GANYMEDE, son of Tros (or Laomedon), king of Troy. Because of his surpassing beauty (his name, if Greek at all, may mean "glad in brightness"), he was carried off by the gods, or Zeus, or, according to a later myth, the eagle of Zeus or the god himself in eagle shape, to serve as cup-bearer (Homer, Iliad, v. 265, xx. 232 ; Horace, Odes, iv. 4. I ; Ovid, Met., X. 155). In com pensation, Zeus gave his father a stud of immortal horses (or a golden vine, Lesches, Ilias parva, frag. 6) . From fairly early times (Theognis, 1,345 6th century B.c.), and perhaps especially among Dorians (a Cretan variant makes Minos the ravisher, Athenaeus 6o I E; cf. Plato, Laws, 636 C) , his kidnapper was supposed to have a homosexual passion for him, hence the con notation which Catamitus, the popular Latin form of his name, had and has. As divine cup-bearer, he was apparently credited with making the Nile rise (Pindar, frag. 282, von Christ), and was later identified with the constellation Aquarius (pseudo Eratosthenes, catast., 26).
See especially Weizsacker-Drexler in Roscher's Lexikon, s.v.