Aristheus

Aristeo by François Joseph Bosio (1768-1845), Louvre Museum.

The lesser god of Greek mythology, Aristeo (Ἀρισταῖος / Aristaĩos: "the best" or "the keeper of the bees") was the son of Apollo and the huntress Cyrene, who despised spinning and other feminine arts, preferring to spend her time hunting.

According to Pindar, Apollo encouraged him to go to Libya and found there the great city of Cyrene, on the fertile coastal plain. When Aristeo was born, Hermes took care of him to make him take the ambrosia and be made immortal by Gaia. The Myrtle Nymphs taught him useful arts and mysteries: how to curdle milk for cheese, how to tame the goddess's bees and keep them in hives, and how to tame wild olive trees and make them bear olives. Thus he became the patron god of cattle, fruit trees, hunting, agriculture, and beekeeping. He was also a cultural hero and instructed humanity in everyday tasks and in the use of nets and traps in hunting.

As an adult, he traveled by ship from Libya to Boeotia, where he was initiated by the centaur Chiron into deeper mysteries. In Boeotia he married Autonoe and was the father of the ill-fated Actaeon who inherited, unfortunately from him, the family passion for hunting. He was also the father of Macris, who would be the babysitter of little Dionysus.

A Delphic prophecy advised Aristaeus to sail to Ceos, where he would receive great honors. He did so, and found the islanders suffering from a plague under Sirian influence. In order to relieve the islanders of the plague, Aristeo asked his father for advice, who told him to make sacrifices to Zeus and Sirius to atone for the death of Icarius, since the Ceans had welcomed the murderers. When an altar to Zeus had been erected and such sacrifices made, this god caused the Etesian winds to blow for forty days after Sirius rose in the sky, whereupon the plague ceased. But the Ceans continued to sacrifice to Sirius every time it rose, just to be safe.

Then Aristeo, in his civilizing mission, visited Arcadia and settled for a while in the valley of Tempe. There, while Aristeo was chasing Eurydice, she was bitten by a snake and she died. Soon Aristeo's bees got sick and began to die. He went to the Arethusa spring and was advised to set up altars, sacrifice cattle, and leave the corpses there. New swarms of bees arose from the corpses. This god fell in love with the oréade Naia (who seduced the god just by dancing) and when he was spiteful for her, he threw himself from a mountain. The nymph was transformed by Apollo into the daisy.

Aristaeus was worshiped in many places: Boeotia, Arcadia, Ceos, Sicily, Sardinia, Thessaly, and Macedonia.