Editing Aristaeus (section)

==Aristaeus in Ceos==
Aristaeus' presence in Ceos, attested in the fourth and third centuries BC,<ref>[[Theophrastus]], ''Of the winds'' 14, and other testimony noted in [[Walter Burkert]], ''Homo Necans'' (1972), translated by Peter Bing ((University of California Press) 1983), p. 109 note 1; Burkert notes that Aristaeus is already mentioned in a [[Hesiod]]ic fragment.</ref> was attributed to a Delphic prophecy that counselled Aristaeus to sail to [[Ceos]], where he would be greatly honored. He found the islanders suffering from sickness under the stifling and baneful effects of the Dog-Star [[Sirius]] at its first appearance before the sun's rising, in early July. In the foundation legend of a specifically Cean weather-magic ritual, Aristaeus was credited with the double sacrifice that countered the deadly effects of the Dog-Star, a sacrifice at dawn to Zeus Ikmaios, "Rain-making Zeus" at a mountaintop altar,<ref>[[Apollonius of Rhodes]], ''[[Argonautica]]'' 2.521ff.</ref> following a pre-dawn [[chthonic]] sacrifice to Sirius, the Dog-Star, at its first annual appearance,<ref name=":1">Burkert 1983:109ff; Burkert notes an analogy to the polarity of sacrifices to Pelops and Zeus at Olympia.</ref> which brought the annual relief of the cooling [[Etesian|Etesian winds]].

In a development that offered more immediate causality for the myth, Aristaeus discerned that the Ceans' troubles arose from murderers hiding in their midst, the killers of [[Icarius]] in fact. When the miscreants were found out and executed, and a shrine erected to Zeus Ikmaios, the great god was propitiated and decreed that henceforth, the [[Etesian|Etesian wind]] should blow and cool all the Aegean for forty days from the baleful rising of Sirius, but the Ceans continued to propitiate the Dog-Star, just before its rising, just to be sure.<ref>Hyginus, ''Poetic Astronomy''</ref> Aristaeus appears on Cean coins.<ref>Charikleia Papageorgiadou-Banis, ''The Coinage of Kea'' (Paris) 1997.</ref>

Then Aristaeus, on his civilizing mission, visited Arcadia, where the winged male figure who appears on ivory tablets in the sanctuary of [[Ortheia]] as the consort of the goddess, has been identified as Aristaeus by L. Marangou.<ref>Marangou, Aristaios" ''AM'' '''87'''72), pp77-83, noted by Jane Burr Carter, "The Masks of Ortheia" ''American Journal of Archaeology'' '''91'''.3 (July 1987:355-383) p. 382f.</ref>

Aristaeus settled for a time in the [[Vale of Tempe]]. By the time of [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Georgics]]'', the myth has Aristaeus chasing [[Eurydice]] when she was bitten by a [[Serpent (symbolism)|serpent]] and died.<ref name=":0" />