Acmon is described by multiple ancient authors as the father of Uranus, the personification of the sky, who in other sources is the offspring of
Gaia,
Aether, or
Nyx; this genealogy places Acmon among the earliest deities. In sources which mention this parentage, no mother is given. The earliest attestation of this genealogy is a
fragment of the 7th-century BC poet
Alcman, transmitted by Eustathius. As preserved in fragments, the
patronymic (, ) was used by the poet
Antimachus (writing in the early 4th century BC), and later by
Callimachus, and
Simmias of Rhodes, to refer to Uranus. According to a
scholium (a marginal note in the manuscript of a text) on the fragment of Simmias, Acmon was the offspring of Gaia and the father of Uranus in a poem by
Hesiod; this ascription, however, is erroneous.
Fritz Graf believes that Acmon appeared as Uranus's parent in an early
theogony, and Miles Beckwith describes him as "apparently an ancient sky god". According to Robin Hard, his name may initially have been an
epiclesis of Uranus (that is, an
epithet used in
cult). In the
Titanomachy, a lost
epic poem which dates to the late 7th century BC or afterwards, Uranus's father was Aether, who Victor J. Matthews believes might here have been the same as Acmon. According to
Christos Tsagalis, an identification of Acmon and a "fiery" Aether may have been linked to the
Idaean Dactyl named
Acmon. While Acmon is usually described as Uranus's father, he is identified by some ancient authors with Uranus himself: one passage of Eustathius's commentary states that Acmon is the name of the father of
Cronus (who was usually the son of Uranus), and the lexicon by the 5th- or 6th-century AD grammarian
Hesychius gives () as one
gloss of . Hesychius also seems to refer to Acmon as the father of
Charon, the ferryman of the
underworld, though it is uncertain whether this genealogy appeared in Hesychius's original text, owing to the possibility of textual corruption. == Notes ==