Hyacinth (mythology) of the people of Amyclae, dwellers about Sparta. As the son of the latter and Diomedes, Hyacinth was the brother of Cynortus. His cult at Amykles dates from Mycenaean Greece. In Greek mythology, Hyacinth was a very beautiful Spartan prince and lover of the god Apollo. Hyacinth was also admired by the West wind Zephyrus, the North wind Boreas and also by a mortal man named Thamyris. But Hyacinth chose Apollo over the others. The couple indulged themselves in hunting and climbing steep, rough mountains around Sparta. With Apollo, Hyacinth visited all of Apollo's sacred lands in the chariot drawn
Greek mythology was their sexual companion, to every important god except Ares and to many legendary figures. Previously existing myths, such as those of Achilles and Patroclus, also then were cast in a pederastic light. Alexandrian poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often re-adapted stories of Greek mythological characters in this fashion. The achievement of epic poetry was to create story-cycles and, as a result, to develop a new sense of mythological chronology. Thus Greek mythology unfolds as a phase in the development of the world and of humans. While self-contradictions in these stories make