Upon her yvory forehead...
Being now placed in the firmament,
Through the bright heavens doth her beams display,
And is unto the starres an ornament,
Which round about her move in order excellent.
Apollonius Rhodius thus refers to the Crown in his Tale of the Argonauts as early as the third century b.c.
And midst the glittering symbols of the sky
The starry crown of Ariadne glides.
Brown claims that the crown was bestowed by the sun-god Dionysos on his consort Ariadne (the very chaste one) on the occasion of his nuptials in the island of Naxos.
We therefore have our choice as to who bestowed the crown on Ariadne—Bacchus, Theseus, or Dionysos.
Allen tells us that Pherecydes, in the fifth century before Christ, was the first to record this legend of Ariadne's Crown, and the constellation is without doubt one of great antiquity. It is one of the few that resemble in the arrangement of stars relative to each other the subject supposed to be represented. The stars are arranged in a semi-circle, and outline a perfect crown, so that this group is easily identified, and because of its beauty is better known than many of the constellations.
This constellation has also been regarded as "the Coiled Hair of Ariadne," a reduplication of the asterism Coma Berenices or Berenice's Hair.
One of the most peculiar features of the arrangement of the stars into constellations by the ancients is the fact that many of the figures are repeated, and in almost every case the two constellations similar in figure are situated close together in the sky. Thus we find two Dogs, two Lions, two Bears, two Birds, two Giants (Hercules and Ophiuchus), two Fishes, two Crowns (the northern and southern), two Centaurs, and now as we have seen above
