And at this sacrifice,
which takes place on the second day of the month Gorpiaeus, one of the
young men lies down on the ground, and imitates the cries of a woman in
travail; and the people of Amathus call that the grove of Ariadne
Aphrodite, in which they show her tomb.
But some writers of Naxos tell a different story, peculiar to
themselves, that there were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, of whom one,
they say, was married to Dionysus in Naxos, and was the mother of
Staphylus and his brother, while the younger was carried off by Theseus,
and came to Naxos after he deserted her; and a nurse called Korkyne came
with her, whose tomb they point out. Then Naxians also says that this
Ariadne died there, and is honoured, but not so much as the elder; for
at the feast in honour of the elder, there are merriment and revelry,
but at that of the younger gloomy rites are mingled with mirth.
XXI. Theseus, when he sailed away from Crete, touched at Delos; here he
sacrificed to the god and offered up the statue of Aphrodite, which
Ariadne had given him; and besides this, he and the youths with him
danced a measure which they say is still practised by the people of
Delos to this day, being an imitation of the turnings and windings of
the Labyrinth expressed by complicated evolutions performed in regular
order. This kind of dance is called by the Delians "the crane dance,"
according to Dikaearchus.
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