Acantha
/ref>) is often claimed to be a minor character in Greek mythology whose metamorphosis was the origin of the Acanthus plant.[Coulter, Charles Russell and Turner, Patricia (2000). Encyclopedia Of Ancient Deities. Routledge. pg.62. .] Acantha's myth, however, does not appear in any classical source.
Mythology
The tale supposedly goes that Acantha was a
nymph loved by the god
Apollo. Acantha, however, rebuffed
Apollo's continued advances and scratched his face. As a result, Apollo transformed her into the Acanthus, a plant with spiny leaves.
[Beeton, Samuel Orchart (1871). Beeton's Classical dictionary. Warwick. pg.2. Available at books.google.co.uk]
Origin of the myth
The story has, over the years, been retold in books,
[Peter Parley (1839). Tales about the mythology of Greece and Rome. Oxford University Press. pg.347][Gledhill, David (2008). The Names of Plants. Cambridge University Press. pg.33. .] encyclopedias,
[Bernard Evslin (2012). Gods, Demigods and Demons: An Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology. Open Road Media. Acantha. ] and journals.
[Mackay, Charles (1861), A Weekly Journal of Fact and Fiction, Volumes 1-13, pg.353] Compilers have, however, often omitted reference to classical sources. For instance, the first edition of John Lemprière's
Bibliotheca Classica, an early encyclopaedia of mythological figures, provides no reference for the story.
[Lemprière, John (1788). Bibliotheca Classica. T. Cadell. Acantha] In the updated 1839 edition three references are given. These are to Pliny the Elder's
Natural History, Pedanius Dioscorides'
De Materia Medica and Hesychius of Alexandria's
Lexicon.
[Lemprière, John (1839). A Classical Dictionary, Containing a Copious Account of All the Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors. Available at books.google.co.uk] On inspection, however, Pliny makes absolutely no reference to Acantha, Dioscorides refers only to the plant and Hesychius simply explains what the word means.
[Pliny the Elder, translation by Bostock, John and Riley, H.T (2009). Natural History. BiblioLife. Book XXIV, Chapter 12. . Available at perseus.tufts.edu][Dioscorides, Pedanius (2000). De Materia Medica. Ibidis Press. Book Three, 3.14 & 3.15. .][Hesychius of Alexandria (1520). Alphabetical Collection of All Words. Available at wikisource.org] A number of latter compilers have similarly not cited classical references when retelling the myth.
The myth does not appear in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae,[ Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Available at degruyter.com] a volume which includes every Latin word, including proper names.[ Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Available at britannica.com] The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, a similarly comprehensive source containing a complete repository of Ancient Greek texts from Homer through to A.D. 200,[Bowen, Alan C. (1988). Ancient Philosophy. Volume 8, Issue 1, page 136.] is also absent the myth.[ Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Available at stephanus.tlg.uci.edu ] The story is not present in either the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae,[ Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Available a limc-france.fr] a work praised for its breadth and quality,[Hansen, William (2005). Classical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans. pg.14. ][Hard, Robin (2008). The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology. pg.691. ] or Der Neue Pauly,[ Der Neue Pauly. Available at referenceworks.brillonline.com] an encyclopaedia considered an unparalleled masterpiece of classical German scholarship.[Bernhard Kytzler: Kathedrale der Gelehrsamkeit. In: Die Zeit. Hamburg 1979,6 (2. Febr.), S. 39. (German)][Wolfgang Schuller: Einführung in die Geschichte des Altertums. Ulmer, Stuttgart 1994, S. 140. (German)]
Acantha's tale has lifted elements from the myth of Oenone, a nymph who scratched Apollo's face while he raped her, as attested in the poem Fasti by the Roman poet Ovid; that text however has been extended with various spurious post-Ovidian interpolations, and Oenone's rape is, like Acantha herself, otherwise unattested.[Ovid, Heroides 145. The particular passage is excluded from the Loeb translation.][Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.53]
See also
-
Syrinx
-
Daphne
-
Pitys (mythology)
-
Hyacinth (mythology)
-
Leda and the Swan
-
Europa (mythology)
-
Erinoma
-
Ganymede (mythology)
-
Clytie
-
Mecon
-
Asteria
-
Myrina
-
Lotis
-
Orchis
-
Amethyste
-
Rhodanthe
Notes
