus, so there’s no certain answer as to why Homer claimed that Dionysus had Ariadne killed. In the scholia to the Odyssey, the author tries to explain Homer’s puzzling reference to Ariadne by saying that she had sex with Theseus on a sacred grove, which angered Dionysus who asked Artemis to kill her (schol. 11.325). Another part of the scholia suggests that: “They say that she was killed by Artemis for giving up her virginity. The story is in Pherecydes.” No infidelity here (at least explicitly), but there’s a sexual transgression. The closest thing that we have to a confirmation of the cheating theory, afaik, is this:

“CROWN: This is thought to be Ariadne's crown, placed by Father Liber among the constellations. For they say that when Ariadne wed Liber on the island of Dia, and all the gods gave her wedding gifts, she first received this crown as a gift from Venus and the Horae. But, as the author of the Cretica says, at the time when Liber came to Minos with the hope of lying with Ariadne, he gave her this crown as a present. Delighted with it, she did not refuse the terms. It is said, too, to have been made of gold and Indian gems, and by its aid Theseus is thought to have come from the gloom of the labyrinth to the day, for the gold and gems made a glow of light in the darkness.” (Hyginus, Astronomica 2.5.1)

Dionysus gives Ariadne an engagement present and Ariadne promptly gives it to Theseus. It reeks of betrayal. If the Cretica refers to Epimenides of Crete, then this version existed before Euripides and could’ve inspired him.

How scholars present the tale of Cura:

(article)

Stark difference, clearly. Theoi emends Cura to Kore, and on those grounds assumes that Cura becomes queen of the dead. The academics believe that Cura is simply the personification of the latin word for care and, though they also add emendations, they leave Cura’s ending as it is written in the original.

“I may cite Alexander as an instance: I fancy that, when he happened to be enjoying a respite from his herdsman's duties on Mount Ida, the thought and with it the desire came to him, what a fortunate and blissful thing it would be to have the most beautiful woman in the whole world to wife, and that neither a throne was as valuable as this prize, nor wealth, nor the conquest of the whole world in war; next he began to speculate as to who and where this woman of his fancy might be, among what people she lived, and by what means he could compass to splendid an alliance; and so he began to despise the nymphs and maidens of Ilium with a prince's disdain and to think them not worth his winning, and in the same way also he despised the women of Lydia and Phrygia, and those in Lesbos and Mysia. But learning that in Sparta there was a certain reputed daughter of Zeus, living in wedlock with Menelaus, a king in his own right and brother of the king of all Greece, a woman whom the first and foremost of the Greeks had wooed and sought to win by offering many wedding-gifts and presents and, to crown all, that she had, according to report, brave brothers twain, Polydeuces and Castor, true sons of Zeus. So he coveted this woman for his wife.”

• Ariadne already worshipped her

"On his voyage from Crete, Theseus put in at Delos, and having sacrificed to the god and dedicated the image of Aphrodite which he had received from Ariadne [...]"- Plutarch, Life of Theseus

• They look the same

"In the meantime Eros [while Ariadne is in Naxos abandoned] mistakenly thought he beheld Aphrodite there, gorgeous weeping resplendent in Naxos where none should feel sadness. Sadness became Ariadne, whose beauty surpassed Aphrodite's, charactered only with joy, Aphrodite's expression was lifeless viewed against lineaments drawn in the chiaroscuro of true grief. - Nonnus, Dionysiaca

• Comfort

"He [Theseus] immediately woke up and did this [abandoned her]. While Ariadne was lamenting, Aphrodite appeared and told her to take heart, for she would become the wife of Dionysos and would be famous."- D scholia to the Iliad

• A precious gift

"[Liber]: I will create a monument of you and your crown, which Volcanus gave Venus and she gave you."- Ovid, Fasti

"When Ariadne wed Liber on the island of Dia, and all the gods gave her wedding gifts, she first received this crown as a gift from Venus and the Horae. But, as the author of the Cretica says, at the time when Liber came to Minos with the hope of lying with Ariadne, he gave her this crown as a present. Delighted with it, she did not refuse the terms."- Hyginus, Astronomica

• They can even be syncretized!

“On Neptune, Salacia and Venilia.

It is well known that Neptune already had a wife, Salacia, whom they explained as being the lower water of the sea. Then for what end was Venilia also joined to him? Without any reason suggested by the prescribed ritual, surely it was only the lust of a prostituted soul that more and more demons might be invited to be its guests. But let us hear the explanation of their renowned theology, giving its due account to set our fault-finding at rest. "Venilia," says Varro, "is the wave that comes (venit) to the shore, Salacia the one that goes back out to sea (in salum)." But why are there two goddesses, when it is the same water that comes in and goes back? Obviously we have here boiling up the same frenzied lust for many gods.”

It seems to be the usual myth of the birth of Dionysus, with some notable additions:

- Semele was possessed during the pregnancy ?? and everyone who touched her belly also became possessed ???? my guess is that this represents Dionysus’ power over madness already being present since the womb

- Hera, while disguised to fool Semele, delivers a scathing speech that boils down to “I hate sluts.”