Arethūsa

, a nymph of Elis, daughter of Ocean us, and one of Diana’s attendants. As she returned one day from hunting, she sat near the Alpheus, and bathed in the stream. The god of the river was enamoured of her, and he pursued her over the mountains and all the country, when Arethusa, ready to sink under fatigue, implored Diana, who changed her into a fountain. The Alpheus immediately mingled his streams with hers, and Diana opened a secret pa age under the earth and under the sea, where the waters of Arethusa disappeared, and rose in the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse in Sicily. The river Alpheus followed her also under the sea, and rose also in Ortygia; so that, as mythologists relate, whatever is thrown into the Alpheus in Elis, rises again, after some time, in the fountain Arethusa near Syracuse. See: Alpheus . Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 5 , fable 10.— Athenæus , bk. 7 .— Pausanias. ――One of the Hesperides. Apollo dor us , bk. 2 , ch. 5 .――A daughter of Her ileus, mother of Abas by Neptune. Hyginus , fable 157.――One of Actæon’s dogs. Hyginus , fable 181.――A lake of Upper Armenia, near the fountains of the Tigris. Nothing can sink under its waters. Pliny , bk. 2 , ch. 103 .――A town of Thrace.――Another in Syria.