In Greek mythology, Arcesius (or Arkêsios; also spelled Arceisius or Arkeisios) was the son of either Zeus or Cephalus, and king in Ithaca.
According to scholia on the Odyssey, Arcesius' parents were Zeus and Euryodeia[1]; Ovid also writes of Arcesius as a son of Zeus[2]. Other sources make him a son of Cephalus. Aristotle in his lost work The State of the Ithacians cited a myth according to which Cephalus was instructed by an oracle to mate with the first female being he should encounter if he wanted to have offspring; Cephalus mated with a she-bear, who then transformed into a human woman and bore him a son, Arcesius[3]. Hyginus makes Arcesius a son of Cephalus and Procris[4], while Eustathius mentions a version according to which Arcesius was a grandson of Cephalus through Cillus or Celeus[5].
Zeus made Arcesius' line one of "only sons": his only son was Laertes, whose only son was Odysseus, whose only son was Telemachus.[6] Arcesius's wife (and thus mother of Laertes) was Chalcomedusa[7], whose origins are not mentioned further, but whose very name, chalcos ("copper") and medousa ("guardian" or "protectress"), identifies her as the protector of Bronze Age metal-working technology.
Of another Arcesius, an architect, Vitruvius (vii, introduction) notes: "Arcesius, on the Corinthian order proportions, and on the Ionic order temple of Aesculapius at Tralles, which it is said that he built with his own hands."