Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Amalthēa

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Amalthēa

（Ἀμάλθεια). A figure in Greek mythology. The name was sometimes applied to a goat which suckled the new-born Zeus in Crete, while bees brought him honey, and which was therefore set among the stars by her nursling; sometimes to a nymph who was supposed to possess a miraculous horn, a symbol of plenty, and whose descent was variously given. According to another legend she is the daughter of the Cretan king Melisseus, and brings up the infant god on the milk of a goat, while her sister Melissa (a bee) offers him honey. The horn of the goat is given to her by Zeus, with the promise that she shall always find in it whatever she wishes. From her the cornucopia passed into the possession of the river-god Acheloüs, who exchanged it for his own horn, which Heracles had broken off. It is also assigned to Dionysus, to Plutus, and to other gods of earthly felicity. See Cornu Copiae; Zeus.

Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

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Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Amalthēa