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Amalthea (mythology)

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Amalthea holds a cornucopia, out of which the young Zeus eats. Marble relief from the 2nd century AD, Vatican Museum.[1]
Amalthea and Jupiter's goat, by Pierre Julien, 1787 (Louvre Museum). A long line coiled around the goat's horns acts as a tether.

In Greek mythology, Amalthea or Amaltheia (Ancient Greek: Ἀμάλθεια) is the most commonly mentioned nurse of the infant Zeus. She is usually described as a nymph who suckles the child on the milk of a goat, though in later Hellenistic sources she is often depicted as the goat itself.

Etymology and origins

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The etymology of Ἀμάλθεια is unknown.[2] Though various derivations were propounded by 19th-century scholars,[3] Alfred Chilton Pearson discounts these, and states that the name is possibly related to ἀμαλός and ἀμάλη.[4] The verb ἀμαλθεύειν, meaning "to nurture",[5] which Otto Gruppe saw as coming from Amalthea's name, has since been found in a fragment of Sophocles, refuting Gruppe's proposal;[6] according to Pearson, the two words should instead be understood as having existed alongside each other, with this notion of "abundance" or "plenty" finding embodiment in certain mythological figures.[7]

Hesiod's Theogony, which provides the earliest known account of Zeus's birth,[8] does not mention Amalthea.[9] Hesiod, does, however, describe the newborn Zeus as being taken to a cave on "the Aegean mountain" in Crete,[10] which some scholars interpret as meaning "Goat's Mountain", a reference to the story of Amalthea;[11] Richard Wyatt Hutchinson views this as possible indication that the tradition in which she is a goat, though only attested from the Hellenistic period, may have existed earlier than that of her as a nymph.[12] Other scholars, however, including M. L. West, see no reason to view Hesiod's name for the mountain as a reference to Amalthea.[13] According to Lewis Richard Farnell, the Cretan goddess Dictynna, whose name is likely related to Mount Dicte (sometimes considered the birthplace of Zeus), may have been associated at an early point with Amalthea, the "sacred goat-mother" who reared Zeus.[14]

Mythology

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The "horn of Amalthea", referred to in Latin literature as the cornucopia,[15] is a magical horn generally described as being able to produce an inexhaustible supply of any food or drink desired.[16] The tale of this horn seems to have originated as an independent tradition to the raising of Zeus, though it is uncertain when the two merged.[17] The "horn of Amalthea" is mentioned as early as the archaic period by poets such as Anacreon and Phocylides,[18] and is commonly referenced in comedies, such as those by Aristophanes and Cratinus.[19] According to Apollodorus, the mythographer Pherecydes, who described the horn's ability to provide endless food and drink as desired, considered it to belong to the nymph Amalthea.[20] In a lost poem of Pindar, Heracles fights against the river-god Achelous (who battles him in the form of a bull) for the hand of Deianeira, and during the fight Heracles pulls off one of Achelous's horns; the god then reclaims his horn by trading it for the magical horn which he obtains from Amalthea, a daughter of Oceanus.[21] In the same passage in which he cites Pherecydes, Apollodorus retells this story, and describes the nymph Amalthea as the daughter of Haemonius, whose name, meaning "Thessalian", indicates that this Amalthea is separate to the nurse of Zeus.[22] In other versions of the myth, told by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, the horn of Amalthea is identified with that of Achelous,[23] while, according to Philemon and Apollodorus, Amalthea's horn was that of a bull,[24] seemingly a result of confusion with the bull's horn of Achelous.[25]

Amalthea is the most frequently mentioned nurse of the infant Zeus,[26] and is in this role more commonly described as a nymph.[27] In the account of Zeus's upbringing attributed to the legendary poet Musaeus by Pseudo-Eratosthenes,[28] Rhea gives the newborn Zeus to Themis, who herself hands the child over to the nymph Amalthea, who has the young Zeus nursed by a she-goat.[29] Pseudo-Eratosthenes goes on to describe that this goat was the daughter of Helios, and was so horrific in appearance that the Titans, out of fear, asked Gaia to hide her in a cave on Crete; Gaia complied, entrusting the goat to Amalthea.[30] After Zeus reaches adulthood, he receives an oracle advising him to use the goat's skin as a weapon in his war against the Titans (due to its terrifying nature).[31] According to the Roman mythographer Hyginus, who similarly recounts the narrative from Musaeus,[32] this weapon, used by Zeus against the Titans, is the aegis.[33] In the account given by the Greek writer Didymus, the infant Zeus is raised by the nymphs Amalthea and Melissa, daughters of the Cretan king Melisseus, who feed him honey and the milk of a goat.[34]

