Aristaeus

Aristaeus (; Ancient Greek: Ἀρισταῖος, romanized: Aristaios) was the mythological culture hero credited with the discovery of many rural useful arts and handicrafts, including beekeeping. He was the son of the huntress Cyrene and Apollo. Aristaeus ("the best") was a cult title in many places: Boeotia, Arcadia, Ceos, Sicily, Sardinia, Thessaly, and Macedonia; consequently a set of "travels" was imposed, connecting his epiphanies in order to account for these widespread manifestations. If Aristaeus was a minor figure at Athens, he was more prominent in Boeotia, where he was "the pastoral Apollo", and was linked to the founding myth of Thebes by marriage with Autonoë, daughter of Cadmus, the founder. Aristaeus may appear as a winged youth in painted Boeotian pottery, similar to representations of the Boreads, spirits of the North Wind. Besides Actaeon and Macris (also known as Nysa), he also was said to have fathered Charmus and Callicarpus in Sardinia.