Semele
| Semele | |
|---|---|
Princess of Thebes Goddess of the Bacchic frenzy | |
| Member of the Theban Royal Family | |
Semele and Dionysus on a black-figure hydria, ca. 520-500 BC, Antikensammlung Berlin | |
| Other names | Thyone |
| Abode | Thebes, Mount Olympus |
| Genealogy | |
| Parents | Cadmus and Harmonia |
| Siblings | Autonoë, Agave, Ino and Polydorus |
| Consort | Zeus |
| Children | Dionysus |
In Greek mythology, Semele (/ˈsɛmɪli/; Ancient Greek: Σεμέλη, romanized: Semélē), or Thyone (/θaɪˈoʊni/; Ancient Greek: Θυώνη, romanized: Thyṓnē), 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.
Semele was the subject of the now lost tragedy by Aeschylus called Semele (Σεμέλη) or The Water Carriers (Ὑδροφόροι).