Various accounts of Zeus's upbringing rationalise Amalthea as a goat;[35] these versions start appearing in the Hellenistic period.[36] The first author to describe her as a goat seems to have been Callimachus,[37] who relates that, after Zeus's birth, the god is taken by the Arcadian nymph Neda to a hidden location in Crete, where she is nursed by the nymph Adrasteia, and fed the milk of Amalthea.[38] In his description of Zeus suckling Amalthea's breast, Callimachus employs the word μαζόν, which typically denotes the breast of a human (rather than the teat of a goat), thereby, according to Susan Stephens, "call[ing] attention to his own rationalizing variant of the myth".[39] According to a scholium on Callimachus's account, from one of Amalthea's horns flows ambrosia, and from the other comes nectar.[40] In Apollodorus's version of Zeus's infancy, the god is born in a cave on Cretan Mount Dicte, where he is raised by the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, the daughters of Melisseus, who feed him on the milk of Amalthea.[41] Similarly, Diodorus Siculus states that the child is reared on Amalthea's milk and honey, by nymphs (whom he does not name),[42] and adds that Amalthea is the source of Zeus's epithet αἰγίοχος ("aegis-bearing").[43] An account which is largely the same as that given by Pseudo-Eratosthenes is found in a scholium on the Iliad, though the scholiast describes Amalthea herself as the goat whose hide Zeus uses in his fight against the Titans (rather than the owner of the goat).[44]

In Greek works of astral mythology, the tale of the goat who nurses the young Zeus is adapted to provide an aition for certain stars.[45] Aratus, in his description of the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga) and the surrounding stars, explains that the star of the Goat (Capella) sits above the Charioteer's left shoulder.[46] He appears to identify this goat with Amalthea,[47] describing her as the goat who suckled the young Zeus;[48] in this passage, he employs the word μαζόν for the goat's breast, similarly to Callimachus,[49] who may be his source for this information.[50] He also states that the "interpreters of Zeus" refer to her as the Olenian goat, which may be an allusion to a version in which Zeus is reared, by a goat, near Olenos in Achaea, or to location of the star, on the arm (ὠλένη) of Auriga;[51] alternatively, it may indicate that the Goat's father is Olenus (the son of Hephaestus),[52] an interpretation given in a scholium on the passage.[53] Pseudo-Eratosthenes, at the end of his account of the goat belonging to Amalthea (attributed to Musaeus), appears to state that Zeus places the goat among the stars, which, in the Catasterismi, the god would have done for her role in his defeat of the Titans.[54]

See also

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  • Auðumbla, primeval cow in Norse mythology who nourished the primordial entities Ymir and Búri
  • Romulus and Remus, suckled by a she-wolf

