Phialo was one of the lovers of the Greek mythological demigod Heracles

Heracles

Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

. She was the daughter of the Arcadian hero

Hero

A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

 Alcimedon

Alcimedon

Alcimedon can refer to a number of people in Greek mythology and history:*Alcimedon, an Arcadian hero, from whom the Arcadian plain Alcimedon derived its name...

 and the mother, by Heracles, of Aechmagoras.

Story

While Heracles was in Arcadia

Arcadia

Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...

 he visited Mount Ostracina, where he seduced Phialo, daughter of Alcimedon. When she bore a son named Aechmagoras, Alcimedon exposed them both to die of hunger on the mountain. Aechmagoras cried piteously, and a well-intentioned jay flew off to find Heracles, mimicking the sound, and thus drew him to the tree where Phialo sat, gagged and bound by her cruel father. Heracles rescued them and the child grew to manhood. The neighbouring spring has been called Cissa (from kissa "jay"), ever since.

According to Robert Graves this story is an ancedotal fancy, supposed to account for the name of the spring, which may have been sacred to a jay-totem clan. Stephen Gosson

Stephen Gosson

Stephen Gosson was an English satirist.He was baptized at St George's church, Canterbury, on 17 April 1554. He entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1572, and on leaving the university in 1576 he went to London...

 named one of his books The Ephemerides of Phialo, "ephemerides" here meaning an account similar to the Works and Days

Works and Days

Works and Days is a didactic poem of some 800 verses written by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod around 700 BC. At its center, the Works and Days is a farmer's almanac in which Hesiod instructs his brother Perses in the agricultural arts...

of Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

, and began his text with a discussion of the sacrifices offered to Heracles.