On Mount Pelion, Chiron raised a generation of Greek heroes — Achilles, Asclepius, Jason, Patroclus, Peleus, Actaeon, and Aristaeus — teaching each according to their destiny: medicine, warfare, hunting, and the arts.
Apollo abducted the huntress nymph Cyrene to Libya, where she bore him Aristaeus, who became the patron of beekeeping and rural crafts.
Aristaeus married Autonoë, daughter of Cadmus. Their son Actaeon became a renowned hunter but was transformed into a stag by Artemis and killed by his own hounds.
In Pindar's Pythian 9, Gaia and the Horae received the infant Aristaeus and nurtured him with nectar and ambrosia, granting him immortality after his birth in Libya.
Cyrene was a Thessalian huntress whom Apollo witnessed wrestling a lion on Mount Pelion. Captivated, he carried her to Libya, where she bore Aristaeus and gave her name to the city of Cyrene.
In Virgil's Georgics 4, Aristaeus pursued Eurydice through a meadow. As she fled, she stepped on a venomous snake and died from its bite, setting in motion Orpheus' descent to the Underworld.
Aristaeus pursued Eurydice with unwanted desire, causing her to flee through a meadow where she was bitten by a viper and died. His actions set in motion Orpheus's descent to the underworld.
In Virgil's Georgics 4, Aristaeus captured the shape-shifting Proteus on Pharos and held him through his transformations until the sea god revealed that the nymphs had destroyed Aristaeus's bees as punishment for Eurydice's death.
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