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Nereus
In Greek mythology, Nereus ( ; ) was the eldest son of Pontus (the Sea) and Gaia ( the Earth), with Pontus himself being a son of Gaia. Nereus and Doris became the parents of 50 daughters (the Nereids) and a son ( Nerites), with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea. Name The name Nereus is absent from Homer's epics; the god's name in the Iliad is the descriptive , and in the Odyssey the combination of and .; ; Besides Nereus and Proteus, the descriptive "Old Man of the Sea" was used for other water deities in Greek mythology who share several traits, among them Phorcys, Glaucus, and perhaps Triton. It is suggested that the "Old Man of the Sea" had at one time played a cosmogonic role comparable to that of Oceanus and could have received different names in different places. It is not known whether the name Nereus was known to Homer or not, but the name of the Nereids is attested before it and can be found in the Iliad. Since Nereus only has relevance as the father o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nereids
In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides ( ; ; , also Νημερτές) are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the 50 daughters of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanids, Oceanid Doris (Oceanid), Doris, sisters to their brother Nerites (mythology), Nerites. They often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors (such as the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece). Name It is not known whether the name Nereus was known to Homer or not, but the name of the Nereids is attested before it, and can be found in the ''Iliad''.; ; Since Nereus only has relevance as the father of the Nereids, it has been suggested that his name could actually be derived from that of his daughters; while the derivation of the Nereids from Nereus, as a patronymic, has also been suggested. According to Martin Litchfield West (1966), Nereus is much less important than his daughters, mentioning that Herodotus offered "the Nereids, not Nereu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nereid
In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides ( ; ; , also Νημερτές) are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the 50 daughters of the ' Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris, sisters to their brother Nerites. They often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors (such as the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece). Name It is not known whether the name Nereus was known to Homer or not, but the name of the Nereids is attested before it, and can be found in the ''Iliad''.; ; Since Nereus only has relevance as the father of the Nereids, it has been suggested that his name could actually be derived from that of his daughters; while the derivation of the Nereids from Nereus, as a patronymic, has also been suggested. According to Martin Litchfield West (1966), Nereus is much less important than his daughters, mentioning that Herodotus offered "the Nereids, not Nereus, as an example of a divine name not deri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oceanus
In Greek mythology, Oceanus ( ; , also , , or ) was a Titans, Titan son of Uranus (mythology), Uranus and Gaia, the husband of his sister the Titan Tethys (mythology), Tethys, and the father of the River gods (Greek mythology), river gods and the Oceanids, as well as being the great river which encircled the entire world. Etymology According to M. L. West, the etymology of Oceanus is "obscure" and "cannot be explained from Greek". The use by Pherecydes of Syros of the form () for the name lends support for the name being a loanword. However, according to West, no "very convincing" foreign models have been found. A Semitic derivation has been suggested by several scholars, while R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a loanword from the Aegean Pre-Greek non-Indo-European Stratum (linguistics), substrate. Nevertheless, Michael Janda sees possible Indo-European connections. Genealogy Oceanus was the eldest of the Titan offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Hesiod lists his T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Triton (mythology)
Triton (; ) is a Greek mythology, Greek god of the sea, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite. Triton lived with his parents in a golden palace on the bottom of the sea. Later he is often depicted as having a conch shell he would blow like a trumpet. Triton is usually represented as a merman, with the upper body of a human and the tailed lower body of a fish. At some time during the Greek and Roman era, Triton(s) became a generic term for a merman (mermen) in art and literature. In English literature, Triton is portrayed as the messenger or herald for the god Poseidon. Triton of Lake Tritonis of ancient Libya is a namesake mythical figure that appeared and aided the Argonauts. Moreover, according to Apollonius Rhodius, he married the Oceanids, Oceanid of the said region, Libya (Greek myth), Libya. Sea god Triton was the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite according to Hesiod's ''Theogony''. He was the ruler (possessor) of the depths of the sea, who is either "dreadful" or "mighty" () ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Sea Gods
The ancient Greeks had numerous water deities. The philosopher Plato once remarked that the Greek people were like frogs sitting around a pond—their many cities hugging close to the Mediterranean coastline from the Hellenic homeland to Asia Minor, Libya, Sicily, and southern Italy. Thus, they venerated a rich variety of water divinities. The range of Greek water deities of the classical era range from primordial powers and an Olympian on the one hand, to heroized mortals, chthonic nymphs, trickster-figures, and monsters on the other. Types Primordial powers Oceanus and Tethys are the father and mother of the gods in the ''Iliad'' while in the seventh century BC the Spartan poet Alcman made the nereid Thetis a demiurge-figure. Orpheus's song in Book I of the ''Argonautica'' hymns Eurynome, a daughter of Oceanus, as first queen of the gods and as wife of Ophion, first king of the gods. The pre-Socratic cosmogony of Thales, who made water the first element, may be seen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theogony
