HYACINTHUS, in Greek legend, a young man (parentage variously given) of Amyclae in Laconia(Gr. `TiuccvOos). According to the general story, which is probably late and composite, his great beauty attracted the love of Apollo, who killed him acci dentally when teaching him to throw the discus (quoit) ; others say that Zephyrus (or Boreas) out of jealousy deflected the quoit so that it hit Hyacinthus on the head and killed him. Ac cording to the representation on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae (Pausanias) he was translated into Heaven with his virgin sister Polyboea. Out of his blood there grew the flower called hyacin thos (perhaps fritillary; not our hyacinth), the petals of which were marked with the mournful exclamation AI, AI, "alas." It was also said to have sprung from the blood of Ajax son of Telamon.
The death of Hyacinthus was celebrated at Amyclae by the second most important of Spartan festivals, the Hyacinthia, which took place in the Spartan month Hecatombeus. What month this was is not certain. Arguing from Xenophon (Hell. iv. 5) we get May; assuming that the Spartan Hecatombeus is the Attic Hecatombaion, we get July; or again it may be the Attic Scirophorion, June. At all events the Hyacinthia was an early summer festival. It lasted three days, and the rites grad ually passed from mourning for Hyacinthus to rejoicings in the majesty of Apollo. (See Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iv. _66 et seq.) . This festival is clearly connected with vegetation, and marks the passage from the youthful verdure of spring to the dry heat of summer and the ripening of the corn.
There can be little doubt that Hyacinthus is a pre-Hellenic god. His name is not Greek, and has the characteristic pre Hellenic suffix -v9; cf. KopevOos. The precise relation which he bears to Apollo is obscure. The supposed "tomb of Hya cinthus," which forms the base of the monument of Apollo at Amyclae, described by Pausanias, may be taken as evidence of his subordination to the greater god. Into the "tomb" at Amyclae were put offerings for the hero, before gifts were made to the god. This and the taboo on cereals during the first part of the Amyclean festival suggest a chthonian vegetation deity whose death is mourned like that of Adonis (q.v.). Frazer suggests that he may have been regarded as spending the winter months in the underworld, and returning to earth in the spring when the "hya cinth" blooms. With the growth of the hyacinth from his blood should be compared the oriental stories of flowers springing from the blood of Attis (q.v.), and from that of Adonis (q.v.).
See L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, vol. iv. pp. 125 et seq., 264 et seq. (1907) ; J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough (3rd ed.) v. 313; S. Wide, Lakonische Kulte, p. 290; Roscher's Lexikon s.v. "Hyakin thos" (Greve).