Achelous - Versailles, France
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 48° 48.331 E 002° 06.953
31U E 435082 N 5406213
Achelous is the Greek God over the Achelous River...and the leader of all other river gods.
Waymark Code: WMD01F
Location: France
Date Posted: 10/31/2011
Views: 8
This 1688 marble sculpture is located in the Gardens of the Versailles Palace. It depicts Achelous a young, but bearded, bare-chested man from his head to torso...and then blends into the pedestal with the help of a flowing cloth. The figure holds a cornucopia filled with fruit.
Wikipedia (
visit link) has this to say about the deity:
"Achelous was a suitor for Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus king of Calydon, but was defeated by Heracles, who wed her himself. Sophocles pictures a mortal woman's terror at being courted by a chthonic river god:
'My suitor was the river Achelóüs,
who took three forms to ask me of my father:
a rambling bull once, then a writhing snake
of gleaming colors, then again a man
with ox-like face: and from his beard's dark shadows
stream upon stream of water tumbled down.
Such was my suitor.' (Sophocles, Trachiniae)
The contest of Achelous with Heracles was represented on the throne of Amyclae,[12] and in the treasury of the Megarans at Olympia there was a statue of him made by Dontas of cedarwood and gold.[13] On several coins of Acarnania the god is represented as a bull with the head of an old man."
The artist is Simon Maziere.