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Wedding of Ariadne and Dionysus
When Theseus, son of the King of Athens, arrived on Crete in his
attempt to slay the
Minotaur, he fell in
love with Ariadne,
King Minos's daughter.
Falling, in turn, for Theseus, Ariadne provided him with a sword to
kill the Minotaur and a ball of thread to follow back out of the
Labyrinth. After slaughtering the beast, which devoured seven youths
and seven maidens supplied by Athens every year in a tribute exacted
by Minos, Theseus escaped Crete with Ariadne. But he later abandoned
her on the island of Naxos. Fortunately for Ariadne, Naxos happened
to be the favorite island of Dionysus, son of Zeus and god of wine,
who soon appeared, fell in love with her, and made her his wife. The
Bakkha seated at left
and other clues suggest to scholars that this mosaic shows
Dionysus's wedding to Ariadne.
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