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Key Details
Type
Sacred SiteMythology
Greek Pantheon
Coordinates
37.103°N, 25.378°E
About This Location
Ariadne left, Dionysus found
Naxos is where Theseus puts Ariadne ashore and sails on. Homer already knows Artemis killed her there; later poets give her to Dionysus as wife, with a crown set among the stars. The island's real cult of Dionysus is well attested. Catullus 64 and Ovid retell the abandonment as pathos. Apollodorus files it in the Theseus dossier. The myth does not invent Naxos; it uses a wine-island as the hinge between Athenian hero-tale and Dionysian marriage.
Primary Sources
“Theseus left Ariadne in the island of Dia [Naxos], and Artemis killed her there.”
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