The Golden Threads Posts

“So, you have torn me away from my family’s altar to leave me on this empty island, have you, Theseus? Gone off, ignoring the terrible justice of heaven, sailing your god-damned cargo of lies back to Athens? Could nothing, nothing at all, have turned that ferocious mind of yours from this plan? Was there no tenderness lurking within you, that might have urged you to offer me mercy?”

Catullus 64.132-137, trans. Charles Martin.

Standing at the edge of the world she knows, Ariadne’s primal scream of disbelief is one that reaches through time to chill the spine of readers everywhere. In it, Catullus perfectly captures the raw fury Ariadne must feel at this most brutal and disgusting of betrayals: Theseus, the boy who had promised her the world and love undying, is sailing away, leaving her and his broken promise on the island of Naxos.¹ This betrayal cuts all the more deeply because of the cost attached — Ariadne has lost not only her would-be husband but her entire family, and stands on the precipice of the great unknown with nothing but her rage. Worse, still, is the familial blood staining her hands: in giving Theseus the thread to allow him to navigate and escape the labyrinth, she has played a direct part in the slaying of her half-brother, the Minotaur.

The final image of Ariadne watching as Theseus sails away is so hauntingly strikingly that it is little surprise so many artists have taken up their quill or brush (or pen) in honour of her story. By exploring how different authors give Ariadne voice, agency, and recognition – or, conversely, strip these away from her – we can see a pattern emerge about helpers, solutions, and the gendered dynamics of glory and recognition.

But in order to fully appreciate the rich tapestry of Ariadne’s various depictions, we must first understand the choice she made.

The Myth in Context

King Minos of Crete had defeated the Greek city-state Athens in war over the death of his son, Androgeus. As payment of war dues, he demanded tribute from Athens: they would be forced to send seven of their own youths and seven maidens every nine years to Crete, where they would be imprisoned in the Labyrinth and devoured by the Minotaur, a fierce monster. Theseus, son of Athens’ king, volunteers to go in the hope that he can kill the Minotaur and end the sacrifices.³

It’s not hard to imagine how struck Ariadne must have been by Theseus’ heroic bravery when he arrives in Crete, the only sacrificial hostage not terrified or quaking in fear. Ariadne does something then that her tyrannical father could never have expected — moved by her love for this heroic stranger, she decides to side with him against her father and help him survive the Labyrinth. It’s also not hard to imagine why she may have made this decision: Theseus offered Ariadne the chance of a new life away from Crete, away from her cruel father, whose temperament had been foul and bitter since the death of his son, Ariadne’s brother, Androgeus.⁴

Ariadne is no fool, however. Nor is she blinded by her attraction to Theseus. She offers her help to Theseus in a transactional exchange that showed more than an ounce of her father’s cunning: she would find the solution to the Labyrinth and help him kill the Minotaur only if Theseus would swear an oath to agree to marry her and take her home to Athens with him.⁵ Theseus agrees. After all, what other choice does he have? He faces an almost certainly extended and agonising death at the hands of the Minotaur unless someone helps him.

And so Ariadne seeks out Daedalus, genius inventor, the man who her father had forced to build the Labyrinth and who was now kept against his will in Crete, barred from leaving with his precious knowledge of the labyrinth’s secret. There, she learns the secret to surviving the maze – if Theseus ties string to the entrance, when he has killed the Minotaur he will be able to retrace his steps and escape.⁶ Theseus makes quick use of this information, killing the Minotaur in his glorious moment of aristeia, and further securing his mythic status as a legendary hero.

