Many versions of the myth recount Dionysus throwing Ariadne's jeweled crown into the sky to create a constellation, the Corona Borealis.

[3][4] Greek lexicographers in the Hellenistic period claimed that Ariadne is derived from the ancient Cretan dialectical elements ari (ἀρι-) "most" (which is an intensive prefix) and adnós (ἀδνός) "holy".

[12] Ariadne married Dionysus and became the mother of Oenopion, the personification of wine, Staphylus, who was associated with grapes, as well as Thoas, Peparethus, Eurymedon, Phliasus, Ceramus, Maron, Euanthes, Latramys, and Tauropolis.

[18] One year, the sacrificial party included Theseus, the son of King Aegeus, who volunteered in order to kill the Minotaur.

She eloped with Theseus after he killed the Minotaur, yet according to Homer in the Odyssey "he had no joy of her, for ere that, Artemis slew her in seagirt Dia because of the witness of Dionysus".

[20] Homer does not elaborate on the nature of Dionysus' accusation, yet the Oxford Classical Dictionary speculated that she was already married to him when she eloped with Theseus.

[citation needed] Karl Kerenyi and Robert Graves theorized that Ariadne, whose name they thought derived from Hesychius' enumeration of "Άδνον", a Cretan-Greek form of "arihagne" ("utterly pure"), was a Great Goddess of Crete, "the first divine personage of Greek mythology to be immediately recognized in Crete",[30] once archaeological investigation began.

Kerenyi observed that her name was merely an epithet and claimed that she was originally the "Mistress of the Labyrinth", both a winding dancing ground and, in the Greek opinion, a prison with the dreaded Minotaur in its centre.

[33]In a kylix by the painter Aison (c. 425 – c. 410 BC),[b] Theseus drags the Minotaur from a temple-like labyrinth, yet the goddess who attends him in this Attic representation is Athena.

According to the myth that was current at Amathus, the second most important Cypriot cult centre of Aphrodite, Theseus' ship was swept off course and the pregnant and suffering Ariadne put ashore in the storm.

Theseus, overcome with grief upon his return, left money for sacrifices to Ariadne and ordered two cult images, one of silver and one of bronze, erected.

At the observation in her honour on the second day of the month Gorpiaeus, a young man lay on the ground and vicariously experienced the throes of labour.

[3][38] Paeon, as stated by Plutarch, attributes the Ariadneia festival in Cyprus to Theseus, who left money to the island so sacrifices could be made to commemorate Ariadne.