Floral Fantasy with ostrich-riders, wildlife, and a Triton on the neck of the vase, made by an immigrant
Ionian in Etruria in about 540 B.C.
The myth of Adonis will serve as a sobering example. His mother Myrrha fell in love with her own father
and conceived a child by him. She was metamorphosed into the incense tree. The baby was very beautiful
from birth, and Aphrodite herself fell in love with him. She gave him to Persephone in a chest, but
Persephone too became enamoured of his beauty; the goddesses had to divide his favours. He was killed
by a boar while hunting, and every year he is lamented by women. Such in outline is the myth. For Frazer,
Adonis was a divinity of vegetation and fertility, dying every year and returning to life with the new
crops; but it was pointed out that virtually no ancient source ever mentions a resurrection of Adonis.
Recently, two interesting attempts have been made to unriddle the myth.