General Notes

[FAMILY.FTW]

ACACALLIS was a daughter of Minos and Pasiphae. While she has not shared the fame of her sisters Ariadne and Phaedra, she did lead a most interesting life. She had children by the two handsomest of the Olympian gods and even by the father of the gods. Acacallis was Apollo's first love. With his sister Artemis he came to Tarrha from Aegialae on the mainland for purification after slaying the moster Python. Apollo stayed at the house of Carmanor, where he found Acacallis, a maternal relative of Carmanor; it was not long until he seduced her. Some say Minos banished Acacallis to Libya, where she became the mother of Ammon by Zeus. By Apollo she had two more sons, Amphithemis and Garamas. Amphithemis became the father of Nasamon and Caphaurus, or Cephalion, by the nymph Tritonis. Of Garamas little is known. Some say he was born in Libya when Acacallis fled there, but others say he was the first man ever to be born and therefore from a much earlier era. Acacallis became the mother of Cydon by Hermes (others say the father was Apollo, and still others that it was Tegeates). Cydon grew up to found the town of Cydonia (modern Hania) in Crete. Some say that Acacallis had still another son (no father mentioned), Oaxus, or Oaxes, in Crete. Others say he was a son of Apollo by Anchiale. In Crete Acacallis was a common name for narcissus. Apollodorus (3.1.2) calls this daughter of Minos Acalle. [Pausanias 7.2.3, 8.53.2; Plutarch, Agis 9; Apollonius Rhodius 4.1490; Apollodorus 3.1.2; Stephanus Byzantium, "Oaxos"; Athenaeus 15.681; Hesychius, "Akakallis."]

AEROPE (1) was a daughter of Catreus, king of Crete, and granddaughter of Minos. From the very start, fortune did not smile one her. Catreus learned from an oracle that one of his children would kill him. His son Althaemenes left Crete voluntarily, taking with him one of his sisters, Apemosyne. The other two daughters, Clymene and Aerope, Catreus gave to Nauplius to sell in a foreign land. Nauplius married Clymene and gave Aerope to Pleisthenes, the son of Atreus. By him she became the mother of Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Anaxibia. Pleisthenes was sickly and died young; Atreus then married Aerope, and adopted and reared his grandchildren. Thyestes, the younger brother of Atreus, seduced Aerope. About the same time, the rule of Mycenae became available through the death of Eurystheus, and an oracle said a son of Pelops should be chosen king. Atreus had found in one of his flocks a lamb with golden fleece; istead of dedicating it to Artemis as he had promised, he hid the fleece in a chest. Aerope found it and secretly gave it to her lover. Thyestes proposed that the rule of Mycenae should go to the posessor of the fleece, and the unsuspecting Atreus readily agreed. So Thyestes was declared king, but the gods intervened. It was agreed that if the sun changed its course, Atreus would be king. Then the sun set in the east, and Thyestes' exceedingly short reign was over. So was his residence in Mycenae, since Atreus promptly exiled him for the theft of and deception about the golden fleece. Atreus found out about the adulterous affair and exacted a terrible revenge. He recalled Thyestes from exile, pretending to forgive him, but meanwhile he had killed Thyestes' three sons, Aglaus, Callileon, and Orchomenus. He had them dismembered, boiled, and served to Thyestes during a feast. After Thyestes had eaten, the grisly heads were brought in. One more Atreus drove Thyestes from the country, then turned his attention to Aerope, whom he drowned. Interestingly, this was a fate originally intended for her back in Crete, according to some, when she had been caught by her father in bed with a lover. Aerope is noteworthy not only for her tempestuous career but for being the blood link between the royal lines of Mycenae and Crete. Few people ever stop to consider that Agamemnon and Menelaus were great-grandsons of Minos and thereby second cousins of Idomeneus. This could even account for the entrance of Crete into the Trojan War. [Apollodorus 3.2.2; Euripides, Orestes 5, Helen 397; Hyginus, Fables 87.]