[1] When their father's horses attacked Anthus out of hunger and ate him, Zeus and Apollo, out of pity for the grieving family, transformed them into birds.
In Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 7 recounts the whole story of Acanthis and her family's unfortunate fate:Autonous, the son of Melaneus and Hippodamia, had four sons: Erodius, Anthus, Schoeneus, and Acanthus, along with a daughter named Acanthis, who was granted great beauty by the gods.
However, due to his neglect of farming, the vast lands of Autonous yielded no crops, only rushes and thistles.
In a state of panic and distress, his father wavered, as did the servant who accompanied the youth, both failing to drive off the mares.
The servant who had attended to Anthus was turned into a heron [erōdios]—the same as Erodius, the brother of the lad Anthus—but it was not of the same kind.