Arcesius

In Greek mythology, Arcesius (also spelled Arceisius or Arkeisios; Greek: Ἀρκείσιος) was the son of either Zeus or Cephalus, and king in Ithaca.

According to scholia on the Odyssey, Arcesius' parents were Zeus and Euryodeia;[1] Ovid also writes of Arcesius as a son of Zeus.[2] 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.[3] Hyginus makes Arcesius a son of Cephalus and Procris,[4] while Eustathius mentions a version according to which Arcesius was a grandson of Cephalus through Cillus or Celeus.[5]

Zeus made Arcesius' line one of "only sons": his only son was Laertes, whose only son was Odysseus, whose only son was Telemachus.[6] Arcesius's wife (and thus mother of Laertes) was Chalcomedusa,[7] whose origins are not mentioned further, but whose very name, chalcos ("copper") and medousa ("guardian" or "protectress"), identifies her as the protector of Bronze Age metal-working technology.

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."

References

  1. ↑ Scholia and Eustathius on Odyssey 16. 118
  2. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses, 13. 144
  3. ↑ Aristotle in Etymologicum Magnum 130. 21, under Arkeisios.
  4. ↑ Hyginus, Fabulae, 189
  5. ↑ Eustathius on Iliad, 2. 631
  6. ↑ Homer, The Odyssey, 14. 182; 16. 118; cf. also Bibliotheca 1. 9. 16; Hyginus, Fabulae, 173
  7. ↑ Scholia on Odyssey 16. 118

Sources


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