Alpheus

Also Known As: (Greek Alpheios; Latin Alpheus, also spelled Alpheius), god of the river Alpheios, the longest river of the Peloponnese, which flows past Olympia to the Ionian Sea
Region/Culture: Southern Europe
Mythos: Greek Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: He is at once a man who hunts and loves and a river that sinks underground, and in the best-known story he carries his fresh water under the sea from Elis to a spring in Sicily.
Role in Mythos: He is one of the river sons of Oceanus and Tethys and the sacred river of Olympia, remembered above all as the pursuer of the nymph Arethusa and, in another telling, of Artemis herself.
Relation to Humans: Pylian warriors sacrificed a bull to him before battle, and at Olympia his water alone could be used to plaster the ash altar of Zeus, where he also shared an altar with Artemis. The founders of Syracuse were sent to Ortygia by a Delphic oracle that named the place where the mouth of Alpheus bubbles up into Arethusa’s spring.

The water was so clear that a swimmer could count the pebbles on the bottom. Willows and poplars leaned over it, and a young huntress, tired and hot after the chase near Stymphalos, dipped her feet, then her knees, then took off her clothes and went in. Somewhere under the middle of the stream a sound began, a low murmuring that did not belong to moving water. Then a voice asked her where she was hurrying. It asked twice.

That is how Ovid has the nymph Arethusa tell it to Ceres, years afterwards, in the fifth book of the Metamorphoses. The voice belonged to Alpheus, the god of the river she was bathing in, and the chase that followed would end on the other side of the sea.

Alpheus is one of the Potamoi, the river gods, and Hesiod puts him in the Theogony among the rivers that Tethys bore to Oceanus, named in the same breath as the Nile. The river itself was an odd one, and the Greeks noticed. Pausanias says it rose near Asea in Arcadia, a short walk from the source of the Eurotas, that the two streams ran together for about twenty stades and then dropped into a chasm, and that the Eurotas came up again in Spartan land while the Alpheus surfaced at a place called Pegae, Springs, near Megalopolis. A river that keeps disappearing and coming back is a river people will tell stories about.

The oldest stories are not about love at all. In the Iliad, old Nestor remembers a cattle war of his youth: the Epeians camped around Thryoessa, a steep town far off on the Alpheus, and the Pylian horsemen and foot soldiers marched through the night and reached the sacred stream at midday, armed and ready. On its bank they sacrificed to Zeus, and a bull to Alpheus, a bull to Poseidon and a heifer to Athena. Then they ate by ranks and slept in their armour beside the water. The same poem traces a family of warriors back to him. His son Orsilochus fathered Diocles of Pherae, whose twin sons Crethon and Orsilochus fell at Troy to Aeneas. Pausanias later names the boy’s mother as Telegone.

The version that made Alpheus famous belongs to the huntress. Ovid’s Arethusa is an Achaean nymph who cared more for hunting than for her own good looks. When the voice rose out of the river she ran naked from the bank, and he ran after her through a list of Arcadia’s hardest country, past Orchomenus and Psophis, past Cyllene, Maenalus and cold Erymanthus, on into Elis. He was not faster, but he could keep going longer. With the sun behind them she saw his long shadow run out on the ground ahead of her feet, heard his footsteps, and felt his breath stirring the loose ends of her hair. She called on Diana, and the goddess wrapped her in a thick cloud. Alpheus circled it, calling her name, and would not leave. Cold sweat ran down her body, drops fell from her hair, and she turned into water where she stood. The god saw what had happened, gave up his human shape and turned back into his river so that he could mingle with her. Diana split the earth, and Arethusa went down through dark caverns under the sea and came up again on Ortygia, the island at Syracuse.

Pausanias tells it more plainly and adds a twist. His Alpheus is a man, a hunter, who fell in love with the huntress Arethusa. She would not marry, crossed to Ortygia and became a spring there, and Alpheus was changed into the river by his love. Pausanias then quotes the oracle Delphi gave to Archias of Corinth when he set out to found Syracuse: an isle, Ortygia, lies in the misty sea over against Sicily, where the mouth of Alpheus bubbles up, mingling with the springs of broad Arethusa. Virgil’s Aeneas sails past the same spot and is told that the river of Elis drove a secret passage under the sea to meet Arethusa’s fountain. People said a cup thrown into the Alpheus at Olympia would come up in the spring at Syracuse. Strabo, who knew perfectly well that the river runs into the sea at an ordinary visible mouth, did not believe a word of it.

He did not only chase nymphs. Pausanias records that Alpheus fell in love with Artemis. At Letrini in Elis, the goddess and her nymphs smeared their faces with mud, so that when he came he could not tell which one she was, and he went away without her. The people of Letrini afterwards worshipped her as Artemis Alpheiaia. Pindar, in his first Nemean ode, calls Ortygia the place where Alpheus rested, and at Olympia there was a single altar on which the two, river and goddess, received sacrifice together.

Olympia is where the river mattered most. The great altar of Zeus there was built up from the ash of burnt offerings, and the seers who tended it worked the grey ash into a paste and plastered it onto the altar. The paste had to be made with water from the Alpheus. Pausanias is firm that no other water would do. On the temple of Zeus, the river appeared among the sculptures of the east pediment, watching over the chariot race of Pelops and Oenomaus, and a painting described by Philostratus showed Alpheus rising out of his eddy to pluck a crown of wild olive for the winner.

Heracles, as usual, found a practical use for him. Set to clear the dung of King Augeas’s cattle in a single day, he broke through the foundations of the cattle yard, cut an outlet on the far side, and turned the Alpheus and the Peneus, which ran near each other, through the yard. Two gods did the work. Heracles took the credit and was then refused his fee.

What Alpheus can do follows from what a river is. He can take a man’s shape and a man’s voice, rise out of the current, run for days, sink into the earth and come up somewhere else, even pass under salt water without losing his freshness. His weakness is just as plain. He never catches anyone. Arethusa is hidden in a cloud, Artemis hides behind a mask of mud, and Heracles bends his course to wash a stable. In every telling the pursuit is real, and the ending belongs to somebody else.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Alpheus in Greek mythology?

Alpheus is the god of the river Alpheios, the longest river in the Peloponnese, which flows past Olympia into the Ionian Sea. Hesiod lists him among the river gods born to Oceanus and Tethys. He is best known for pursuing the nymph Arethusa.

What happened between Alpheus and Arethusa?

Alpheus chased the huntress nymph Arethusa after she bathed in his river, and the goddess Artemis (Diana in Ovid) hid her in a cloud where she dissolved into water. Arethusa then travelled under the sea and emerged as a spring on the island of Ortygia at Syracuse in Sicily. Alpheus followed as a river, and the Greeks said his water flowed under the sea to mingle with hers.

Did Alpheus also pursue Artemis?

Yes. Pausanias records that Alpheus fell in love with Artemis, and that at Letrini in Elis she and her nymphs smeared their faces with mud so he could not recognise her. The goddess was afterwards worshipped there as Artemis Alpheiaia, and at Olympia Alpheus and Artemis shared an altar.

Why was the river Alpheus important at Olympia?

The Alpheus was the sacred river of Olympia, and Pausanias says the ash altar of Zeus there could only be plastered with a paste of ash mixed with Alpheus water. The river god was also shown in the sculptures of the temple of Zeus at the scene of Pelops’s chariot race.

What did Heracles do with the river Alpheus?

To clean the stables of King Augeas in a single day, Heracles diverted the rivers Alpheus and Peneus through the cattle yard, according to Apollodorus. Augeas then refused to pay him the promised tenth of his cattle.