Like most river gods, Alpheus was a son of the TitansOceanus and his sister-wifeTethys.[4]Telegone, daughter ofPharis, bore his son, the kingOrsilochus.[5] Through him, Alpheus was the grandfather ofDiocles, and great-grandfather of a pair of soldiers,Crethon and Orsilochus, who were slain byAeneas during theTrojan War.[6] The river god was also called the father ofMelantheia who became the mother ofEirene byPoseidon.[7] In later accounts, Alpheus (Alphionis) was the father ofPhoenissa, possible mother ofEndymion byZeus.[8]
According toPausanias, Alpheus was a passionate hunter and fell in love with the nymphArethusa, but she fled from him to the island ofOrtygia nearSyracuse, and metamorphosed herself into a well, after which Alpheus became a river, which flowing fromthe Peloponnese under the sea to Ortygia, there united its waters with those of the well Arethusa.[9] The well of Arethusa is a symbol ofSyracuse.[10] This story is related somewhat differently by the Roman writerOvid: Arethusa, a beautifulnymph, once while bathing in the riverAlpheus inArcadia, was surprised and pursued by the river god; but the goddessArtemis 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 islandOrtygia, 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 inElis, 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 ofArtemis Alphaea at Letrini. According to another version, the goddess fled toOrtygia, 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 atOlympia 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 riverAlpheios 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 ofHelios, and killed his brother Cercaphus in a contest. Haunted by despair and theErinyes he leapt into the river Nyctimus which afterwards received the name Alpheius.[3]
Alpheus was also the river whichHeracles, in the fifth of hislabours, rerouted in order to clean the filth from theAugean Stables in a single day, a task which had been presumed to be impossible.
Alpheus is often associated withAntinous, the lover of the Roman EmperorHadrian. Antinous was a Greek youth who had drowned in theNile River. After he was deified, coins of the period depict him as Alpheios or Hadrian with Alpheios.[17]
Sarasvati River – River mentioned in the Vedas and ancient Indian epicsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets, the invisible or subterraneanmystical river ofHinduism
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.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Alpheias".Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
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