Hyacinthus the Lacedaemonian

Hyacinthus (Ancient Greek: ) was a Lacedaemonian who is said to have gone to Athens, and in compliance with an oracle, to have caused Aegleis and his other daughters to be sacrificed on the tomb of the Cyclops Geraestus, for the purpose 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. 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.

The names and numbers of the Hyacinthides differ in the different writers. The account of Apollodorus is confused: he mentions four, and represents them as married, although they were sacrificed as maidens, whence they are sometimes called simply. Those traditions in which they are described as the daughters of Erechtheus confound them with Agraulos, Herse, and Pandrosus, or with the Hyades.