Acoetes (from Greek Ἀκοίτης, via Latin Ăcoetēs) was the name of two men in Greek and Roman mythology. The first Acoetes is known for helping the god Bacchus.[1] Another, lesser-known Acoetes was father to Laocoon, who warned about the Trojan Horse.[2]
This Acoetes was, according to Ovid,[3] the son of a poor fisherman in Maeonia, who served as pilot in a ship. After landing at the island of Naxos, some of the sailors brought with them on board a beautiful sleeping boy, whom they had found in the island and whom they wished to take with them; but Acoetes, who recognized in the boy the god Bacchus, dissuaded them from it, but in vain. When the ship had reached the open sea, the boy awoke, and desired to be carried back to Naxos. The sailors promised to do so, but did not keep their word. Hereupon the god showed himself to them in his own majesty: vines began to twine round the vessel, and Dionysus stood crowned with grapes, holding his staff, the thyrsus (it has a pine cone on the top and is wrapped with vines and ivy leaves), and he was surrounded by wild cats (panthers, tigers). The sailors, seized with madness, jumped into the sea and were turned into dolphins. Acoetes alone was saved and continued on his journey with Dionysus,[4] returning to Naxos, where he was initiated in the Bacchic mysteries and became a priest of the god. Hyginus, whose story on the whole agrees with that of Ovid,[5] and all the other writers who mention this adventure of Bacchus, call the crew of the ship Tyrrhenian pirates, and derive the name of the Tyrrhenian Sea from them.[6][7][8]