What type of creature was Amaltheia, who suckled the infant Zeus in a cave on Crete?
Amalthea (mythology) Amalthea (mythology) In Greek mythology, Amaltheia () is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus. The name "Amaltheia", in Greek "tender goddess", is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoans may have called her a version of "Dikte". There were different traditions regarding Amaltheia. Amaltheia is sometimes represented as the goat who nurtured the infant-god in a cave in Cretan Mount Aigaion ("Goat Mountain"), sometimes as a goat-tending nymph of uncertain parentage (the daughter of Oceanus, Helios, Haemonius, or—according to Lactantius—Melisseus), The
Melissus of Crete Melissus of Crete In Greek mythology, Melisseus (Ancient Greek: Μελισσέως means "bee-man"), the father of the nymphs Adrasteia, Ide (or Idothea or Aega, according to Hyginus) and Althaea who were nurses of the infant Zeus on Crete. Melisseus was the eldest and leader of the nine Kuretes of Crete. They were chthonic "daimones" of Mount Ida, who clashed their spears and shields to drown out the wails of infant Zeus, whom they received from the Great Goddess, Rhea, his mother. The infant-god was hidden from his cannibal father and was raised in the cave that was sacred to the Goddess