Arsinoe (Ancient Greek: Ἀρσινόη, Arsinóē, lit. "elevated-minded") is presented in the surviving summary as a daughter of King Nicocreon of Salamis and a descendant of Teucer. In the transmitted account she rejects the persistent advances of Arceophon (described as of Phoenician descent); when Arceophon bribed her wetnurse and ultimately died of self-starvation, Arsinoe peeped from a window at his funeral procession and was then turned into stone by Aphrodite. The story is preserved in a late-antique compilation and treated as a local Cypriot doublet of the Iphis–Anaxarete petrification motif.
Before transformation Arsinoe is only identified as a Cypriot princess, daughter of Nicocreon; the source gives no detailed physical description. The transformed state is summarized simply as being "turned into stone" by Aphrodite; the narrative situates the moment of petrifaction during the scene in which she looked from a window at Arceophon's funeral procession in Salamis, but no further sculptural details (posture, attributes, or exact stone location) are provided.
As a mortal Arsinoe behaves as a proud, unyielding woman who reports Arceophon's attempts to her parents and thus participates in the social enforcement of familial and ethnic boundaries (her father refused the match partly because Arceophon was of Phoenician descent). The sources report no agency, supernatural powers, or activity after her petrification; the stone state functions as immobility and a visible sign of her prior disposition rather than an ongoing active force.
Weaknesses
- conditionno countermeasures recorded
Wards
None recorded.
Community Record
- [1]Arsinoe (daughter of Nicocreon) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, entry 'Arsinoe (daughter of Nicocreon)'wiki

