Hyacinthus
2. A Lacedaemonian, who is said to have gone to Athens, and in compliance with an oracle, to have caused his daughters to be sacrificed on the tomb on the Cyclops Geraestus, for the purpose of a learned of delivering the city from famine and the plague, under which it was suffering during the war with Minos. His daughters, who were sacrificed either to Athena or Persephone, were known in the Attic legends by the name of the Hyacinthides, which they derived from their father. (
Apollod. 3.15.8;
Hyg. Fab. 238; Harpocrat.
s. v.) Some traditions make them the daughters of Erechtheus, and relate that they received their name from the village of Hyacinthus, where they were sacrificed at the time when Athens was attacked by the Eleusinians and Thracians, or Thebans. (Snid.
s.v. Παρθένοι; Demnosth.
Epilaph. p. 1397; Lycurg.
c. Leocrat. 24; Cic.
p. Sext. 48;
Hyg. Fab. 46.)
The names and numbers of the Hyacinthides differ in the different writers.
The account of Apollo dorus is confused: he mentions four, and repre sents them as married, although they were sacriticed as maidens, whence they are sometimes called simply
αἱ πάρθενοι.
Those traditions in which they are described as the daughters of Erechtheus confouiud them with Agraulos, Herse, and Pandrosos (Schol.
ad Apollon. Rhod. 1.211), or with the Hyades. (
Serv. ad Aen. 1.748.)
[
L.S].
