Ampelos

{{Short description|Deity in Greek mythology}} {{for|the town of ancient Crete|Ampelos (Crete)}} 250px|thumb|right|Bacchus e Ampelus (Uffizi, Florence) '''Ampelos''' ({{langx|grc|Ἂμπελος}}, <small>lit.</small>{{nbsp}}"Vine") or '''Ampelus''' (Latin) was a personification of the grapevine and lover of Dionysus in Greek and Bacchus in Roman mythology. He was a satyr that Dionysus either turned into a constellation or the grape vine.

== Mythology ==

===Nonnus=== In Nonnus's etiology, Ampelos is a beautiful satyr youth, who was loved by Dionysus, and whose death was foreseen by the god. There are two versions of his death and Dionysus's reaction to it. According to Nonnus, Ampelos was gored to death by a wild bull after he mocked the goddess Selene, a scene described as follows:

:"[Ampelos, love of Dionysos, rode upon the back of a wild bull:] He shouted boldly to the fullfaced Moon (Mene)—'Give me best, Selene, horned driver of cattle! Now I am both—I have horns and I ride a bull!' : : :So he called out boasting to the round Moon. Selene looked with a jealous eye through the air, to see how Ampelos rode on the murderous marauding bull. She sent him a cattlechasing gadfly; and the bull, pricked continually all over by the sharp sting, galloped away like a horse through pathless tracts [it then threw and gored him to death]"<ref>Nonnus, 11.185 ff.</ref> : Upset by his death, Dionysus transformed Ampelos's body into the first grape vine and created wine from his blood.

===Ovid=== 200px|thumb|right|Bacchus and Ampelos ". Pre-1865 image of a Roman statue in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. The second version involves grape vines in a different manner. According to Ovid: :"the reckless youth fell picking gaudy grapes on a branch. Liber [Dionysos] lifted the lost boy to the stars," turning him into one of the stars of the constellation Vindemitor or Vindiatrix (better known as Boötes).<ref>Ovid, ''Fasti'' 3.407 ff.</ref>

==Dryad== Various '''ampelose'''{{mdash}}also "Ampelos" in the singular{{mdash}}also appear in Greek mythology a variety of hamadryad.<ref>Athenaeus, 3.78B</ref>

== Notes == {{Reflist}}

== References == * Athenaeus of Naucratis, ''The Deipnosophists or Banquet of the Learned.'' London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1854. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2013.01.0003 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library]. *Athenaeus of Naucratis, ''Deipnosophistae''. Kaibel. In Aedibus B.G. Teubneri. Lipsiae. 1887. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2013.01.0001 Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library]. *Nonnus of Panopolis, ''Dionysiaca'' translated by William Henry Denham Rouse (1863-1950), from the Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1940. [https://topostext.org/work/529 Online version at the Topos Text Project.] * Nonnus of Panopolis, ''Dionysiaca. 3 Vols.'' W.H.D. Rouse. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1940-1942. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0485 Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library]. * Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Fasti'' translated by James G. Frazer. [https://topostext.org/work/143 Online version at the Topos Text Project.] * Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Fasti.'' Sir James George Frazer. London; Cambridge, MA. William Heinemann Ltd.; Harvard University Press. 1933. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0547 Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library].

Category:Satyrs Category:Metamorphoses into plants in Greek mythology Category:Consorts of Dionysus Category:Selene Category:Boötes Category:LGBTQ themes in Greek mythology Category:Personifications in Greek mythology Category:Hubris myths