He and Ariadne flee from the wrath of King Minos and there, the story takes an unexpected turn. On the island of Naxos, depending on which ancient source you read, Theseus either deliberately abandons Ariadne,⁷ forgets about her entirely and sails away,⁸ or is commanded to do so by a god.⁹ The reasons given for this abandonment of Ariadne are as varied as the ancient sources themselves: the more ‘rehabilitative’ interpretations give Theseus the benefit of a doubt,¹⁰ while more cynical ones point out the convenient abandoning of Ariadne at the exact moment she ceased to be useful to him.¹¹ Some even choose to emphasise the political risk Athens would face from Minos if Theseus were to marry Ariadne as a necessary justification for Theseus breaking his oath.¹² The closest thing to consensus that the ancients give us comes from Homer and Hesiod: on the island of Naxos, the god Dionysus witnesses Ariadne and falls for her. The result is a foregone conclusion: Theseus is either forced to relinquish her or she is taken from him anyway and is granted immortality as the bride of Dionysus. Although heroic, in these versions Theseus realises he cannot compete with a divine will.¹³

Theseus’ Broken Oath & Ariadne’s Voice

This twist on Naxos is one that has been debated since antiquity. Did Theseus abandon her intentionally, as a cynical attempt to spare Athens from King Minos’ wrath? Did he abandon her accidentally or for reasons beyond his control? Was he driven away by a storm, divine mischief, or the commands of a god? But I would argue that these debates, while compelling, miss the true golden thread lurking within Ariadne’s story. Her story reveals the fractured, imbalanced and often gendered economics of oaths and breaking them.

In one pivotal moment, Ariadne chooses to become the saving grace for another hero’s story. She is absolutely instrumental in helping that hero fulfil their story. Without Ariadne, there would be no ‘Theseus’ story – Theseus would likely be just another doomed Athenian youth devoured by the Minotaur and Athens would continue paying its blood tribute to Minos. It is this that truly makes the golden thread of her story all the more special, because the bargain she strikes with Theseus is not an amorous one, or one blinded by love or attraction – it’s business-like: a service in exchange for a service, help in exchange for a sacred oath. More, Ariadne insists on concrete, enforceable terms – Theseus will marry her and take her to Athens – before agreeing to surrender Daedalus’ thread.¹⁴ This is no mere lovestruck princess but a woman raised in a royal court, subjected to political intrigue from birth, and who clearly possesses no small measure of intelligence and cunning.

Ariadne’s calculated bargain with Theseus and his subsequent breaking of his oath offers a rare moment in antiquity to give voice to the voiceless. In many sources, Ariadne does not speak at all, or is treated solely as an object.¹⁵ Her perspective, the depths of betrayal she must have felt, are conspicuously absent or silent from many interpretations and it is Theseus’ name that people remember from the story of the Labyrinth. Even the thread itself is often attributed to trickery or cleverness on his part, rather than aid from Ariadne. Even in the stories where Ariadne is granted immortality as the wife of Dionysus, she is taken by him, like chattel or a desirable accessory, and has no voice and less agency in her own tale.¹⁶

It is in those rare moments when Ariadne is given voice – and a powerfully emotional one – that the power of her story shines through. Catullus’ interpretation is particularly scornful:

“Since these complaints are born from the bottom of my heart, do not allow my grief to come to nothing, goddesses, but with the same mind with which Theseus abandoned me here alone, with such a mind, goddesses, let him bring destruction on himself and his own.”

Catullus 64.192-201 trans. Charles Martin

Here, Ariadne not only curses Theseus for his betrayal but actively calls down divine retribution from the avenging Erinyes (also known as the Furies) for his perjury or oath-breaking, praying for Theseus to bring about the devastation of his own family. She does not passively wait for the gods to intervene and right the scales of justice, nor is she a voiceless, helpless object that can only observe and must endure things happening to her. In a moment of emotional catharsis, she realises the depth of the betrayal inflicted on her and ensures Theseus will pay for it.

