Amalthea (mythology)

Oil on canvas by Jacob Jordaens: Zeus (The Amaltea Goat feeds Zeus)/Jugend des Zeus (Die Ziege Amalthea ernährt Zeus), ca. 1640. Louvre Museum.

Amalthea (in ancient Greek Ἀμάλθεια, from ἀμαλός, 'tender', 'tenderness') is, in Greek mythology, the nurse of Zeus. She is sometimes represented as the goat that nursed the infant god in a Cretan cave, and at other times as a naiad daughter of Haemonius (one of the Curetes), who raised him on the milk of a goat on Mount Ida.. She has on occasion been given the alternate name of Adamantea.

Zeus's upbringing

The goddess Rhea, wife of Cronus, wanted to preserve her son Zeus from the voracity of her husband who devoured their children as they were born, so she hid him on Mount Ida, on the island of Crete, where he was fed with milk from the udders of the Amalthea goat and bee honey.

In another tradition, Amalthea was the nymph who had the goat that fed Zeus. the sea, while the Curetes danced noisily waving their shields and spears so that the cries of the child could not be heard.

It was also said that, before fighting against the Titans, Zeus took the skin of the goat to dress with it, since it was invulnerable; this skin would later be called the "egis" (the Greek term αἰγίς aigis means 'goatskin').

Some Cretan coins depicted the infant Zeus suckled by the goat; other Greek coins showed him attached to her udders or carried in the arms of a nymph.

The "Horn of Amalthea"

One day the goat accidentally broke a horn, which the nymph Amalthea filled with herbs and fruit and brought to Zeus to feed him.

In another version, Heracles had torn off a horn from Acheloos while fighting with him, who had metamorphosed into a bull, for the possession of Deianira. Subsequently, the naiads consecrated the horn by filling it with fruits and flowers or else Amalthea exchanged it for Acheloos' own horn. This horn had the power to provide abundant food and drink.

According to classical mythology, the owners of the horn were many and varied. In general, it was considered a symbol of endless wealth and abundance, and it became an attribute of various divinities (Hades, Gaea, Demeter, Cybele, Hermes), and of the rivers (the Nile) as fertilizers for the earth.

The term "horn of Amalthea" applies to a fertile region, and a farm owned by Titus Pomponius Atticus was called Amaltheum.

Catasterism

Amalthea was later placed by Zeus among the stars in the constellation Auriga, as well as the horn that had provided her with food.