[2] Antoninus Liberalis in his Metamorphoses, recounts the whole story of Acanthus and his family's unfortunate fate:"Autonous, son of Melaneus and Hippodamia, had as sons Erodius, Anthus, Schoeneus and Acanthus, with a daughter Acanthis to whom the gods granted great beauty.
Now because he neglected husbandry, no crops were produced by the extensive lands of Autonous which bore only rushes and thistles.
For this reason he named his children after such plants: Acanthus, Schoeneus and Acanthis, and his oldest son Erodius, because his lands had been eroded.
While these people were bewailing Anthus who was hardly dead, Zeus and Apollo felt pity for them and turned them all into birds.
They turned Anthus himself, as well as Erudius, Schoeneur, Acanthus and Acanthyllis into birds called by the same names as they had before they were metamorphosed.