Acantha

In modern compilations the aition runs that Acantha was a nymph loved by Apollo who rebuffed his advances and scratched his face; in response Apollo transformed her into the acanthus (a plant with spiny leaves). The sources compiled for this entry emphasize that this specific metamorphosis story "does not appear in any classical source" (absent from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and Thesaurus Linguae Latinae and absent from major classical reference works), and so the narrative likely arose in later mythographic compilations rather than in securely attested ancient texts. A separate, fragmentary ancient attestation cited by modern compilers (a Cicero reference) names an "Acantho" as mother of a 'fourth sun' in Rhodes; this is a distinct, sparse onomastic occurrence and not confirmation of the metamorphosis tale. Comparative motifs—most notably elements similar to the Oenone–Apollo episode in Ovid's Fasti—exist in classical literature and were likely sources from which later retellers adapted or conflated material when composing the Acantha aition.

Primary classical sources give no physical description of Acantha; the figure is absent from major ancient-text repositories. Modern retellings therefore reconstruct her as a nymph—a young female nature-being—whose resisting action (scratching Apollo) precipitates metamorphosis. In the compiled tale she is pictured human until transformed into the Acanthus plant, thereafter represented by spiny leaves that align with the literal meaning of her name ('thorn'). Scholarly notes emphasize that these visual and narrative details derive from later compilers rather than surviving classical descriptions.

Surviving documentary material records only the single aitionary metamorphosis attributed to Acantha: resistance to Apollo and subsequent transformation into the Acanthus plant. The sources contain no evidence of ongoing agency, magical powers, cultic functions, or interactions with humans beyond the origin tale. Modern scholars and encyclopedic compilers further note that elements of the story mirror motifs from the Oenone–Apollo narrative (a nymph scratching Apollo), suggesting literary borrowing rather than an independently attested set of supernatural abilities specific to Acantha.