Crocus and Smilax (Ovid-Labeled)

Catalogue ID: 05-local-and-lesser/158-crocus-smilax-ovid-roman

Cycle: Local and lesser — flower metamorphosis / Roman brief aetiology

Version line: Roman transmission (Ovid) — unhappy lovers become crocus and smilax

Sources: Ovid, *Metamorphoses* 4.283–284 (**Roman**—labeled); cf. Nonnus, *Dionysiaca* 3. app. notices; mythographic handbooks

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/05-local-and-lesser/158-crocus-smilax-ovid-roman.md

Characters

Crocus — youth; becomes the crocus flower
Lacedaemon — occasional later agent (handbook variant)
Smilax — beloved / nymph; becomes smilax

Places

Flower beds — aetiological aftermath
Unspecified mythic landscape — Ovid gives no locale

Themes

Metamorphosis

Narrative

Ovid, dismissing tales he will not fully tell, names Crocus and Smilax among lovers changed into small flowers—the crocus and the smilax (bindweed). Later handbook tradition sometimes makes Crocus a youth loved by Hermes (or Smilax a nymph who rejected him), but the continuous classical poetic tag is Ovid’s Roman couplet. Catalogue the pair under a Roman label as a minimal flower aetiology, distinct from Hyacinthus and Narcissus.