In Greek mythology, Arcesius, Arceisius, Arkeisios or Arcisius () was the son of either Zeus or Cephalus, and king in Ithaca.
Mythology
According to
scholia on the
Odyssey, Arcesius' parents were Zeus and
Euryodeia;
[Scholia & Eustathius ad Homer, Odyssey 16.118] Ovid also writes of Arcesius as a son of Zeus.
[Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.144] Other sources make him a son of Cephalus.
Aristotle in his lost work
The State of the Ithacians cited a myth according to which Cephalus was instructed by an oracle to mate with the first female being he should encounter if he wanted to have offspring; Cephalus mated with a she-bear, who then transformed into a human woman and bore him a son, Arcesius.
[Aristotle in Etymologicum Magnum 130.21 under Arkeisios.] Hyginus makes Arcesius a son of Cephalus and
Procris,
[Hyginus, Fabulae 189] while Eustathius and the exegetical scholia to the
Iliad report a version according to which Arcesius was a grandson of Cephalus through
Cillus or Celeus.
[Scholia ad Homer, Iliad 2.173b; Eustathius ad Iliad 2.631]
Zeus made Arcesius' line one of "only child": his only son was Laertes, whose only son was Odysseus (albeit siring a daughter named Ctimene[Homer, Odyssey 15.363–364]), whose only son was Telemachus.[, ; cf. Apollodorus, 1.9.16; Hyginus, Fabulae 173.] Arcesius's wife (and thus mother of Laertes) was Chalcomedusa.[Scholia on Homer, Odyssey 16.118; Eustathius, on Homer's Odyssey, p. 1796, 35.]
Arcesius line
Arceisiades () was a
patronymic from Arcesius, which Laertes as well as his son, Odysseus, is designated by.
[, .]
Namesakes
Of another Arcesius, an architect,
Vitruvius (vii, introduction) notes: "Arcesius, on the
Corinthian order proportions, and on the
Ionic order temple of
Aesculapius at
Tralles, which it is said that he built with his own hands."
Notes
-
Homer. The Odyssey, Book XVI, in The Iliad & The Odyssey. Trans. Samuel Butler. p. 625. .
