LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
Academy · Biography & Mythology

Arete

Ἀρήτη

(Ἀρήτη), the wife of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians. In the Odyssey she appears as a noble and active superintendent of the household of her husband, and when Odysseus arrived in the island, he first applied to queen Arete to obtain hospitable reception and protection. (Hom. Od. 6.310, 7.65, &c., 142.) Respecting her connexion with the story of Jason and Medeia, see ALCINOUS.

From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.