Acantha () is often claimed to be a minor character in

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

whose metamorphosis was the origin of the '' Acanthus'' plant.Coulter, Charles Russell and Turner, Patricia (2000). ''Encyclopedia Of Ancient Deities''. Routledge. pg.62. . Acantha's myth, however, does not appear in any classical source.

Mythology

The tale supposedly goes that Acantha was a

nymph A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, land ...

loved by the god

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

. Acantha, however, rebuffed

's continued advances and scratched his face. As a result, Apollo transformed her into the Acanthus, a plant with spiny leaves. Beeton, Samuel Orchart (1871). ''Beeton's Classical dictionary''. Warwick. pg.2. Available a
books.google.co.uk
/ref>

Origin of the myth

The story has, over the years, been retold in books, Parley, Peter (1839). ''Tales about the mythology of Greece and Rome''.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. pg.347 encyclopedias, Evslin, Bernard (2012). ''Gods, Demigods and Demons: An Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology''. Open Road Media. Acantha. and journals. Compilers have, however, often omitted reference to classical sources. For instance, the first edition of John Lemprière's '' Bibliotheca Classica'', an early encyclopaedia of mythological figures, provides no reference for the story. In the updated 1839 edition three references are given. These are to Pliny the Elder's ''

Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

'',

Pedanius Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides (, ; 40–90 AD), "the father of pharmacognosy", was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of (in the original , , both meaning "On Medical Material") , a 5-volume Greek encyclopedic pharmacopeia on he ...

' ''

De Materia Medica (Latin name for the Greek work , , both meaning "On Medical Material") is a pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants and the medicines that can be obtained from them. The five-volume work was written between 50 and 70 CE by Pedanius Dioscorides, ...

'' and Hesychius of Alexandria's ''Lexicon''. On inspection, however, Pliny makes absolutely no reference to Acantha, Dioscorides refers only to the plant and Hesychius simply explains what the word means. A number of latter compilers have similarly not cited classical references when retelling the myth. The myth does not appear in the '' Thesaurus Linguae Latinae'', a volume which includes every Latin word, including proper names. The ''

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. The TLG was founded in 1972 by Marianne McDonald (a graduate student at the time and now a professor of theater and classics at the University of Ca ...

'', a similarly comprehensive source containing a complete repository of Ancient Greek texts from

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

through to A.D. 200, is also absent the myth. The story is not present in either the '' Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae'', a work praised for its breadth and quality, or '' Der Neue Pauly'', an encyclopaedia considered an unparalleled masterpiece of classical German scholarship. Acantha's tale has lifted elements from the myth of Oenone, a nymph who scratched Apollo's face while he raped her, as attested in the poem ''

Fasti In ancient Rome, the ''fasti'' (Latin plural) were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline, the word ''fasti'' continued to be used for simi ...

'' by the Roman poet

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

; that text however has been extended with various spurious post-Ovidian interpolations, and Oenone's rape is, like Acantha herself, otherwise unattested. According to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

a woman named Acantho became the mother of the "fourth

sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

" in

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

, ''

De Natura Deorum ''De Natura Deorum'' (''On the Nature of the Gods'') is a philosophical dialogue by Roman Academic Skeptic philosopher Cicero written in 45 BC. It is laid out in three books that discuss the theological views of the Hellenistic philosophies of ...

'
3.53
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Notes

{{Authority control Fakelore Nymphs

Mythology

Origin of the myth

See also

Notes