Hyacinthus

Hyacinthus was a beautiful Laconian youth, loved by the god Apollo, who killed him by accident with a thrown discus. From his blood Apollo made the flower that bears his name. He was buried at Amyclae in Laconia, where the Spartans honoured him each year at the festival of the Hyacinthia.

Family

The sources disagree about his parents. Apollodorus gives two accounts. In one, Hyacinthus is the son of the Muse Clio and Pierus, the son of Magnes; Clio fell in love with Pierus through the anger of Aphrodite (Library 1.3.3). In the other, he and his brother Cynortes are sons of the Spartan king Amyclas and Diomede, the daughter of Lapithus (Library 3.10.3). Pausanias also makes him a son of Amyclas, the youngest and most beautiful of his sons, who died before his father (Description of Greece 3.1.3). Lucian calls him the son of Oebalus (Dialogues of the Gods, “Apollo and Hermes”), and Ovid calls him both “Amyclides” and “Oebalides” (Metamorphoses 10.162, 10.196). Pausanias mentions a sister, Polyboea, who died a maiden (Description of Greece 3.19.4).

Apollo and Hyacinthus

Apollodorus says that the Thracian singer Thamyris, the first man to fall in love with a male, loved Hyacinthus, and that afterwards Apollo loved him and killed him unintentionally with the cast of a discus (Library 1.3.3). Ovid says that Apollo loved him more than any other, and that his lyre and bow no longer held his mind: he carried the nets, held the hounds, and followed the boy over the rough mountain ridges (Metamorphoses 10.162–219).

The Death of Hyacinthus

In Ovid's version, Apollo and Hyacinthus stripped and oiled themselves for a game of discus. Apollo threw first, and the disc flew high into the clouds. Hyacinthus ran to pick it up, but it rebounded from the hard ground and struck him in the face. Apollo tried to revive him with herbs, but the wound was fatal, and he fell like a flower with a broken stalk (Metamorphoses 10.162–219).

In another version the wind was to blame. In Lucian's dialogue Apollo tells Hermes that Zephyrus, the west wind, had long loved Hyacinthus and been spurned; when Apollo threw the quoit, Zephyrus blew from Mount Taygetus and drove it onto the boy's head, killing him. Apollo then shot at Zephyrus with his arrows and chased him back to the mountain (Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods, “Apollo and Hermes”). Apollodorus knows only that Apollo killed him with a discus (Library 1.3.3; 3.10.3), and Pausanias, who saw the sculptures at Amyclae, says that we must be content with the legends about the West Wind, how Apollo killed Hyacinthus unintentionally and the story of the flower, although perhaps they are not true history (Description of Greece 3.19.5).

The Flower

Ovid says that Apollo made a flower from the blood that had soaked the grass, like a lily but purple, and wrote his own cry of grief on its petals, AI AI (Metamorphoses 10.162–219). Lucian likewise says that the earth sent up from his blood the sweetest and fairest of flowers, bearing letters of mourning (Dialogues of the Gods). In Ovid, Apollo promises that Hyacinthus will always be with him in the flower, and that a brave hero will one day be known by the same marks on its petals.

Hyacinthus at Amyclae and the Hyacinthia

Pausanias says that Hyacinthus was buried at Amyclae below the statue of Apollo, and that the base of the statue is shaped like an altar in which he lies. At the Hyacinthia, before sacrificing to Apollo, the Spartans passed offerings through a bronze door in the altar as to a hero. Reliefs on the altar show Hyacinthus and his sister Polyboea being carried to heaven by gods (Description of Greece 3.19.3–4). Lucian places his burial at Amyclae, the place where he was struck (Dialogues of the Gods).

The festival of the Hyacinthia was held in the Amyclaeum, the temple of Apollo at Amyclae. Strabo mentions it in his account of the Spartan colonists who founded Taras: their plot was to be carried out at the Hyacinthian festival in the Amyclaeum (Geography 6.3.2). Pausanias reports that when Agesilaus campaigned near Corinth and the festival was near, he let the men of Amyclae go home to perform the rites for Apollo and Hyacinthus (Description of Greece 3.10.1). Ovid says that the Spartans honour Hyacinthus every year with a solemn festival (Metamorphoses 10.217–219).

Hyacinthus Sources

Apollodorus, Library 1.3.3, 3.10.3; Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.1.3, 3.10.1, 3.19.3–5; Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.162–219; Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods (Apollo and Hermes); Strabo, Geography 6.3.2.

See Also: Apollo, Zephyr, Pierus