Achelous

Achelous (Greek Ἀχελῷος ), also Achelous and Achilaos, in Greek mythology, the personification of the river Achelous.

Myth

Achelous is the oldest and also as the chief of the Greek river gods. He is the son of Oceanus and Tethys. He is able to change its shape ( an allusion to the river, whose divinity he was and who also changed its course again and again). As a river god, he is responsible for the freshwater richness and fertility of the land. Achelous is the father of the Sirens, the nymph Kallirrhoe, who was married to Alcmaeon, and the nymph Castalia, which was the source of the nymph significant Delphic source.

As Achelous in Deianeira, daughter of Oineus, love, he came into conflict with his opponent Heracles. Achelous transformed first into a snake; last into a bull, giving him but not further helped Heracles broke from him in his bull form one of the horns. To retrieve his horn, he had in exchange for a horn of the goat Amalthea give that had suckled Zeus ( later called the horn of plenty ). Since the 1st century BC, the episode with the horn was reinterpreted as the Herakles'sche correction of arkarnanischen river.

Cult

Achelous was not only regionally but worshiped throughout Greece. His name was even used as a synonym for "water". His cult is mentioned several times in inscriptions. The most important place of worship was the oracle of Dodona. In the course of the 4th century BC, its ritual worship but fell sharply.

Representation

In the ancient art Achelous is a commonly encountered motif. In the literature, it remained until the Roman empire popular as an example of the unfortunate lover. In the visual arts, he was sometimes as a human with a horn, but usually represented as a bull with a human face and a long beard wet. This outweighed individual representations of God. Representation of the fight with Hercules were rare. And this often only as a mask - - often only the face was shown. Achelous also appears as the father of the nymphs on the Attic Nymph reliefs. Especially in Magna Graecia and Sicily, he was also subject of numerous coinages. Even with the Etruscans, the representation of the Achelous in art was widespread. A Greek vase painter is called on a vase in Berlin as Achelous Achelous - painter because of its representations.

A 1995 described dinosaur was named after the river god Achelousaurus.

Swell

• Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII, 547 and IX, and X 1, 87