AMALTHÆA, the name of the Cumaean Sibyl, who offered to Tarquinius Superbus nine books, containing the Roman destinies, and demanded 300 pieces of gold for them. He derided her; whereupon she threw three of them into the fire; and returning, asked the same price for the other six; which being denied, she burnt three more; and returned, still demanding the same price. Upon which Tarquin consulting the pontiff, was advised to buy them. These books were in such esteem, that two magistrates were created to consult them upon extraordinary occasions.

AMALTHÆA, in Pagan Mythology, the daughter of Melissus, king of Crete, and the nurse of Jupiter, whom she fed with goats milk and honey. According to others, Amalthæa was a goat, which Jupiter translated into the sky, with her two kids, and gave one of her horns to the daughters of Melissus, as a reward for the pains they had taken in attending him. This horn had the peculiar property of furnishing them with whatever they wished for; and was thence called the cornucopia, or horn of plenty.