Notes

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  1. ^ Henig, p. 582; LIMC 45698 (Amaltheia 1).
  2. ^ Pearson, p. 60.
  3. ^ See, for instance, those collected by Gruppe, pp. 824–5 n. 9 to p. 824 and Roscher, p. 265; cf. Keller, pp. 225–6.
  4. ^ Pearson, p. 60.
  5. ^ Montanari, s.v. ἀμαλθεύω, p. 83.
  6. ^ Pearson, p. 60; Sophocles, fr. 95 TrGF (Radt, p. 148) [= Photius, Lexicon s.v. Ἀμαλθεύειν (Reitzenstein, p. 86)].
  7. ^ Pearson, p. 60. He adds that the association of the horn of Amalthea with various deities suggests that Amalthea was "not a distinctively conceived personality".
  8. ^ Hutchinson, p. 201.
  9. ^ Gantz, p. 28; West 1966, p. 300 on line 484.
  10. ^ Hard, p. 74; Hesiod, Theogony 484 (pp. 40, 41).
  11. ^ Willetts, p. 120; Astour, p. 340 n. 18; Hutchinson, pp. 201–2.
  12. ^ Astour, p. 340 n. 23.
  13. ^ West 1966, p. 300 on line 484; López-Riuz, p. 45.
  14. ^ Farnell, p. 478.
  15. ^ Sevasti, p. 127; Hard, p. 280.
  16. ^ Fontenrose, p. 350; Henig, p. 582.
  17. ^ Miller, p. 223; Fowler 2013, pp. 323–4; Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Amalthea (1); West 1983, p. 131. Scholars disagree as to when the tradition of this horn was first integrated with that of Zeus's infancy.
  18. ^ Fowler 2013, p. 324; Gantz, p. 41; Anacreon, fr. 361 PMG (Page, p. 184) [= Strabo, 3.2.14 (II pp. 58, 59)]; Phocylides, fr. 7 Gerber, pp. 396, 397.
  19. ^ Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Amalthea (1); Fowler 2013, p. 324; Aristophanes, fr. 707 PCG (Kassel and Austin, III.2 p. 362); Cratinus, fr. 261 PCG (Kassel and Austin, IV p. 255); Antiphanes, fr. 108 PCG (Kassel and Austin, II p. 368); Philemon, fr. 68 PCG (Kassel and Austin, VII p. 261).
  20. ^ Fowler 2013, p. 324; Stephens, p. 64 on lines 48–9; Pherecydes, fr. 42 Fowler, p. 303 [= FGrHist 3 F42 = Apollodorus, 2.7.5].
  21. ^ Davies, pp. xii–xiii; Gantz, p. 28; Pindar, fr. 70b (249a) Snell and Maehler, p. 77 [= Scholia D on Homer's Iliad, 21.194 (Dindorf, p. 218)].
  22. ^ Fowler 2013, p. 323; Apollodorus, 2.7.5.
  23. ^ RE, s.v. Amaltheia (1); Diodorus Siculus, 3.35.3–4; Strabo, 10.2.19 (V pp. 56, 57). For other versions of this myth, including those in which Amalthea is not mentioned, see Achelous § Heracles and Deianeira.
  24. ^ Gantz, p. 42; Henig, p. 582; Apollodorus, 2.7.5; Philemon, fr. 68 PCG (Kassel and Austin, VII p. 261). According to Gantz, Apollodorus' source for this may be Pherecydes, who he cites immediately afterwards.
  25. ^ Hard, p. 280; cf. Henig, p. 581.
  26. ^ Kerenyi, p. 93.
  27. ^ Nilsson, p. 466.
  28. ^ Musaeus fr. 8 Diels, pp. 181–2 [= Eratosthenes, Catasterismi (Hard 2015, p. 44)]. The Catasterismi, written by Eratosthenes, survives only through an epitome of the work, written by an unkown author referred to as "Pseudo-Eratosthenes". According to West 1983, pp. 41–3, 122, and Gantz, p. 41 the narrative recounted by Pseudo-Eratosthenes would likely have come from the Eumolpia, attributed to Musaeus.
  29. ^ Gee, p. 131–2; Gantz, p. 41; Frazer, p. 120.
  30. ^ Gee, p. 132; Gantz, p. 41.
  31. ^ Gantz, p. 41.
  32. ^ Frazer, p. 12; Musaeus, fr. 84 III Bernabé, p. 43 [= Hyginus, De Astronomica 2.13.6–7].
  33. ^ Gantz, p. 41. According to Gantz, this conclusion is "clearly intended" in Pseudo-Eratosthenes' account.
  34. ^ Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Melisseus; Braswell, p. 158; Didymus on Pindar, fr. 14b Braswell, pp. 155–7 [= Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.22.18–19 (p. 114).
  35. ^ Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Amalthea (1).
  36. ^ Fowler 2013, p. 324.
  37. ^ Hard 2004, p. 75; Gantz, p. 41.
  38. ^ Boyd, p. 73; Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus (1) 1.33–49 (pp. 186, 187).
  39. ^ Stephens, p. 64 on lines 48–9; cf. McLennan, pp. 81–2.
  40. ^ Campbell, p. 322; Miller, p. 223; Hansen, p. 325; Scholia on Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus (1), 1.49 (Miller, p. 223 n. 9).
  41. ^ West 1983, p. 122; Apollodorus, 1.1.6–7.
  42. ^ Larson, p. 185; Diodorus Siculus, 5.70.2–3.
  43. ^ Farnell, p. 97; Diodorus Siculus, 5.70.6, with Oldfather's n. 33.
  44. ^ Gantz, p. 41; Scholia D on Homer's Iliad, 15.229 (Dindorf, p. 72). This version also specifies that it is Themis who provides the oracle, directing Zeus to use the goat's skin. Part of the scholium's account also seems to have been preserved in P. Oxy. 3003 col. ii.15–9 (Parsons, p. 17); see Parsons, p. 19.
  45. ^ Hard 2015, p. 46.
  46. ^ Kidd, pp. 239, 240 on line 156; Aratus, Phaenomena 155–61 (pp. 218, 219), with Mair's n. g and n. h.
  47. ^ Kidd, p. 240 on line 156; Chrysanthou, p. 166; Mair, n. a to line 164.
  48. ^ Hard 2015, pp. 46–7; Aratus, Phaenomena 163.
  49. ^ McLennan, p. 81.
  50. ^ Kidd, p. 242 on line 163.
  51. ^ Hard 2015, p. 47; Aratus, Phaenomena 164 with Mair's n. a. For the first interpretation, see Strabo, 8.7.5.
  52. ^ Fowler 2013, p. 323 n. 212; Boyd, p. 73 n. 28.
  53. ^ Henig, p. 582; Scholia on Aratus, 164 (Kidd, p. 243 on line 164); cf. Hyginus, De astronomia 2.13.5. For a more detailed discussion of possible explanations for this word, see Bomer, pp. 298–9 on line 113; Frazer 2015b, pp. 11–2; Boyd, p. 73 with n. 28.
  54. ^ Gee, p. 132; Hard 2015, p. 47; Santoni, p. 190 n. 118; Eratosthenes, Catasterismi 13 (Hard 2015, p. 42); cf. Hyginus, De astronomia 2.13.7. The Greek passage contains a lacuna, see Olivieri, p. 17 with n. 22–3.

References

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