Cyllen, a son of Elatus in the Arcadian royal house, is the eponym from whom Mount Cyllene took its name and from whom Hermes received his surname, the Cyllenian god.1
Cyllen belongs to the royal house of Arcadia, where Pausanias counts him among the five sons of Elatus: Aepytus, Pereus, Cyllen, Ischys, and Stymphalus. He is the third of the brothers, and the sole source to record him does so chiefly to anchor a name to the land.2
His father Elatus, Pausanias relates, had received the highest mountain in Arcadia while it still bore no name. The unnamed peak passed to the next generation, and it was Cyllen who at last gave it a name.3
On that summit stood a dilapidated temple of Cyllenian Hermes. Pausanias judges it clear that Cyllen, the son of Elatus, gave the mountain Cyllene its name and lent the god his surname Kyllēnios. Beyond this twofold eponymy no consort, children, or deeds of Cyllen are told; he survives as the name behind a mountain and behind one of Hermes' enduring titles.4
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