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Semele

File:Simos_Group_-_ABV_364_54_-_chariot_race_-_Dionysos_mounting_chariot_-_Berlin_AS_F_1904_cropped.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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In Greek mythology, Semele (; ), or Thyone (; ), was the youngest daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and the mother of Dionysus by Zeus (her own great-grandfather).

Key facts

Deity.type
Greek
Deity.name
Semele
Deity.deity_of
Princess of ThebesGoddess of the Bacchic frenzy
Deity.image
Simos Group - ABV 364 54 - chariot race - Dionysos mounting chariot - Berlin AS F 1904 cropped.jpg
Deity.caption
Semele and Dionysus on a black-figure hydria, ca. 520-500 BC, Antikensammlung Berlin
Deity.abode
Thebes, Mount Olympus
Deity.consort
Zeus
Deity.parents
Cadmus and Harmonia
Deity.siblings
Autonoë, Agave, Ino and Polydorus
Deity.children
Dionysus
Deity.member_of
the Theban Royal Family
Deity.other_names
Thyone

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Image
Rubens-Death-of-Semele.jpg
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Commons category
Semele
name in native language
Σεμέλη
Sources (4)

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Article

15 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • Mythology
  • Seduction by Zeus and birth of Dionysus
  • Impregnation by Zeus
  • Locations
  • In Etruscan culture
  • In Roman culture
  • In the classical tradition
  • Genealogy
  • Astronomical bodies named after her
  • Music named after her
  • See also
  • Notes
  • References
  • External links

In Greek mythology, Semele (; ), or Thyone (; ), was the youngest daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and the mother of Dionysus by Zeus (her own great-grandfather).

Certain elements of the cult of Dionysus and Semele came from the Phrygians. These were modified, expanded, and elaborated by the Ionian Greek colonists. Doric Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC), born in the city of Halicarnassus under the Achaemenid Empire, who gives the account of Cadmus, estimates that Semele lived either 1,000 or 1,600 years prior to his visit to Tyre in 450 BC at the end of the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC) or around 2050 or 1450 BC. In Rome, the goddess Stimula was identified as Semele.

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