Acoetes was the name of two men in Greek

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 and Roman mythology

Roman mythology

Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...

. The first Acoetes is known for helping the god Bacchus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

. Another, lesser-known Acoetes was father to Laocoon

Laocoön

Laocoön the son of Acoetes is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology.-History:Laocoön is a Trojan priest of Poseidon , whose rules he had defied, either by marrying and having sons, or by having committed an impiety by making love with his wife in the presence of a cult image in a sanctuary...

, who warned about the Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse is a tale from the Trojan War about the stratagem that allowed the Greeks finally to enter the city of Troy and end the conflict. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse, and hid a select force of men inside...

.

Bacchic myth

This Acoetes was, according to Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, 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 a beautiful sleeping boy on board with them. They had found him on the island and wished to take him with them. Acoetes, who recognized in the boy the god Bacchus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

, was unable to dissuade them from it. 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 Bacchus stood crowned with grapes, holding his thyrsus

Thyrsus

In Greek mythology, a thyrsus or thyrsos was a staff of giant fennel covered with ivy vines and leaves, sometimes wound with taeniae and always topped with a pine cone. These staffs were carried by Dionysus and his followers. Euripides wrote that honey dripped from the thyrsos staves that the...

(a staff with a pine cone on top, wrapped with vines and ivy leaves) and surrounded by panthers and tigers. The sailors, seized with madness, jumped into the sea and were turned into dolphin

Dolphin

Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...

s. Acoetes alone was saved and continued on his journey with Bacchus, returning to Naxos, where he was initiated in the Bacchic mysteries and became a priest of the god.

Hyginus

Hyginus

Hyginus can refer to:People:*Gaius Julius Hyginus , Roman poet, author of Fabulae, reputed author of Poeticon astronomicon*Hyginus Gromaticus, Roman surveyor*Pope Hyginus, also a saint, Bishop of Rome about 140...

, whose story on the whole agrees with that of Ovid, and all the other writers who mention this adventure of Bacchus, call the crew of the ship Tyrrhenian

Etruria

Etruria—usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia—was a region of Central Italy, an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna, and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H...

 pirates  and derive the name of the Tyrrhenian Sea

Tyrrhenian Sea

The Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy.-Geography:The sea is bounded by Corsica and Sardinia , Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata and Calabria and Sicily ....

from them.