Arcesius

In Greek mythology, Arcesius (also spelled Arceisius or Arkeisios; Greek: Ἀρκείσιος) was the son of either Zeus or Cephalus, and king in Ithaca.

Mythology

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.

The Arcesius line

Arceisiades (Ancient Greek: Ἀρκεισιάδης) was a patronymic from Arcesius, who as well as his son Odysseus are designated by the name of "Arceisiades".^[8]

Other

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."

References

Sources

• Homer. The Odyssey, Book XVI, in The Iliad & The Odyssey. Trans. Samuel Butler. p. 625. ISBN 978-1-4351-1043-4.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Leonhard Schmitz, Leonhard (1870). "Arceisiades". In Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 1. p. 253.