Acacallis (mythology)

Acacallis (Greek: Ἀκακαλλίς) in Greek mythology is the daughter of Minos, king of Crete, and Pasiphae. The Bibliotheca calls her Acalle (Greek: Ἀκάλλη).^[1] According to a Cretan mythological tradition, she bore a son to Hermes, Cydon, the founder of Cydonia.^[2] Other traditions give Cydon as the offspring of Acacallis and Apollo.^[3][4] Yet others wrote that Acacallis mothered Cydon with Hermes, and Naxos (eponym of the island Naxos) with Apollo.^[5]

Another tradition relates that Acacallis and Apollo had a son named Miletus. Fearing her father's wrath she exposed the child, but Apollo commanded she-wolves to nurse it until it could be taken in and raised by shepherds. He grew up strong and handsome, and Minos was seized with desire for the boy. Miletus fled Crete to avoid being becoming the eromenos of the king, and went on to found the eponymous city, Miletus.^[6]

Still other traditions relate of other sons born of her and Apollo, named Amphithemis and Garamas (in some stories, the first mortal born). They were born in Libya, to where Minos had banished the pregnant Acacallis in retribution for her having an illicit relationship. Amphithemis was known as the consort of the Libyan lake nymph Tritonis and father by her of Nasamon and Caphaurus, who were responsible for the death of the Argonaut Canthus.^[7]

Yet another son of Acacallis and Apollo was Oaxes, eponym of the town Oaxes in Crete;^[8] in another account, however, the mother of Oaxes is called Anchiale.^[9]

Finally, Pausanias relates that when Apollo came to Carmanor to be cleansed for the murder of Pytho, he fell in love with Acacallis (said to be a nymph in this particular version), and that from their union were born Phylacides and Phylander. People of the Cretan city Elyrus sent to Delphi a bronze statue of a goat suckling these two children, which suggests that they must have been abandoned by their mother.^[10]

Acacallis was in Crete a common name for a narcissus.^[11]

References

1. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 1. § 2.
2. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8. 53. 4
3. Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Kydōnia
4. Schmitz, Leonhard (1867), "Acacallis", in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology 1, p. 4
5. Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 4. 1492
6. Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 30, the tale of Byblis.
7. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 1490, ff
8. Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Oaxes
9. Servius on Virgil's Eclogue 1, 65
10. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10. 16. 5
11. Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned, XV. p. 681; Hesychius of Alexandria s.v.

Sources

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.