The river god Alpheus fell in love with Arethusa, who was in the retinue of Artemis. Arethusa fled to Ortygia, where she was changed into a spring. Alpheus, however, made his way beneath the sea and united his waters with those of the spring. According to Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book V, Arethusa, while bathing in the Alpheus River, was seen and pursued by the river god in human form. Artemis changed her into a spring that, flowing underground, emerged at Ortygia.

In an earlier form of the legend, it was Artemis, not Arethusa, who was the object of the river god's affections and who escaped by smearing her face with mire, so that he failed to recognize her. The story probably originated from the fact that Artemis Alpheiaia was worshiped in both Elis and Ortygia and also that the Alpheus in its upper part runs underground.