In Greek mythology, Arcesius, Arceisius, Arkeisios or Arcisius () was the son of either Zeus or Cephalus, and king in Ithaca.
Mythology According to scholia on the Odyssey, Arcesius' parents were Zeus and Euryodeia;Scholia ad Odyssey 16.118, Eustathius ad Odyssey 16.118 Ovid also writes of Arcesius as a son of Zeus.Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.144 Other sources make him a son of Cephalus. Aristotle in his lost work The State of the Ithacians cited a myth according to which Cephalus was instructed by an oracle to mate with the first female being he should encounter if he wanted to have offspring; Cephalus mated with a she-bear, who then transformed into a human woman and bore him a son, Arcesius.Aristotle in Etymologicum Magnum 144.21 under Arkeisios Hyginus makes Arcesius a son of Cephalus and Procris,Hyginus, Fabulae 189 while Eustathius and the exegetical scholia to the Iliad report a version according to which Arcesius was a grandson of Cephalus through Cillus or Celeus.Scholia ad Iliad 2.173b; Eustathius ad Iliad 2.631
Zeus made Arcesius' line one of "only sons": his only son was Laertes, whose only son was Odysseus (albeit siring a daughter named CtimeneHomer, Odyssey 15.363–364), whose only son was Telemachus., ; cf. Apollodorus, 1.9.16; Hyginus, Fabulae 173. Arcesius's wife (and thus mother of Laertes) was Chalcomedusa.Scholia ad Odyssey 16.118; Eustathius ad Odyssey p. 1796.35
Arcesius line Arceisiades () was a patronymic from Arcesius, which Laertes as well as his son, Odysseus, is designated by. &
Namesakes Of another Arcesius, an architect, Vitruvius (vii, introduction) notes: "Arcesius, on the Corinthian order proportions, and on the Ionic order temple of Aesculapius at Tralles, which it is said that he built with his own hands."
Notes
References Homer. The Odyssey, Book XVI, in The Iliad & The Odyssey. Trans. Samuel Butler. p. 625. .