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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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