Autonoë
| Autonoë | |
|---|---|
| Theban princess | |
| Abode | Thebes |
| Personal Information | |
| Consort | Aristaeus |
| Parents | Cadmus and Harmonia |
| Siblings | Polydorus, Agave (mythology), Ino, Semele |
In Greek mythology, Autonoë (/ɔːˈtɒnoʊ.i/; Ancient Greek: Αὐτονόη) was a daughter of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, Greece, and the goddess Harmonia. She was the wife of Aristaeus and mother of Actaeon and possibly Macris.
In Euripides' play, The Bacchae, she and her sisters were driven into a bacchic frenzy by the god Dionysus (her nephew) when Pentheus, the king of Thebes, refused to allow his worship in the city. When Pentheus came to spy on their revels, Agave, the mother of Pentheus and Autonoë's sister, spotted him in a tree. They tore him to pieces.
Actaeon, the son of Autonoë, was eaten by his own hounds as punishment for glimpsing Artemis naked. Autonoë, being distressed, left Thebes to go to Ereneia, a village of the Megarians, where she died.
In Nonnus, Dionysiaca 5. 212, the marriage of Aristaeus and Autonoë and the fate of their son Actaeon was described in the following lines:
"Kadmos (Cadmus) [king of Thebes] now chose husbands for his daughters, and gave them over in four successive bridals, settling their weddings one by one. First Aristaios (Aristaeus) laden with gifts, he of the herds and he of the wilds, as he was named, the flood of allwise Apollon and Kyrene (Cyrene) so ready with her hands, wedded Autonoe according to the rules of lawful marriage. Agenorides (Kadmos son of Agenor) did not refuse his daughter to a goodson well acquainted with the art of feeding many; nay, he gave her to a very clever husband, a lifesaving son of Apollon, after he head calmed the pestilential star of fiery Maira [Sirius the Dog Star] by the life-preserving breezes of heaven-sent [Etesian] winds. The wedding-feast also was very rich, since he gave the unyoked maid oxen for her treasure, he gave goats, he gave mountain-bred flocks; many a line of burden-bearers was forced to lift the load of great jars full of olive-oil, his marriage gifts, much travail of the clever honeybee he brought, in the riddled comb her masterpiece . . . [the blessings that Aristaios conferred on man follow, see the Blessings of Aristaios below.]
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