Like most river gods, Alpheus was a son of the Titans
Oceanus and his sister-wife
Tethys.[4]Telegone, daughter of
Pharis, bore his son, the king
Orsilochus.[5] Through him, Alpheus was the grandfather of
Diocles, and great-grandfather of a pair of soldiers,
Crethon and Orsilochus, who were slain by
Aeneas during the
Trojan War.[6] The river god was also called the father of
Melantheia who became the mother of
Eirene by
Poseidon.[7] In later accounts, Alpheus (Alphionis) was the father of
Phoenissa, possible mother of
Endymion by
Zeus.[8]
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.[9] The well of Arethusa is a symbol of
Syracuse.[10] 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.[11] 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.[10]
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.[12] 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.[13] An allusion to Alpheius' love of Artemis is also contained in the fact that at
Olympia the two divinities had one altar in common.[14]
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 Alpheius would make its reappearance in the well Arethusa in Ortygia.[15]Plutarch gives an account which is altogether unconnected with those mentioned above.[16] According to him, Alpheius 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 Alpheius.[3]
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.[17]
Gallery
Alpheus chasing Arethusa by Antoine Coypel (18th-century)
Alpheus and Arethusa by René-Antoine Houasse
The Story of Arethusa by Francesco Primaticcio
Alpheus and Arethusa by Abraham Bloteling (between 1655 and 1690)
Alpheus and Arethusa (Roman School, circa 1640)
Alpheus and Arethusa by Carlo Maratta (7th-century)
Alpheus and Arethusa by John Martin (1832)
Arethusa Chased by Alpheus by Wilhelm Janson and Antonio Tempesta (1606)
Alpheus and Arethusa by Johann König (probably 1610s)
Alpheus and Arethusa by Luigi Garzi
Alpheus and Arethusa by Paolo de Matteis (1710)
Aréthuse et Alphée by Léopold Burthe (1847)
Arethusa
Scultore fiorentino, alfeo e aretusa, 1561–62
Alpheus and Arethusa by Battista di Domenico Lorenzi (1568–70)
See also
Sarasvati River – River mentioned in the Vedas and ancient Indian epics, the invisible or subterranean
mystical river of
Hinduism
Notes
^Lewis, "Two sides of the same coin", pp. 179–201.
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.