In Greek mythology, Amalthea or Amaltheia is the figure most commonly identified as the nurse of Zeus during his infancy. She is described either as a nymph who raises the child on the milk of a goat or, in some Hellenistic and later accounts, as the goat itself. From as early as the sixth century BC, sources also mention the "horn of Amalthea" — the cornucopia — a magical horn said to produce endless food and drink.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Amalthea (mythology)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Etymology and origins
The etymology of Amáltheia (Ἀμάλθεια) is unknown. Scholars from the nineteenth century offered various hypotheses, among them derivations from álthō, althaínō ("to tend, to nourish") and amalḕ theía ("divine goat"). In 1917 Alfred Chilton Pearson suggested that the name is related to amalós ("soft, tender, weak") and amálē ("sheaf, bundle").
There is no mention of Amalthea in Hesiod's Theogony. Hesiod writes that the newborn Zeus is taken to a cave on "Mount Aigaion" in Crete; some scholars interpret this as "Goat's Mountain" and thus as related to Amalthea's story, while others, including Martin Litchfield West, see no reason to view the mountain-name as referring to a goat.
II.Horn of Amalthea
The "horn of Amalthea," later called the cornucopia in Latin literature, is a magical horn generally able to produce an inexhaustible supply of any food or drink desired. The tale of this horn seems to have originated as an independent tradition from that of Zeus's raising. The horn is mentioned as early as the sixth century BC by poets such as Anacreon and Phocylides.
In a lost poem by Pindar, Heracles fought the river-god Achelous for the hand of Deianeira and pulled off one of his horns; Achelous reclaimed it by trading a magical horn obtained from Amalthea, a daughter of Oceanus. Apollodorus distinguishes that Amalthea, daughter of Haemonius, from the Cretan nurse of Zeus.
III.Nurse of Zeus
In stories of Zeus's infancy, Amalthea is the figure most commonly described as his nurse, and in this role she is often considered a nymph. In an account attributed to Musaeus, Rhea gives the newborn Zeus to Themis, who hands him to the nymph Amalthea; she has him reared by a terrifying she-goat, offspring of Helios, whose skin Zeus later uses as a weapon — the aegis — against the Titans.
Accounts that present Amalthea herself as a goat begin in the Hellenistic period. Callimachus's Hymn to Zeus has the infant fed the milk of Amalthea; Aratus identifies her with the star Capella. In Hyginus's Fabulae, Amalthea hides Zeus in a tree and gathers the Kouretes to dance noisily so that Cronus cannot hear the child's crying. Apollodorus has Zeus born in a cave on Mount Dicte and fed the milk of Amalthea while the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida raise him.
IV.Merging of traditions
Scholars disagree on when the tale of Zeus's upbringing was first merged with that of the magical horn. Ovid's Fasti weaves them together: Amalthea is a naiad on Mount Ida who hides young Zeus in Crete, where he is suckled by a she-goat; when the goat snaps off a horn on a tree, Amalthea fills it with fruit for Zeus — an aition for the cornucopia — and Zeus later places the goat among the stars as Capella.