A simple table highlighting the similarities between the abandoned women par excellence of Greek literature.

Princess/Queen	Ariadne of Crete	Dido of Carthago	Medea of Colchis
connection with divine	granddaughter of Zeus and Helios, later bride of Dyonisus	Dido/Elissa as a goddess herself is controverse	granddaughter of Helios
as helper-maiden	helped Theseus killing the Minotaur	helped her folks getting a land, i.e. founding Carthago	helped Jason getting the Golden Fleece
obstacle-brother	The Minotaur (half-brother), monster eating sacrifical victims, got killed by Theseus	Pygmalion (according to some sources) killed Dido’s husband Acerbas, afterwards Dido fled from him	Absyrthus (according to some sources) got killed by Medea and Jason in order to ease the flight from Colchis
featured means	thread	oxhide	potions
skills	logic (see logic process named Ariadne’s thread)	mathematics (see isoperimetric problem called Dido’s problem)	medicine/magic (Georgian popular tradition attributes the origins of the term Medicine to Medea’s name)
featured animal	bull (the Minotaur) goat (Dyonisus)	bull (the oxhide)	ram (the Golden Fleece)
abandoned	from Theseus	from Aeneas	from Jason
refugee	from Crete to Naxos	from Tyre to North Africa’s coast	from Colchis to Greek and then to Media (Iran)

In this triptych, from left to right: Ariadne procrastination by Dina Belenko (photograph, 2012), Didon by Christine Jongen (bronze sculpture, 2007-08), Medea by Bernard Safran (oil on masonite, 36″ x 41″, 1964)