Restored Knossos Fresco of Ladies like Ariadne, lover of Theseus.

These are the kind of aristocratic ladies such as Pasiphae and her daughters Ariadne and Phaedra that dominated Cretan and Mycenean society in the Age of Theseus. Though this series of images was not known to Elizabethans like Shakespeare, the boldness of Ariadne and other Mycenean women certainly was, via Ovid's narratives. Many were priestesses. Shakespeare alludes directly to such women when he has Oberon accusing Titania:

OBERON: How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravish'd?
And make him with fair Aegle break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa? (Dream, II.i.74-80)

Picture from Cavorite's Photostream via Flickr, with some data, courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share- Alike License (Wikipedia).