Arcesius- Greek FigureMortal"King of Ithaca"

Parentage and Lineage

Arcesius appears in the Odyssey as the father of Laertes and grandfather of Odysseus, forming a key link in Ithaca's royal genealogy. Homer names him in the lineage recited in Book 16, where the succession Arcesius–Laertes–Odysseus establishes the legitimacy of Ithaca's ruling house. In Book 24, when Laertes joins Odysseus and Telemachus against the suitors' kin, three generations of this line stand together in battle.

The question of Arcesius's own parentage divides the tradition. One strand names Zeus as his father, a claim reflected in Ovid's Metamorphoses where Odysseus traces his descent to Jupiter. The alternative tradition, preserved in Hyginus's Fabulae, makes Arcesius the son of Cephalus, the Attic hunter who accidentally slew his wife Procris and later settled the islands off western Greece. Both traditions serve to anchor Ithaca's modest kingdom in a larger mythological framework.