Adonis’s Family Tree

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Family

• Aphrodite(spouse),Beroe(child)— Consort

  Aphrodite loved the mortal Adonis and bore him a daughter, Beroe. When Adonis was slain by a boar, Aphrodite's grief gave rise to the anemone flower.

• Cinyras(parent),Myrrha(parent)— Consort

  Myrrha, cursed by Aphrodite with unnatural desire for her father Cinyras, deceived the king under cover of darkness during the festival of Demeter. From this incestuous union Adonis was born, emerging from the split bark of the myrrh tree into which the gods had transformed his fleeing mother.

• Persephone(spouse)— Consort

  Persephone fell in love with the beautiful Adonis after Aphrodite entrusted the infant to her care in a chest, and when she refused to return him, Zeus decreed that Adonis divide his year between the two goddesses."

Slain by

• Ares

  Ares sent a monstrous boar to gore Adonis to death, consumed by jealousy over Aphrodite's passionate love for the beautiful mortal youth.

  ⚠ Servius (on Aeneid 5.72) attributes the boar to Ares's jealousy, while Apollodorus (Bibliotheca 3.14.4) attributes it to Artemis avenging the death of Hippolytus.

Equivalent to

• Adon(Canaanite)

  Canaanite Adon ('Lord') was the dying-and-rising vegetation god of Byblos whose cult Phoenician traders carried to Greece, where he became Adonis. Roman Adonis was adopted directly from the Greek tradition, with Ovid providing the definitive Latin retelling.

• Dumuzi(Mesopotamian)

  The cult of Dumuzi/Tammuz — the dying shepherd mourned by women — transmitted through Phoenician intermediaries to become the Greek Adonis, whose death and seasonal return echo the Mesopotamian prototype.

Associated with

• Attis

  Attis and Adonis were both beautiful youths whose deaths and annual returns embodied the cycle of vegetation. Both were mourned by goddesses in ecstatic rites and served as models for dying-and-rising god worship.

• Calliope

  Calliope was appointed by Zeus to settle the dispute over Adonis between Aphrodite and Persephone. Her judgment divided his time between the two goddesses and himself in three equal portions.

• Zeus

  Zeus (or Calliope acting on his behalf) judged the dispute between Aphrodite and Persephone over Adonis, decreeing that Adonis would divide his time between them.