1. Etymology

2. Mythology

3. The aegis

4. Among the stars

5. See also

6. Notes

7. References

In Greek mythology, Amaltheia ({{lang-el|Ἀμάλθεια}}) is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus.

Etymology

The name Amaltheia, in Greek "tender goddess", is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess,^[1] whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoans may have called her a version of "Dikte".^[2]

Mythology

There were different traditions regarding Amaltheia.^[3]

Amaltheia is sometimes represented as the goat who nurtured the infant-god in a cave in Cretan Mount Aigaion ("Goat Mountain"),^[4] sometimes as a goat-tending nymph^[5] of uncertain parentage (the daughter of Oceanus,^[6] Helios,^[7] Haemonius,^[8] or—according to Lactantius—Melisseus^[9]),^[10] The possession of multiple and uncertain mythological parents indicates wide worship of a deity in many cultures having varying local traditions. Other names, like Adrasteia, Ide, the nymph of Mount Ida, or Adamanthea, which appear in mythology handbooks,^[11] are simply duplicates of Amaltheia.

In the tradition represented by Hesiod's Theogony, Cronus swallowed all of his children immediately after birth. The mother goddess Rhea, Zeus' mother, deceived her brother consort Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped to look like a baby instead of Zeus. Since she instead gave the infant Zeus to Adamanthea to nurse in a cave on a mountain in Crete, it is clear that Adamanthea is a doublet of Amaltheia. In many literary references, the Greek tradition relates that in order that Cronus should not hear the wailing of the infant, Amaltheia gathered about the cave the Kuretes or the Korybantes to dance, shout, and clash their spears against their shields.^[12] Still a baby, Zeus would have broken off one of Amalthea's horns while playing, which would become the cornucopia^[13], and turning Amalthea into the first unicorn, a reference used by Peter S. Beagle in his novel The Last Unicorn, as Schmendrick, the magician, called the main character "Lady Amalthea", without giving any explanation to his choice.

The aegis

Amaltheia's skin, or that of her goat, taken by Zeus in honor of her when she died, became the protective aegis in some traditions.

Among the stars

"Amaltheia was placed amongst the stars as the constellation Capra—the group of stars surrounding Capella on the arm (ôlenê) of Auriga the Charioteer."^[14] Capra simply means "she-goat" and the star-name Capella is the "little goat", but some modern readers confuse her with the male sea-goat of the Zodiac, Capricorn, who bears no relation to Amaltheia, no connection in a Greek or Latin literary source nor any ritual or inscription to join the two. Hyginus describes this catasterism in the Poetic Astronomy, in speaking of Auriga, the Charioteer:

Parmeniscus says that a certain Melisseus was king in Crete, and to his daughters Jove was brought to nurse. Since they did not have milk, they furnished him a she-goat, Amaltheia by name, who is said to have reared him. She often bore twin kids, and at the very time that Jove was brought to her to nurse, had borne a pair. And so because of the kindness of the mother, the kids, too were placed among the constellations. Cleostratus of Tenedos is said to have first pointed out these kids among the stars.

But Musaeus says Jove was nursed by Themis and the nymph Amaltheia, to whom he was given by Ops, his mother. Now Amaltheia had as a pet a certain goat which is said to have nursed Jove.^[15]

See also

• Auðumbla, primeval cow in Norse mythology who nourished the primordial entities Ymir and Búri

Notes

References

• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, 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. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Gee, Emma, Ovid, Aratus and Augustus: Astronomy in Ovid's Fasti, Cambridge University Press, 2000. {{ISBN|9780521651875}}.
• Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae in Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabuae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-87220-821-6}}.
• Kerenyi, Karl. The Gods of the Greeks. London: Thames & Hudson, 1951.
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Amaltheia"
• West, M. L. (1983), The Orphic Poems, Clarendon Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-814854-8}}.

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