The true cost of Theseus’ oath-breaking is subsequently revealed in classic, tragic fashion. Theseus had agreed to sail back with white sails if he had succeeded in his quest. If he had died and failed, the returning ship would bear black sails. The Erinyes hear Ariadne’s prayers and honour them: Theseus forgets to change the sails and returns to Athens with black sails. His father, Aegeus, sees the ship approaching the harbour and, grief-stricken at what he thinks is the death of his son and heir, throws himself off a cliff into the sea.¹⁷

While the death of Theseus’ father is fairly consistent in ancient retellings, it is only Catullus that makes the link between Ariadne’s prayer for vengeance and the death of Aegeus explicit and causal. In doing so, Catullus gives her accusation power and real consequence but he also reveals an uncomfortable truth: in the ancient world, female agency depended upon male honour. Theseus is not allowed to escape punishment-free from breaking his sacred oath, but the Erinyes’ vengeance hardly restores Ariadne to her former life. It doesn’t, to use her own words, restore her to her “family’s altar” – Theseus returns home in glory but Ariadne is left on the “empty” island of Naxos, watching his ship slowly recede over the horizon. It is lucky that so many interpretations have her swept away by Dionysus, to live forever as his wife – lucky, but also naively romantic. The “fairy tale” ending does not accentuate her character; it diminishes it.

The Golden Thread

My main takeaway... Ariadne’s curse represents the desperate act of a woman with no other resort but to call on divine retribution. Whatever the verdict on whether the scales of justice were balanced, the Erinyes were certainly effective in their task. Catullus’ Ariadne is raw, viscerally and painfully emotional. Her voice has power, her accusations so stirringly powerful that she moves the heavens themselves to intercede on her behalf and provide some small semblance of justice; a stark contrast to the sources where Ariadne is silent or helpless or must be lucky enough to be rescued by a god. In these sources, Theseus’ abandonment or forgetfulness is simply put down to a tragic mistake, his guilt and culpability minimised to an unfortunate blip that is often rehabilitated as a necessary decision he had to make for the greater good, regardless of his personal feelings on the matter. I know which interpretation I prefer.

Ultimately, what makes Ariadne's story endure is not the tragedy of Theseus abandoning her but the tragedy of intelligence without agency. She was brilliant enough to solve the Labyrinth, strategic enough to negotiate a marriage oath, and powerful enough to invoke the Erinyes themselves—yet none of it saved her from being abandoned in the end. The ancient sources reveal an uncomfortable truth: in a world where female agency depended entirely on male honour, even the cleverest transaction was only as strong as the honour and integrity of the oath-keepers themselves. Ariadne's thread saved Theseus, but she could not weave one strong enough to bind him to his oath.

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Notes

1. Catullus, The Poems of Catullus, trans. Charles Martin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 64.132-201. ↩
2. Apollodorus, Library and Epitome, trans. J. G. Frazer, 2 vols., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921), 3.1.4. ↩
3. Plutarch, “Life of Theseus,” in Parallel Lives, trans. Bernadotte Perrin, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 15-17. ↩
4. Apollodorus, Library and Epitome 3.15.7-8. ↩
5. Catullus, The Poems of Catullus 64.132-133. ↩
6. Apollodorus, Library and Epitome 3.1.4. ↩
7. Catullus, The Poems of Catullus 64.132–201. ↩
8. Plutarch, Life of Theseus 20. ↩
9. Homer, The Odyssey, trans. A. T. Murray, 2 vols., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), 11.321-325; Hesiod, Theogony, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 947-949. ↩
10. Plutarch, Life of Theseus 20. ↩
11. Catullus, The Poems of Catullus 64.132–201. ↩
12. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, trans. C. H. Oldfather, vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939), 5.51. ↩
13. Homer, The Odyssey 11.321–325; Hesiod, Theogony 947–949. ↩
14. Plutarch, Life of Theseus 19.1. ↩
15. Homer, The Odyssey 11.321-325. ↩
16. Hesiod, Theogony 947-949; Plutarch, Life of Theseus 20.1. ↩
17. Catullus, The Poems of Catullus 64.192-201. ↩
18. Plutarch, Life of Theseus 22.1-2. ↩

Bibliography

Apollodorus. Library and Epitome. Translated by J. G. Frazer. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921.

Catullus. The Poems of Catullus. Translated by Charles Martin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.

Diodorus Siculus. Library of History. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 3. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939.

Hesiod. Theogony. Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914.

Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by A. T. Murray. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919.

Plutarch. “Life of Theseus.” In Parallel Lives, translated by Bernadotte Perrin, vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914.

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