Ganymede

A prince of Troy, son of King Tros, and the most beautiful of mortals — so beautiful that the gods caught him up to Olympus to be the cup-bearer of Zeus, pouring the nectar among the immortals, and granted him agelessness and immortality (Hom. *Il.* 20.231–235). The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite tells how Zeus, having snatched the boy, consoled his grieving father by the gift of a team of immortal horses and the assurance that his son would dwell deathless among the gods (Hom. *Hymn Aphr.* 202–217). Later art fixed the scene as the rape of Ganymede by Zeus in the form of an eagle.

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