The Anigrides ( grc, Ἀνίγριδες) were in

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of ...

the

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

s—that is, the '' potamides''—of the river Anigrus in

Elis Elis or Ilia ( el, Ηλεία, ''Ileia'') is a historic region in the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. It is administered as a regional unit of the modern region of Western Greece. Its capital is Pyrgos. Until 2011 it was ...

. On the coast of Elis, not far from the mouth of the river, there was a grotto sacred to them near modern Samiko, which was visited by persons afflicted with skin diseases. They were supposedly cured here by prayers and sacrifices to the nymphs, and by bathing in the river. The earliest known attestation of the cult of these nymphs was from the poet

Moero Moero or Myro ( el, Μοιρώ and Μυρώ) was a woman poet of the Hellenistic period from the city of Byzantium. She was the wife of Andromachus Philologus and the mother – the Suda says daughter, but this is less likely – of the tragedian ...

in the 3rd century BCE. The river Anigrus (or Anigros) itself was a small stream in southern Elis that flowed down from Mount Lapithas and the mountains at Minthi to the

Ionian Sea The Ionian Sea ( el, Ιόνιο Πέλαγος, ''Iónio Pélagos'' ; it, Mar Ionio ; al, Deti Jon ) is an elongated bay of the Mediterranean Sea. It is connected to the Adriatic Sea to the north, and is bounded by Southern Italy, including ...

. The waters are distinctly

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formul ...

ic in character. The river and cave are now part of the thermal springs of Kaiafas.

Notes

References

* Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio.'' ''3 vols''. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Strabo, '' The Geography of Strabo.'' Edition by H.L. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
* Strabo, ''Geographica'' edited by A. Meineke. Leipzig: Teubner. 1877
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Potamides {{Greek-deity-stub Characters in Greek mythology Nymphs