ARETHUSA, in Greek mythology, a nymph who gave her name to a spring in Elis and to another in the island of Ortygia near Syracuse. The river-god Alpheus fell in love with Arethusa, one of the retinue of Artemis; Arethusa fled to Ortygia, where she was changed into a spring ; Alpheus made his way beneath the sea, and united his waters with those of the spring. In Ovid (Metarn. v. 572 et seq.) , Arethusa, while bathing in the Alpheus, was seen and pursued by the river-god in human form ; Artemis changed her into a spring, which, flowing underground, emerged at Ortygia. In an earlier form of the legend, it is Artemis, not Arethusa, who is the object of the god's affections, and who escapes by smearing her face with mire, so that he fails to recog nize her. The story probably originated from the fact that Artemis Alpheiaia was worshipped in both Elis and Ortygia, and also that the Alpheus in its upper part runs underground, as is confirmed by modern explorers. In Virgil (Ecl., x. i) Arethusa is addressed as a divinity of poetical inspiration, like one of the Muses, who were themselves originally nymphs of springs.
For Arethusa on Syracusan coins, see B. V. Head, Historia Nu morum (1911).