Evadne, a daughter of Poseidon and Pitane[2] who was raised by Aepytus of Arcadia. She experienced the joys of her first love with Apollo. However, when her consequent pregnancy was discovered by Aepytus, he was furious and left to consult the Oracle of Apollo. During the childbirth, Apollo sent Eileithyia and the Moirae to assist his lover and ease her pain. Evadne gave birth in the wilderness and left the child, Iamus, exposed to the elements. Five days later, Aepytus returned from the Delphi, where he had been told by Apollo's Oracle that Evadne's child was indeed the son of Apollo and destined to be a gifted prophet. He demanded that the child be brought to him, and so Evadne retrieved Iamus from the patch of violets where she had left him. Iamus had been nurtured for those five days by the honeybees that were sent by Apollo, or by the Fates. Evadne named the child Iamus (“Boy of the Violets”).[3] He went on to found the Iamidae, a family of priests from Olympia.[4][5]
^Apollodorus, 3.7.1; Hyginus, Fabulae 256; Euripides, The Suppliants 985; Virgil, Aeneid 6.447
^Murray, John (1833). A Classical Manual, being a Mythological, Historical and Geographical Commentary on Pope's Homer, and Dryden's Aeneid of Virgil with a Copious Index. Albemarle Street, London. pp. 5–6.
Euripides, The Complete Greek Drama edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill Jr. in two volumes. 1. The Suppliants, translated by E. P. Coleridge. New York. Random House. 1938. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
Pindar, The Odes of Pindar including the Principal Fragments with an Introduction and an English Translation by Sir John Sandys, Litt.D., FBA. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1937. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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