Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Adonis

ADO'NIS, according to Apollodorus (iii. 14. § 3) a son of Cinyras and Medarme, according to Hesiod (ap. Apollod. iii. 14. § 4) a son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea, and according to the cyclic poet Panyasis (ap. Apollod. l.c.) a son of Theias, king of Assyria, who begot him by his own daughter Smyrna. (Myrrha.) The ancient story ran thus: Smyrna had neglected the worship of Aphrodite, and was punished by the goddess with an unnatural love for her father. With the assistance of her nurse she contrived to share her father's bed without being known to him. When he discovered the crime he wished to kill her; but she fled, and on being nearly overtaken, prayed to the gods to make her invisible. They were moved to pity and changed her into a tree called 🇬🇷. After the lapse of nine months the tree burst, and Adonis was born. Aphrodite was so much charmed with the beauty of the infant, that she concealed it in a chest which she entrusted to Persephone; but when the latter discovered the treasure she had in her keeping, she refused to give it up. The case was brought before Zeus, who decided the dispute by declaring that during four months of every year Adonis should be left to himself, during four months he should belong to Persephone, and during the remaining four to Aphrodite. Adonis however preferring to live with Aphrodite, also spent with her the four months over which he had control. Afterwards Adonis died of a wound which he received from a boar during the chase. Thus far the story of Adonis was related by Panyasis. Later writers furnish various alterations and additions to it. According to Hyginus (Hyg. Fab. 58, 164, 251, 271), Smyrna was punished with the love for her father, because her mother Cenchreis had provoked the anger of Aphrodite by extolling the beauty of her daughter above that of the goddess. Smyrna after the discovery of her crime fled into a forest, where she was changed into a tree from which Adonis came forth, when her father split it with his sword. The dispute between Aphrodite and Persephone was according to some accounts settled by Calliope, whom Zeus appointed as mediator between them. (Hygin. Poet. Astron. ii. 7.) Ovid (Met x. 300, &c.) adds the following features: Myrrha's love of her father was excited by the furies; Lucina assisted her when she gave birth to Adonis, and the Naiads anointed him with the tears of his mother, i. e. with the fluid which trickled from the tree. Adonis grew up a most beautiful youth, and Venus loved him and shared with him the pleasures of the chase, though she always cautioned him against the wild beasts. At last he wounded a boar which killed him in its fury. According to some traditions Ares (Mars), or, according to others, Apollo assumed the form of a boar and thus killed Adonis. (Serv. ad Virg. Ecl. x. 18; Ptolem. Hephaest. i. p. 306, ed. Gale.) A third story related that Dionysus carried off Adonis. (Phanocles ap. Plut. Sympos. iv. 5.) When Aphrodite was informed of her beloved being wounded, she hastened to the spot and sprinkled nectar into his blood, from which immediately flowers sprang up. Various other modifications of the story may be read in Hyginus (Poet. Astron. ii. 7), Theocritus (Idyll. xv.), Bion (Idyll. i.), and in the scholiast on Lycophron. (839, &c.) From the double marriage of Aphrodite with Ares and Adonissprang Priapus. (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 9, 32.) Besides him Golgos and Beroe are likewise called children of Adonis and Aphrodite. (Schol. ad Theocrit. xv. 100; Nonni Dionys. xli 155.) On his death Adonis was obliged to descend into the lower world, but he was allowed to spend six months out of every year with his beloved Aphrodite in the upper world. (Orph. hymn. 55. 10.)

The worship of Adonis, which in later times was spread over nearly all the countries round the Mediterranean, was, as the story itself sufficiently indicates, of Asiatic, or more especially of Phoenician origin. (Lucian, de dea Syr. c. 6.) Thence it was transferred to Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and even to Italy, though of course with various modifications. In the Homeric poems no trace of it occurs, and the later Greek poets changed the original symbolic account of Adonis into a poetical story. In the Asiatic religions Aphrodite was the fructifying principle of nature, and Adonis appears to have reference to the death of nature in winter and its revival in spring—hence he spends six months in the lower and six in the upper world. His death and his return to life were celebrated in annual festivals (🇬🇷) at Byblos, Alexandria in Egypt, Athens, and other places.