ARETHUSA

In Greece a frequent name of springs, especially of one in Elis, and one on the Island of Ortygia in the port of Syracuse, which was supposed to have a subterranean communication with the river Alpheus in Elis. The two fountains were associated by the following legend. As the nymph of Elis, tired with the chase, was bathing in the Alpheus, the river-god fell passionately in love with her; she fled from him to Ortygia, where Artemis hid her in the ground, and lot her gush out of it in the form of a fountain; but Alpheus flowed on under the sea to Ortygia, and so united himself with his beloved one. The story is explained by the likeness of name in the fountains, by the circumstance that Artemis was worshipped both in Elis and Ortygia as Alpheaea, and by the fact that in some places the Alpheus actually does ran underground.