Αμαλθεια
The name of the nurse who, on Mount Ida in Crete, fed the infant Zeus and brought him up in secrecy to keep him safe from Cronus, who was searching for him and wanting to eat him. In some sources, Amalthea is the she-goat who suckled the child, and in others she is a Nymph, the most usual form of the story. It was said that Amalthea had hung the baby in a tree to prevent his father from finding him 'in heaven, or on earth, or in the sea', and that she had gathered the Curetes round him so that their songs and noisy dances should drown his cries. The goat that gave its milk was simply called Aix (a she-goat). She was a terrifying beast, descended from Helios (the Sun) and the Titans were so frightened of her mere appearance that the Earth, at their request, had hidden her in a cave in the Cretan mountains. Later, when Zeus was fighting the Titans, he made himself armour from her skin. This armour was called the aegis.
There is also a story that one day, while at play, Zeus took one of the goat's horns and gave it as a present to Amalthea, promising her that this horn would be miraculously filled with all the kinds of fruit she wanted. This is the Horn of Almathea or the Horn of Plenty (see Achelous).
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Hyg. Fab. 139; 182
- Ovid, Fast. 5, 115
- Callim. Hymn 1, 46ff.
- Strabo 8, 7, 5, p. 387
- Pseudo-Eratosth. Catast. 13
- Diod. Sic. 5, 70, 2