Editing Melisseus (section)

== Mythology ==
Melisseus was the eldest and leader of the nine [[Kuretes]] of [[Crete]].{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} They were [[chthonic]] ''[[Daemon (mythology)|daimon]]es'' of [[Mount Ida (Crete)|Mount Ida]], who clashed their spears and shields to drown out the wails of infant Zeus, whom they received from the Great Goddess, [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]], his mother. The infant-god was hidden from his cannibal father and was raised in the  cave that was sacred to the Goddess (''Da'') celebrated by the Kuretes, whose name it bore and still bears.<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022:text=Library:book=1:chapter=1&highlight=melisseus 1.1.6-7]</ref> The names of the two daughters of Melisseus, one called the "inevitable" (Adrasteia) and the other simply "goddess" ([[Ida (nurse of Zeus)|Ida]], ''de'') are names used for the Great Mother Rhea herself.

The ''Dionysiaca'' of [[Nonnus]], learned and accurate in spite of its late date, elaborates and gives all nine names of the Kuretes.<ref>[[Nonnus]], ''[[Dionysiaca]]'' 13.135 & 14.23</ref>

The infant god was fed on milk and honey, the milk of the goat-nymph [[Amaltheia]]. Melisseus is simply another form of '''Melissus''', also a Cretan "honey-man," remembered by later mythographers as a "king of Crete." Fermented honey, an [[entheogen]] that was the gift of the Goddess, preceded the knowledge of wine in Aegean culture. These honey-kings consorting with the Goddess will have combined their position of authority with a sacral role.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

When he came to maturity, Zeus rewarded his nymph nurses with the horn of Amaltheia, the [[cornucopia]] or horn of plenty that is always full of food and drink. [[Callimachus]]' ''Hymn to Zeus,'' full of witty and learned detail on the god's infancy, is at pains to show by [[etymology|etymologies]] that the mythic figures and geographical features obtained their names, and thus their very identities, through their participation in Zeus' early life. Other poets concur. A less Olympian-minded culture might have suggested that the horn was not actually Zeus' to give, and that it belonged already to the ancient and fertile Minoan-Mycenean nymphs of Crete.{{Cn|date=May 2024}}

In a mythic fragment that explains the connection of early Cretan culture with the island of [[Rhodes]] as deriving from Crete, [[Diodorus Siculus]]<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]], ''[[Bibliotheca historica]]'' 5.60.2</ref> briefly relates that five of the Kuretes sailed from Crete to the Chersonnese (peninsula) opposite Rhodes, with a notable expedition, expelled the [[Caria]]ns who dwelt there, and settling down in the land divided it into five parts, each of them founding a city, which he named after himself. Triopas, one of the sons of [[Helios]] and [[Rhodos]] herself, who was a fugitive because of the murder of his brother Tenages, fled there and was purified of the murder by Melisseus.