Acœtes

Family: Etruria · Role: sailor and devotee of Bacchus · First appears: Fable 37

In fable.37, Acœtes, an Etrurian sailor and devotee of Bacchus, attended the god’s sacred rites at kindled altars. His chief mate, Opheltes, brought a beautiful boy aboard after finding him in lonely fields; Dictys, Libys, Melanthus, Alcimedon, Epopeus, and the rest of the crew approved. When Lycabas attacked Acœtes and tried to throw him overboard, Acœtes resisted and held fast to a rope.

The sailors then leapt overboard and were transformed, leaving Acœtes the sole survivor: “Of twenty the moment before (for so many did that ship carry), I was the only one remaining.” Pentheus’s servants captured Acœtes instead of Bacchus, identifying him as the god’s attendant and minister in his sacred rites. Pentheus imprisoned him and ordered his death, but the chains fell away and the prison doors opened by themselves; Pentheus nonetheless remained his enemy, commanding that Acœtes be dragged away for dreadful torture.

Relationship record

Life events

• Pentheus’s servants capture Acœtes instead of Bacchus.(Fable37)
  • With: Pentheus Bacchus
  • “But this one,” say they, “we have taken, who was his attendant and minister in his sacred rites.”
• The sailors leap overboard and are transformed, leaving Acœtes as the sole survivor.(Fable37)
  • With: Bacchus Lycabas Libys
  • “Of twenty the moment before (for so many did that ship carry), I was the only one remaining.”
• Acœtes is imprisoned, but his chains fall away and the prison doors open by themselves.(Fable37)
  • With: Pentheus
  • “At once the Etrurian Acœtes, dragged away, is shut up in a strong prison; and while the cruel instruments of the death that is ordered, and the iron and the fire are being made ready, the report is that the doors opened of their own accord, and that the chains, of their own accord, slipped from off his arms, no one loosening them.”

Fable 37

• with Pentheus (Pentheus orders Acœtes to be executed.) “We have lent ear to a long story,”[95] says Pentheus, “that our anger might consume its strength in its tediousness. Servants! drag him headlong, and send to Stygian night his body, racked with dreadful tortures.”
• with Bacchus (Acœtes is a devotee and attendant of Bacchus.) “Arriving there, I attended upon the sacred rites of Bacchus, at the kindled altars.”
• enemies with Pentheus “We have lent ear to a long story,”[95] says Pentheus, “that our anger might consume its strength in its tediousness. Servants! drag him headlong, and send to Stygian night his body, racked with dreadful tortures.”
• with Opheltes (Opheltes is Acœtes's chief mate.) “‘Lo! we are here,’ says Opheltes, my chief mate; and having found, as he thought, a prize in the lonely fields, he was leading along the shore, a boy with {all} the beauty of a girl.”
• with Dictys (interaction) “‘Cease praying for us,’ said Dictys, than whom there was not another more nimble at climbing to the main-top-yards, and at sliding down by catching hold of a rope. This Libys, this the yellow-haired Melanthus, the guardian of the prow, and this Alcimedon approved of; and Epopeus[91] as well, the cheerer of their spirits, who by his voice gave both rest and time to the oars; {and} so did all the rest”
• with Libys (interaction) “‘Cease praying for us,’ said Dictys, than whom there was not another more nimble at climbing to the main-top-yards, and at sliding down by catching hold of a rope. This Libys, this the yellow-haired Melanthus, the guardian of the prow, and this Alcimedon approved of; and Epopeus[91] as well, the cheerer of their spirits, who by his voice gave both rest and time to the oars; {and} so did all the rest”
• with Melanthus (interaction) “‘Cease praying for us,’ said Dictys, than whom there was not another more nimble at climbing to the main-top-yards, and at sliding down by catching hold of a rope. This Libys, this the yellow-haired Melanthus, the guardian of the prow, and this Alcimedon approved of; and Epopeus[91] as well, the cheerer of their spirits, who by his voice gave both rest and time to the oars; {and} so did all the rest”
• with Alcimedon (interaction) “‘Cease praying for us,’ said Dictys, than whom there was not another more nimble at climbing to the main-top-yards, and at sliding down by catching hold of a rope. This Libys, this the yellow-haired Melanthus, the guardian of the prow, and this Alcimedon approved of; and Epopeus[91] as well, the cheerer of their spirits, who by his voice gave both rest and time to the oars; {and} so did all the rest”
• with Epopeus (interaction) “‘Cease praying for us,’ said Dictys, than whom there was not another more nimble at climbing to the main-top-yards, and at sliding down by catching hold of a rope. This Libys, this the yellow-haired Melanthus, the guardian of the prow, and this Alcimedon approved of; and Epopeus[91] as well, the cheerer of their spirits, who by his voice gave both rest and time to the oars; {and} so did all the rest”
• with Lycabas (interaction) “He, while I was resisting, seized hold of my throat with his youthful fist, and shaking me, had thrown me overboard into the sea, if I had not, although stunned, held fast by grasping a rope.”

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Extracted from the original text of The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Made with Rho MD.