Phialo or Phillo () was one of the lovers of the Greek mythological demigod
Heracles
Heracles ( ; ), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a Divinity, divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of ZeusApollodorus1.9.16/ref> and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through ...
. She was the daughter of the Arcadian
hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...
Alcimedon and the mother, by Heracles, of Aechmagoras.
Story
While Heracles was in
Arcadia, he visited Mount Ostracina, where he seduced Phialo, daughter of Alcimedon. When she bore a son named Aechmagoras, Alcimedon exposed them both to die of hunger on the mountain. Aechmagoras cried piteously, and a well-intentioned jay flew off to find Heracles, mimicking the sound, and thus drew him to the tree where Phialo sat, gagged and bound by her cruel father. Heracles rescued them, and the child grew to manhood. The neighbouring spring has been called Cissa (from ''kissa'' "jay"), ever since.
[
According to Robert Graves, this story is an anecdotal fancy, supposed to account for the name of the spring, which may have been sacred to a jay-totem clan. Stephen Gosson named one of his books ''The Ephemerides of Phialo'', "]ephemerides
In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (; ; , ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects and artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly velocity) over time. ...
" here meaning an account similar to the ''Works and Days
''Works and Days'' ()The ''Works and Days'' is sometimes called by the Latin translation of the title, ''Opera et Dies''. Common abbreviations are ''WD'' and ''Op'' for ''Opera''. is a didactic poem written by ancient Greek poet Hesiod around ...
'' of Hesiod
Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...
, and began his text with a discussion of the sacrifices offered to Heracles.
References
[
Pausanias: 8. 12. 3 – 4.
]
Bibliography
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Further reading
* {{cite book, chapter=Heroines in Familial Relationships, title=Greek heroine cults, series=Wisconsin studies in classics, first=Jennifer Lynn, last=Larson, publisher=University of Wisconsin Press, year=1995, isbn=978-0-299-14370-1, pages=96–97
Women in Greek mythology
Women of Heracles