Acoetes

Acoetes (from Greek

Greek language

Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...

 , via Latin Ăcoetēs) was the name of two men in Greek

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 and Roman mythology

Roman mythology

Roman mythology, or Latin mythology, refers to the mythological beliefs of the Italic people inhabiting the region of Latium and its main city, Ancient Rome. It can be considered as having two parts; One part, largely later and literary, consists of borrowings from Greek mythology...

. The first Acoetes is known for helping the god Bacchus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos is the god of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, amongst whom Greek mythology treated him as a late arrival...

. Another, lesser-known Acoetes was father to Laocoon

Laocoön

Laocoön , the son of Acoetes is a figure in Greek mythology, a Trojan priest of Poseidon, , whose rules he had defied, either by marrying and having sons, or by having committed an impiety by making love with his wife in the presence of a cult image in a sanctuary...

, who warned about the Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse was a tale from the Trojan War, as told in Virgil's Latin epic poem The Aeneid. The events in this story from the Bronze Age took place after Homer's Iliad, and before Homer's Odyssey. It was the stratagem that allowed the Greeks finally to enter the city of Troy and end the...

.

This Acoetes was, according to Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....

, the son of a poor fisherman in Maeonia, who served as pilot in a ship. After landing at the island of Naxos, some of the sailors brought a beautiful sleeping boy on board with them.

Acoetes (from Greek

Greek language

Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...

 , via Latin Ăcoetēs) was the name of two men in Greek

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 and Roman mythology

Roman mythology

Roman mythology, or Latin mythology, refers to the mythological beliefs of the Italic people inhabiting the region of Latium and its main city, Ancient Rome. It can be considered as having two parts; One part, largely later and literary, consists of borrowings from Greek mythology...

. The first Acoetes is known for helping the god Bacchus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos is the god of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, amongst whom Greek mythology treated him as a late arrival...

. Another, lesser-known Acoetes was father to Laocoon

Laocoön

Laocoön , the son of Acoetes is a figure in Greek mythology, a Trojan priest of Poseidon, , whose rules he had defied, either by marrying and having sons, or by having committed an impiety by making love with his wife in the presence of a cult image in a sanctuary...

, who warned about the Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse was a tale from the Trojan War, as told in Virgil's Latin epic poem The Aeneid. The events in this story from the Bronze Age took place after Homer's Iliad, and before Homer's Odyssey. It was the stratagem that allowed the Greeks finally to enter the city of Troy and end the...

.

Dionysian myth

This Acoetes was, according to Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....

, the son of a poor fisherman in Maeonia, who served as pilot in a ship. After landing at the island of Naxos, some of the sailors brought a beautiful sleeping boy on board with them. They had found him on the island and wished to take him with them. Acoetes, who recognized in the boy the god Bacchus

Bacchus

Bacchus may refer to:* Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and intoxication, known as Bacchus to Romans** A style of deluxe wine carrier named in Dionysus' honour is called a Bacchus wine tote....

, was unable to dissuaded them from it. When the ship had reached the open sea, the boy awoke, and desired to be carried back to Naxos. The sailors promised to do so but did not keep their word. Hereupon the god showed himself to them in his own majesty: Vines began to twine round the vessel, and Dionysus stood crowned with grapes, holding his thyrsus

Thyrsus

In Greek mythology, a thyrsus was a staff of giant fennel covered with ivy vines and leaves, sometimes wound with taeniae and always topped with a pine cone. Where these emblems were, there was the spirit of Dionysus also. Euripides wrote that honey dripped from the thyrsos staves that the...

(a staff with a pine cone on top, wrapped with vines and ivy leaves) and surrounded by panthers and tigers. The sailors, seized with madness, jump­ed into the sea and were turned into dolphin

Dolphin

Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in seventeen genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly...

s. Acoetes alone was saved and continued on his journey with Dionysus, returning to Naxos, where he was initiated in the Bacchic mysteries and became a priest of the god.

Hyginus

Hyginus

Hyginus can refer to:*Pope Hyginus, also a saint, Bishop of Rome about 140*Gaius Julius Hyginus , Roman poet, author of Fabulae, reputed author of Poeticon astronomicon*Hyginus Gromaticus, Roman surveyor...

, whose story on the whole agrees with that of Ovid, and all the other writers who mention this adventure of Bacchus, call the crew of the ship Tyrrhenian

Etruria

Etruria — usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia — was a region of Central Italy, an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H...

 pirates  and derive the name of the Tyrrhenian Sea

Tyrrhenian Sea

The Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy.It is bounded by Corsica and Sardinia , Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, and Calabria , and Sicily .The maximum depth of the sea is ....

from them.