Hyacinth or Hyacinthus (in Greek, Ὑάκινθος - Hyakinthos) is a
divine hero from Greek mythology. His cult at Amyclae,
southwest of Sparta, where his tumulus was located- in
classical times at the feet of Apollo's statue in the
sanctuary that had been built round the burial mound- dates
from the Mycenaean era.[1] The literary myths serve to link
him to local cults, and to identify him with Apollo...
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（*(Ua/kinqos).
1. The youngest son of the Spartan king Amyclas and Diomede
(Apollod. 3.10.3; Paus. 3.1.3, 19.4), but according to
others a son of Pierus and Clio, or of Oebalus or Eurotas
(Lucian, Dial. Deor. 14; Hyg. Fab. 271.) He was a youth of
extraordinary beauty, and beloved by Thamyris and Apollo,
who unintentionally killed him during a game of discus.
(Apollod. 1.3.3.) Some traditions relate that he was beloved
also by Boreas or Zephrus, who, from jealousy of Apollo,
drove the discus of the god against the head of the youth,
and thus killed him. (Lucian, l. c; Serv. ad Virg. Eelog.
3.63; Philostr. Imag. 1.24; Ov. Met. 10.184.) From the blood
of Hyacinthus there sprang the flower of the same name
(hyacinth), on the leaves of which there appeared the
exclamation of woe AI, AI, or the letter Υ, being the
initial of Ὑάκινθος. According to other traditions, the
hyacinth (on the leaves of which, howeve those characters do
not appear) sprang from the blood of Ajax. (Schol. ad
Theocrit. 10.28; comp. Ov. Met. 13.395, &c., who combines
both legends; Plin. Nat. 21.28.) Hyacinthus was worshipped
at Amyclae as a hero, and a great festival, Hyacinthia, was
celebrated in his honour. (Dict. of Ant. s. r.） 2. A
Lacedaemonian, who is said to have gone to Athens, and in
compliance with an oracle, to have caused his daughters to
be sacrificed on the tomb on the Cyclops Geraestus, for the
purpose of a learned of delivering the city from famine and
the plague, under which it was suffering during the war with
Minos. His daughters, who were sacrificed either to Athena
or Persephone, were known in the Attic legends by the name
of the Hyacinthides, which they derived from their father.
(Apollod. 3.15.8; Hyg. Fab. 238; Harpocrat. s. v.) Some
traditions make them the daughters of Erechtheus, and relate
that they received their name from the village of
Hyacinthus, where they were sacrificed at the time when
Athens was attacked by the Eleusinians and Thracians, or
Thebans. (Snid. s.v. Παρθένοι; Demnosth. Epilaph. p. 1397;
Lycurg. c. Leocrat. 24; Cic. p. Sext. 48; Hyg. Fab. 46.) The
names and numbers of the Hyacinthides differ in the
different writers. The account of Apollo dorus is confused:
he mentions four, and repre sents them as married, although
they were sacriticed as maidens, whence they are sometimes
called simply αἱ πάρθενοι. Those traditions in which they
are described as the daughters of Erechtheus confouiud them
with Agraulos, Herse, and Pandrosos (Schol. ad Apollon.
Rhod. 1.211), or with the Hyades. (Serv. ad Aen. 1.748.) - A
Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology,
William Smith, Ed.
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