In compliance with an
oracle, to have caused his four daughters to be sacrificed on the tomb of the
Cyclops Geraestus, for the purpose of delivering the city from
famine and the
plague, under which it was suffering during the war with
Minos over the death of the latter's son
Androgeos. Hyacinthus's daughters, who were sacrificed either to
Athena or
Persephone, were known in the
Attic legends by the name of the "Hyacinthides", which they derived from their father.[1][2]
The names and numbers of the Hyacinthides differ in the different writers. The author of the Bibliotheca mentions four (Antheis,
Aegleis, Orthaea, and Lytaea), while Hyginus only mentions Antheis. One account represents them as married[citation needed], although they were sacrificed as maidens, whence they are sometimes called simply αἱ παρθένοι.
Stephanus of Byzantium calls one of them Lousia,
eponym of a demos,
Lousia, of the
phyle Oineis.[3] Some traditions conflate them with the daughters of
Erechtheus and relate that they received their name from the village of Hyacinthus, where they were sacrificed at the time when Athens was attacked by the
Eleusinians and
Thracians, or
Thebans.[4] Some of these traditions further confound them with
Agraulos,
Herse, and
Pandrosus,[5] or with the
Hyades.[6][7] The story of
Leos and his daughters is also comparable to that of Hyacinthus and the Hyacinthides.
Stephanus of Byzantium, Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling.
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Suida, Suda Encyclopedia translated by Ross Scaife, David Whitehead, William Hutton, Catharine Roth, Jennifer Benedict, Gregory Hays, Malcolm Heath Sean M. Redmond, Nicholas Fincher, Patrick Rourke, Elizabeth Vandiver, Raphael Finkel, Frederick Williams, Carl Widstrand, Robert Dyer, Joseph L. Rife, Oliver Phillips and many others.
Online version at the Topos Text Project.