Adonis

For other uses of the name Adonis, see Adonis (disambiguation).

A Syrian dying-and-reborn annual vegetation god imported into Greek mythology but always retaining aspects of his Semitic Near Eastern origins, Adonis was one of the most complex cult figures in classical times. He had multiple roles and there has been much scholarship over the centuries of his meaning and purpose in the Greek religious beliefs. His Semitic counterpart is Tammuz. His Etruscan counterpart was Atunis. He is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar. His cult belonged to women: the cult of dying Adonis was fully-developed in the circle of young girls around Sappho on Lesbos, about 600 BCE, as a fragment of Sappho reveals.

Adonis was certainly based in large part on Tammuz. His name is Semitic, a variation on the word meaning "lord" that was also used, as "Adonai", to refer to Yahweh in the Old Testament. When the Hebrews first arrived in Canaan, they were opposed by the king of the Jebusites, Adonizedek, whose name means "lord of Zedek" (Jerusalem). Yet there is no trace of a Semitic cult directly connected with Adonis, and no trace in Semitic languages of any specific mythemes connected with his Greek myth; both Greek and Near Eastern scholars have questioned the connection (Burkert, p 177 note 6 bibliography). The connection in cult practice is with Adonis' Mesopotamian counterpart, Tammuz:

"Women sit by the gate weeping for Tammuz, or they offer incense to Baal on roof-tops and plant pleasant plants. These are the very features of the Adonis cult: a cult confined to women which is celebrated on flat roof-tops on which sherds sown with quickly germinating green salading are placed, Adonis gardens... the climax is loud lamentation for the dead god." —Burkert, p. 177).

Adonis was worshipped in unspoken mystery religions: not until Imperial Roman times (Lucian) does any written source mention that the women were consoled by a revived Adonis. Women in Athens would plant "gardens of Adonis" quick-growing herbs that sprang up from seed and died. The Festival of Adonis was celebrated by women at midsummer by sowing fennel and lettuce, and grains of wheat and barley. The plants sprang up soon, and withered quickly, and women mourned for the untimely death of the vegetation god.

As "Lord" or baal, Adonis was the youthful consort of the ageless Goddess, who might take various identities according to which aspect of annual renewal is being emphasized.

Birth of Adonis

Adonis' birth is shrouded in confusion for those who require a single, authoritative version. The resolutely patriarchal Hellenes sought a father for the god, and found him in Byblos and Cyprus, faithful indicators of the direction from which his cult had come. Walter Burkert questions whether Adonis had not from the very beginning come to Greece with Aphrodite (Burkert 1985, p. 177). Multiple versions of the birth of Adonis exist:

The most commonly accepted version is that Aphrodite urged Myrrha or Smyrna to commit incest with her father, Theias, the King of Assyria, which confirms the area of Adonis' origins. Myrrha's nurse helped with the scheme. When Theias discovered this, he flew into a rage, chasing his daughter with a knife. The gods turned her into a myrrh tree and Adonis eventually sprung from this tree, confirming his nature both as a vegetation god and as coming from the hot foreign desert lands where the myrrh tree grew. (It was not to be seen in Greece.)
It was also said that Myrrha fled from her father, and Aphrodite turned her into a tree. Adonis was then born when Theias shot an arrow into the tree or when a boar used its tusks to render the tree's bark.
Apollodorus (3.182) considered Adonis to be the son of Cinyras, of Paphos on Cyrpus, and Metharme.
Hesiod, in a fragment, believes he is the son of Phoenix and Aephesiboea.

Once Adonis was born, Aphrodite took him under her wing, seducing him with the help of Helene, her friend, and was entranced by his unearthly beauty. She gave him to Persephone to watch over, but Persephone was also amazed at his beauty and refused to give him back. The argument between the two goddesses was settled either by Zeus or Calliope, with Adonis spending four months with Aphrodite, four months with Persephone and four months of the years with whomever he chose. He always chose Aphrodite because Persephone was the cold, unfeeling goddess of the underworld.

He died at the tusks of a wild boar, sent by either Artemis or Aphrodite's lover, Ares, who was jealous of Adonis' beauty. Each drop of Adonis' blood turned into a blood-red anemone. "In Greece" Burkert concludes, "the special function of the Adonis cult is as an opportunity for the unbridled expression of emotion in the strictly circumscribed life of women, in contrast to the rigid order of polis and family with the official women's festivals in honour of Demeter."

His name is frequently used as an allusion to an extremely attractive, youthful male, often with a connotation of immature vanity: "the office Adonis."

Birth of Adonis

Further reading