ABSTRACT
A youth from the island of Ceos who fell in love with an Athenian girl, Cydippe, in the precincts of Artemis’ temple at Delos during a festival. As he was a poor man he could not hope to marry her, but tricked her into accepting him by dropping in front of her a quince, inscribed with the words: ‘I swear by Artemis to marry none but Acontius.’ She picked up the apple and read the oath aloud. Whenever her parents tried to marry her to anybody else, she fell ill. Finally the Delphic Oracle declared that she was bound by the oath, and her parents allowed the match.
