In
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...
, Platanus () is the daughter of the Thessalian king
Aloeus and the sister of the
Aloadae giants, who attacked the gods. Platanus was said to be as big as her brothers. Her brief tale survives in the chronicles of a Byzantine scholar of the twelfth century,
Nicephorus Basilacius.
Family
Platanus was the daughter of
Aloeus, the stepfather of the
Aloadae, presumably by his wife
Iphimedeia, the Aloadae's mother. She also had a sister named
Elate.
Mythology
Platanus was a very beautiful girl, and as great in stature as her enormous brothers and sister. When Zeus with a lightning bolt slew the Aloadae for trying to wage war against the very heavens, Platanus was so sorrowful her shape change to that of a tree bearing her name, the
plane tree, keeping the great size and beauty she had in her previous life.
[ Nicephorus Basilakes, '' Progymnasmata']
6
"As a girl, Platanos was beautiful. As the daughter of Aloeus, she was tall and not inferior to her brothers in stature. When Zeus stopped her brothers from raging against the gods by striking them with his lightning bolt, the girl could not endure the calamity and so changed her natural form into a tree." A similar fate befell her sister Elate, who transformed into a fir tree for the same reason.
See also
*
Cyparissus
*
Heliades
*
Niobe
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
Women in Greek mythology
Greek giants
Metamorphoses into trees in Greek mythology
Family of Canace
Mythological Thessalians
{{Greek-myth-stub