Phialo (also known as Phillo) was one of the lovers of the Greek mythological demigod
Heracles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...
. She was the daughter of the Arcadian
hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ...
Alcimedon Alcimedon (; Ancient Greek: Ἀλκιμέδων) can refer to a number of people in Greek mythology and history:
* Alcimedon, one of the Tyrrhenian sailors, who wanted to carry off the infant Dionysus from Naxos, but was metamorphosed, with his com ...
and the mother, by Heracles, of Aechmagoras.
Story
While Heracles was in
Arcadia
Arcadia may refer to:
Places Australia
* Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
* Arcadia, Queensland
* Arcadia, Victoria
Greece
* Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese
* Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...
, 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
Stephen Gosson (April 1554 – 13 February 1624) was an English satirist.
Biography
Gosson was baptized at St George's church, Canterbury, on 17 April 1554. He entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1572, and on leaving the university in 1576 h ...
named one of his books ''The Ephemerides of Phialo'', "ephemerides
In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (pl. ephemerides; ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects as well as artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly vel ...
" here meaning an account similar to the ''Works and Days
''Works and Days'' ( grc, Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, Érga kaì Hēmérai)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 ...
'' of Hesiod
Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
, 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