The ''Theogony'' () is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogy, genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Homeric Greek, epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one of the most important sources for the understanding of early Greek cosmology. Descriptions Hesiod's ''Theogony'' is a large-scale synthesis of a vast variety of local Greece, Greek traditions concerning the gods, organized as a narrative that tells how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the cosmos. It is the first known Greece, Greek mythical cosmogony. The initial state of the universe is Chaos (mythology), chaos, a dark indefinite void considered a divine primordial condition from which everything else appeared. Theogonies are a part of Greek mythology which embodies the desire to articulate reality as a whole; this universalizing impulse was fundamental for the first later projects of speculative theorizing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phorcys
In Greek mythology, Phorcys or Phorcus (; ) is a primordial sea god, generally cited (first in Hesiod) as the son of Pontus and Gaia (Earth). Classical scholar Karl Kerenyi conflated Phorcys with the similar sea gods Nereus and Proteus. His wife was Ceto, and he is most notable in myth for fathering by Ceto a host of monstrous children. In extant Hellenistic-Roman mosaics, Phorcys was depicted as a fish-tailed merman with crab-claw legs and red, spiky skin. According to Servius, commentator on the Aeneid, who reports a very ancient version already reflected in Varro, distinct from the Greek vulgate: Phorcos was once king of Sardinia and Corsica; annihilated in a naval battle in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and then shot down by King Atlas with a large part of his army, his companions imagined him transformed into a marine deity, perhaps a monster, half man and half sea ram. Parents According to Hesiod's ''Theogony'', Phorcys is the son of Pontus and Gaia, and the brother of Nereus, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glaucus
In Greek mythology, Glaucus (; ) was a Greek prophetic sea-god, born mortal and turned immortal upon eating a magical herb. It was believed that he came to the rescue of sailors and fishermen in storms, having earlier earned a living from the sea himself. Family Glaucus's parentage is different in the different traditions: (i) Nereus; (ii) Copeus; (iii) Polybus, son of Hermes, and Euboea, daughter of Larymnus; (iv) Anthedon and Alcyone; or Poseidon and the nymph Naïs.Athenaeus, ''Deipnosophistae'7.294C pp. 328–33. Mythology Origin The story of Glaucus's apotheosis was dealt with in detail by Ovid in ''Metamorphoses'' and briefly referenced by many other authors. According to Ovid, Glaucus began his life as a mortal fisherman living in the Boeotian city of Anthedon. He found a magical herb which could bring the fish he caught back to life, and decided to try eating it. The herb made him immortal, but also caused him to grow fins instead of arms and a fish's tail i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontus (mythology)
__NOTOC__ In Greek mythology, Pontus (; ) was an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, one of the Greek primordial deities. Pontus was Gaia's son and has no father; according to the Greek poet Hesiod, he was born without coupling, though according to Hyginus, Pontus is the son of Aether and Gaia. Hyginus, ''Fabulae'Preface/ref> Mythology For Hesiod, Pontus seems little more than a personification of the sea, ''ho póntos'' (), by which Hellenes signified the Mediterranean Sea. After the castration of his brother, Uranus, Pontus, with his mother Gaia, fathered Nereus (the Old Man of the Sea), Thaumas (the awe-striking "wonder" of the Sea, embodiment of the sea's dangerous aspects), Phorcys and his sister-consort Ceto, and the "Strong Goddess" Eurybia.Hesiod, ''Theogony'233–239 Gantz, p. 16; Grimal, s.v. Pontus. For a genealogical table of the descendants of Gaia and Pontus, see Gantz, p. 805. With the sea goddess Thalassa (whose own name simply means "sea" but is derived from a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaia (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Gaia (; , a poetic form of ('), meaning 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea (), is the personification of Earth. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (Sky), with whom she conceived the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods), the Cyclopes, and the Giants, as well as of Pontus (Sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. Etymology The Greek name (''Gaia'' or ) is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic (''Gē'' ), and Doric (''Ga'' ), perhaps identical to (''Da'' ), both meaning "Earth". Some scholars believe that the word is of uncertain origin. Beekes suggested a probable Pre-Greek origin. Robert S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, pp. 269–270 (''s.v.'' "γῆ"). M.L. West derives the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phorkys
In Greek mythology, Phorcys or Phorcus (; ) is a primordial sea god, generally cited (first in Hesiod) as the son of Pontus and Gaia (Earth). Classical scholar Karl Kerenyi conflated Phorcys with the similar sea gods Nereus and Proteus. His wife was Ceto, and he is most notable in myth for fathering by Ceto a host of monstrous children. In extant Hellenistic-Roman mosaics, