Aganippe

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Aganippe (Ancient Greek: Ἀγανίππη) was a name or epithet of three figures in Greek mythology and a genus of spiders.

  • Aganippe was the name of both a fountain and the naiad (a Crinaea) associated with it. Aganippe was the daughter of Ternessus. The well is in Boeotia, near Thespiae, at the base of Mount Helicon. It was created by the hooves of Pegasus and was associated with the Muses as a source of poetic inspiration. The nymph is called a daughter of the river-god Permessus.[1][2] The Muses are sometimes called Aganippicles.[3]
  • Another Aganippe was the wife of Acrisius, and according to some accounts the mother of Danaë, although the latter is more commonly called a daughter of Eurydice.[3][4][5]
  • Aganippis is a name used by Ovid as an epithet of Hippocrene;[6] its meaning however is not quite clear. It is derived from Agnippe, the well or nymph, and as "Aganippides" is used to designate the Muses, Aganippis Hippocrene may mean nothing than "Hippocrene, sacred to the Muses."[3]
  • Aganippe is also the name of a spider genus in the family Idiopidae.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pausanias, ix. 29. § 3.
  2. ^ Virgil, Eclogues x. 12.
  3. ^ a b c Schmitz, Leonhard (1867), “Aganippe (1) and (2)”, in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston, pp. 59 
  4. ^ Hyginus. Fabulae, 63.
  5. ^ Scholiast, ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1091.
  6. ^ Ovid, Fasti v. 7

[edit] Sources

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