In Greek mythology, Alpheus or Alpheios (; ) was the river god who embodied the river of the same name.

Family

Like most river gods, Alpheus was the child of the Titans Oceanus and his sister-wife Tethys.Hesiod, Theogony 338 & 366–370; Hyginus, Fabulae Preface Telegone, daughter of Pharis, bore Alpheus' son, the king Orsilochus.Pausanias, 4.30.2 Through Orsilochus, Alpheus became the grandfather of Diocles, and great-grandfather of a pair of soldiers, Crethon and Orsilochus, who were slain by Aeneas during the Trojan War.Homer, Iliad 5.45 Alpheus was also called the father of Melantheia who became the mother of Eirene by Poseidon.Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae 19 In later accounts, Alpheus (Alphionis) was the father of Phoenissa, possible mother of Endymion by Zeus.Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions 10, p. 123, l. 41

Mythology

According to Pausanias, Alpheus was a passionate hunter and fell in love with the nymph Arethusa, but she fled from him to the island of Ortygia near Syracuse, and metamorphosed herself into a well, after which Alpheus became a river, which flowing from the Peloponnese under the sea to Ortygia, there united its waters with those of the well Arethusa.Pausanias, 5.7.2; Scholiast ad Pindar, Nemean Odes 1.3 The well of Arethusa is a symbol of Syracuse.Roman, L., & Roman, M. (2010). This story is related somewhat differently by the Roman writer Ovid: Arethusa, a beautiful nymph, once while bathing in the river Alpheus in Arcadia, was surprised and pursued by the river god; but the goddess Artemis took pity upon her and changed her into a well, which flowed under the earth to the island of Ortygia.Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.572; Virgil, Aeneid 3.694; Servius ad Virgil, Eclogues 10.4; Statius, Silvae 1.2, 203, Thebaid 1.271, 4.239; Lucian, Dialogi Marini 3 Alpheus took on water form jumping into the stream, but the earth opened and the stream flew underground to appear in a bay near Syracuse, near the island Ortygia, a location sacred to Artemis.

According to other traditions, Artemis herself was the object of the love of Alpheus. Once, it is said, when pursued by him she fled to Letrini in Elis, and here she covered her face and those of her companions (nymphs) with mud, so that Alpheus could not discover or distinguish her, and was obliged to return.Pausanias, 6.22.5 This occasioned the building of a temple of Artemis Alphaea at Letrini. According to another version, the goddess fled to Ortygia, where she had likewise a temple under the name of Alphaea.Scholiast ad Pindar, Pythian Odes 2.12 An allusion to Alpheius' love of Artemis is also contained in the fact that at Olympia the two divinities had one altar in common.Pausanias, 5.14.5; Scholiast ad Pindar, Olympian Odes 5.10

In these accounts two or more distinct stories seem to be mixed up together, but they probably originated in the popular belief that there was a natural subterranean communication between the river Alpheios and the well Arethusa. It was believed that a cup thrown into the Alpheus would make its reappearance in the well Arethusa in Ortygia.Strabo, 6, p. 270, 8.343; Seneca the Younger, Naturales quaestiones 3.26; Fulgentius, Mythologiarum libri 3.12 Plutarch gives an account which is altogether unconnected with those mentioned above.Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis 19 According to him, Alpheus was a son of Helios, and killed his brother Cercaphus in a contest. Haunted by despair and the Erinyes he leapt into the river Nyctimus which afterwards received the name Alpheus.

Alpheus was also the river which Heracles, in the fifth of his labours, rerouted in order to clean the filth from the Augean Stables in a single day, a task which had been presumed to be impossible.

Roman references

Alpheus is often associated with Antinous, the lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Antinous was a Greek youth who had drowned in the Nile River. After he was deified, coins of the period depict him as Alpheios or Hadrian with Alpheios.

Gallery

See also , the invisible or subterranean mystical river of Hinduism

Notes

References Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, Mythologies translated by Whitbread, Leslie George. Ohio State University Press.1971. Online version at theio.com Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Hesiod, Theogony from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website. Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Homer, Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920. . Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, Morals translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Pindar, Odes translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Pindar, The Odes of Pindar including the Principal Fragments with an Introduction and an English Translation by Sir John Sandys, Litt.D., FBA. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1937. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions from Ante-Nicene Library Volume 8, translated by Smith, Rev. Thomas. T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. 1867. Online version at theio.com Strabo, The Geography of Strabo. Edition by H.L. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Strabo, Geographica edited by A. Meineke. Leipzig: Teubner. 1877. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.

Bibliography Virginia M. Lewis, "Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Ideology of Gelon's Innovative Syracusan Tetradrachm", in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 59 (2019), pp. 179–201.