Ictinus felt incestuous desire for his daughter Side, and chased her down with the intention to rape her.
[2][3][4] Karl Kerenyi compared this story to both the goddess Persephone, who was abducted to the Underworld by Hades and made to stay there thanks to the consumption of pomegranate fruit, and Orion's first wife Side, who angered Hera and was cast in Tartarus.
All three stories have the common theme of a maiden who either literally or metaphorically dies and is led to the Underworld, with Ictinus supplanting the subterranean god in the second Side's case.
"[5] The pomegranate was seen as a symbol of fertility and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, but more important for that story, apart from the connection it has to kites, is its bright red colour that resembles blood, as Side spilt her own, which gave rise to the tree.
[2] The myth has also similar elements with those of Nyctaea and Nyctimene, women who were transformed into something else in their effort to flee their rapacious fathers.