Acantha (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

: , English translation: "thorn") is often claimed to be a minor character in

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities o ...

whose metamorphosis was the origin of the '' Acanthus'' plant.Coulter, Charles Russell and Turner, Patricia (2000). ''Encyclopedia Of Ancient Deities''. Routledge. pg.62. . Acantha's myth however does not appear in any classical source.

Mythology

The tale supposedly goes that Acantha was a

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

loved by the god

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

. Acantha, however, rebuffed Apollo's advances and scratched his face. As a result, Apollo transformed her into the Acanthus, a plant with spiny leaves. Beeton, Samuel Orchart (1871). ''Beeton's Classical dictionary''. Warwick. pg.2. Available a
books.google.co.uk
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Origin of the myth

The story has, over the years, been retold in books, Parley, Peter (1839). ''Tales about the mythology of Greece and Rome''. Oxford University Press. pg.347 encyclopedias, Evslin, Bernard (2012). ''Gods, Demigods and Demons: An Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology''. Open Road Media. Acantha. and journals. Compilers have, however, often omitted reference to classical sources. For instance the first edition of John Lemprière's ''

Bibliotheca Classica The ''Bibliotheca Classica'' (Reading, November, 1788), or ''Classical Dictionary containing a full Account of all the Proper Names mentioned in Ancient Authors'' is the best-known work of John Lemprière, an English classical scholar. Edited by v ...

'', an early encyclopaedia of mythological figures, provides no reference for the story. In the updated 1839 edition three references are given. These are to Pliny the Elder's '' Natural History'',

Pedanius Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides ( grc-gre, Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, ; 40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of '' De materia medica'' (, On Medical Material) —a 5-vo ...

' ''

De Materia Medica (Latin name for the Greek work , , both meaning "On Medical Material") is a pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants and the medicines that can be obtained from them. The five-volume work was written between 50 and 70 CE by Pedanius Dioscorides, ...

'' and Hesychius of Alexandria's ''Lexicon''. On inspection, however, Pliny makes absolutely no reference to Acantha, Dioscorides refers only to the plant and Hesychius simply explains what the word means. A number of latter compilers have similarly not cited classical references when retelling the myth. The myth does not appear in the ''

Thesaurus Linguae Latinae The ''Thesaurus Linguae Latinae'' (abbreviated as ''ThLL'' or ''TLL'') is a monumental dictionary of Latin founded on historical principles. It encompasses the Latin language from the time of its origin to the time of Isidore of Seville (died ...

'', a volume which includes every Latin word, including proper names. The ''

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. The TLG was founded in 1972 by Marianne McDonald (a graduate student at the time and now a professor of theater and classics at the University of Cal ...

'', a similarly comprehensive source containing a complete repository of Ancient Greek texts from

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

through to A.D. 200, is also absent the myth. The story is not present in either the ''

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae The ''Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae'' (abbreviated ''LIMC'') is a multivolume encyclopedia cataloguing representations of mythology in the plastic arts of classical antiquity. Published serially from 1981 to 2009, it is the most ext ...

'', a work praised for its breadth and quality, or '' Der Neue Pauly'', an encyclopaedia considered an unparalleled masterpiece of classical German scholarship.Wolfgang Schuller: ''Einführung in die Geschichte des Altertums.'' Ulmer, Stuttgart 1994, S. 140. (German)

Notes

{{reflist, 30em Nymphs

Mythology

Origin of the myth

See also

Notes