Scylla, the Diver’s Daughter: Aeschrion, Hedyle, and Ovid

Ovid has been thought the inventor of the story that Scylla, the Odyssean monster, was once a beautiful nymph subsequently disfigured by a jealous goddess. I argue that this Hellenistic-sounding narrative had a Hellenistic origin, specifically in the lost works of Aeschrion and Hedyle. I propose that the element spliced with Homer's monster is not (primarily) princess Scylla of Megara, as some have claimed, but instead the daughter of Scyllias, the diver who reputedly sabotaged the Persian fleet at Artemisium.