Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities o ...

, Actaeus (;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

: Ἀκταῖος ''Ἀktaῖos'' means "coast-man"), also called

Actaeon Actaeon (; grc, Ἀκταίων ''Aktaion''), in Greek mythology, son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a famous Theban hero. Like Achilles in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron. He fell to ...

, was the first king of

Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean ...

, according to

Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to: *Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium'' *Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC * Pausanias of Sicily, physician of t ...

Family

Actaeus was the father of

Aglaurus Aglaurus (; grc, Ἄγλαυρος, , 'dewfall') or Agraulus (; grc, Ἄγραυλος, , 'rustic one') is a name attributed to three figures in Greek mythology. *Aglaurus, an Athenian princess as the daughter of King Actaeus. She married Cecr ...

, and father-in-law to

Cecrops In Greek mythology, Cecrops ( /ˈsiːkrɒps/; Ancient Greek: Κέκροψ, ''Kékrops''; ''gen''.: Κέκροπος) may refer to two legendary kings of Athens: * Cecrops I, the first king of Athens. * Cecrops II, son of Pandion I, king of ...

, the first king of the city of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

. In one account, in addition to Aglaurus, Actaeon fathered Erse,

Pandrosus Pandrosos or Pandrosus (Ancient Greek: Πάνδροσος) was known in Greek myth as one of the three daughters of Kekrops, the first king of Athens, and Aglaurus, daughter of King Actaeus. Family Pandrosus' two sisters were Aglauros and ...

and Phoenike.

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souida ...

, s.v.
Phoenician letters
' with the authority of Skamon in his second book on ''Discoveries''

Mythology

Actaion named the Phoenician letters from her daughter Phoenice who died a maiden in her honour. Actaeus was said to have ruled over a city named Acte ( ''Akte'') or Actica. The location of this city is uncertain, but given that Acte means "coast" or "promontory", one can speculate that this is a culture reference to local or native population groups inhabiting some coastal areas of the Attic promontory, perhaps sharing language, or ethnic ties. This concords with evidence from the archaeological record which attest widespread coastal settlement in the Neolithic period (OED ad. loc. cit. Attica). One tradition states that Actaeus gave

its name before it was changed to Cecropia by Cecrops, others claim that Atthis, a daughter of Cranaos, the second king of Athens, was Attica's namesake. Actaeus had a daughter – Agraulus, who was married to Cecrops, the first king of the city of Athens. According to the '' Bibliotheca'', on the other hand, Cecrops was the first king of Attica, and the three daughters were his own.

Apollodorus Apollodorus (Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: :''Note: A f ...

, 3.14.1

Notes

References

, ''The Library'' with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
*

, ''Description of Greece'' with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
*Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio.'' ''3 vols''. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Suida The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...

, ''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.
{{authority control Kings of Athens Autochthons of classical mythology Kings in Greek mythology Attican characters in Greek mythology Attic mythology