In Greek mythology, Melisseus ("bee-man"), the father of the nymphs Adrasteia and Ide who nursed the infant Zeus on Crete, was the eldest and leader of the nine Kuretes of Crete. They were chthonic daimones of Mount Ida, who clashed their spears and shields to drown out the wails of infant Zeus, whom they received from the Great Goddess, Rhea, his mother. The infant-god was hidden from his cannibal father and was raised in the cave that was sacred to the Goddess (Da) celebrated by the Kuretes, whose name it bore and still bears (Apollodorus, Library, 1.1.6 and 1.4-.5). The names of the two daughters of Melisseus, one called the "inevitable" and the other simply "goddess" (de) are names used for the Great Mother Rhea herself. Greek mythology comprises the collected legends of Greek gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. ... A goddess in Greek mythology and a daughter of Zeus, Adrasteia (inescapable) was also an epithet applied to Rhea, Cybele, Nemesis and Ananke. ... Two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida in Greek mythology, equally named Mount of the Goddess. ... Statue of Zeus The Greek sculptor Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall Statue of Zeus in about 435 bc. ... Crete, sometimes spelled Krete (Greek Κρήτη / Kriti) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ... The Korybantes, called the Kurbantes in (Phrygia), are the crested dancers who worship the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. ... The term Daemon has several meanings: Daemon (computer software) Daemon (His Dark Materials) in the Philip Pullman trilogy of novels His Dark Materials Daemon (mythology) Daemon (Warhammer) Daemon Sadi (SaDiablo) is a character in the Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop. ... Two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida in Greek mythology, equally named Mount of the Goddess. ... A Mother Goddess is a goddess portrayed as the Earth Mother who serves as a general fertility deity, the bountiful embodiment of the earth. ... Rhea (she who flows) was the Titaness daughter of Uranus and of Gaia. ... Apollodorus was a popular name in the ancient world. ...

The Dionysiaca of Nonnus, learned and accurate in spite of its late date, elaborates and gives all nine names of the Kuretes (Dionysiaca 13.135 and 14.23). Nonnus, Greek epic poet, a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid, probably lived at the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century AD. His principal work is the Dionysiaca, an epic in forty-eight books, the main subject of which is the expedition of...

The infant god was fed on milk and honey, the milk of the goat-nymph Amaltheia. Melisseus is simply another form of Melissus, also a Cretan "honey-man," remembered by later mythographers as a "king of Crete." Fermented honey, an entheogen that was the gift of the Goddess, preceded the knowledge of wine in Aegean culture. These honey-kings consorting with the Goddess will have combined their position of authority with a sacral role, but modern interpreters would not follow Robert Graves in asserting (in The Greek Myths, 7.1) that Melliseus "Adrasteia and Io's reputed father, is really their mother, Melissa— the goddess as Queen-bee, who annually killed her male consort." In Greek mythology, Amalthea (tender) is the foster-mother of Zeus. ... The word entheogen is a modern term derived from two Ancient Greek words, ενθεος (entheos) and γενεσθαι (genesthai). ... Portrait of Robert Graves (circa 1974) by Rab Shiell Robert von Ranke Graves (July 24, 1895–December 7, 1985) was an English scholar, best remembered for his work as a poet and novelist. ... This article is about the mytholgical figure. ... See Melissa (disambiguation) for other possible meanings. ...

When he came to maturity, Zeus rewarded his nymph nurses with the horn of Amaltheia, the cornucopia or horn of plenty that is always full of food and drink. Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus, full of witty and learned detail on the god's infancy, is at pains to show by etymologies that the mythic figures and geographical features obtained their names, and thus their very identities, through their participation in Zeus'early life. Other poets concur. A less Olympian-minded culture might have suggested that the horn was not actually Zeus' to give, and that it belonged already to the ancient and fertile Minoan-Mycenean nymphs of Crete. The cornucopia, also known in English as the Horn of Plenty, is a symbol of prosperity and affluence, dating back to the 5th century BC. In Greek mythology, Amalthea raised Zeus on the milk of a goat. ... Callimachus (c. ... Etymology is the study of the origins of words. ...

In a mythic fragment that explains the connection of early Cretan culture with the island of Rhodes as deriving from Crete, Diodorus Siculus briefly relates that five of the Kuretes sailed from Crete to the Chersonnese (peninsula) opposite Rhodes, with a notable expedition, expelled the Carians who dwelt there, and settling down in the land divided it into five parts, each of them founding a city, which he named after himself. Triopas, one of the sons of Helios and Rhodos herself, who was a fugitive because of the murder of his brother Tenages, fled there and was purified of the murder by Melisseus. (Diodorus Siculus 5.60.2) Outside the city walls of the medieval city of Rhodes Rhodes, Greek Ροδος (Rodos), is the largest of the Dodecanese islands, and easternmost of the major islands of Greece in the Aegean Sea. ... Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian, born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira, in the Province of Enna). ... For other uses, see Caria (disambiguation). ... This article is about Greek mythology. ... In Greek mythology, Rhodos was a son of Hermes and Aphrodite. ...

External link

• Melisseus and the Kuretes (http://www.theoi.com/Ouranos/Kouretes.html)

References

• Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks (1951)
• Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, (1955) 7.1.
• Carl A.P. Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth