A river-god of Aetolia, born of Oceanus and Tethys among the eddying streams of the world.1
When Tethys lay with Oceanus she bore the eddying rivers of the world, and among them Hesiod's catalogue names 'the silver eddies of Achelous' — set in one breath with Nile and Alpheus, Strymon and Meander. So the river of Aetolia takes his place in the first family of waters, a son of Ocean and his sister-wife.2
Homer ranks him above all his brother rivers. When the Scamander rages against Achilles, the warrior is warned that no river may fight Zeus: with Achelous does not even king Achelous vie, nor the great might of deep-flowing Ocean, from whom all rivers flow and every sea and all the springs and deep wells — and yet even Ocean fears the lightning and dread thunder of Zeus. Achelous is thus the foremost river-god, second only to the world-encircling stream itself.3
At Calydon Heracles came wooing Deianira, daughter of Oeneus, and found Achelous a rival for her hand. The two wrestled, and the river-god put on the likeness of a bull; but Heracles broke off one of his horns and so won the bride. Afterwards Achelous recovered his lost horn by giving in its place the horn of Amalthea, that vessel of unfailing plenty.4
Ovid lets the river tell the contest in his own voice. He grappled with Heracles in human form, then slipped into a serpent's coils, and at last reared up as a bull — until the hero wrenched a horn from his brow. The Naiads took up the broken horn and heaped it with fruits and flowers, and so it became the Cornucopia; and ever after Achelous hides his maimed forehead beneath willow leaves and river reeds.5
The Sirens were called his daughters. Apollodorus and Hyginus both make them children of Achelous and the Muse Melpomene — Apollodorus names Pisinoe, Aglaope and Thelxiepia — and Hyginus tells that, after the rape of Proserpina, they were turned into winged creatures.6
Yet their mother is disputed. Apollodorus elsewhere names Sterope, daughter of Porthaon, as the Sirens' mother by Achelous.7
Apollonius gives the Sirens instead to the Muse Terpsichore, who bore them united with Achelous; they dwelt on the isle Anthemoessa, where their sweet songs lured and destroyed seafarers.8
⁂
the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
