In compliance with an oracle, to have caused his four daughters to be sacrificed on the tomb of the Cyclops Geraestus, for the purpose of delivering the city from famine and the plague, under which it was suffering during the war with Minos over the death of the latter's son Androgeos.
Hyacinthus's daughters, who were sacrificed either to Athena or Persephone, were known in the Attic legends by the name of the "Hyacinthides", which they derived from their father.
One account represents them as married[citation needed], although they were sacrificed as maidens, whence they are sometimes called simply αἱ παρθένοι.
[3] Some traditions conflate them with the daughters of Erechtheus and relate that they received their name from the village of Hyacinthus, where they were sacrificed at the time when Athens was attacked by the Eleusinians and Thracians, or Thebans.
[4] Some of these traditions further confound them with Agraulos, Herse, and Pandrosus,[5] or with the Hyades.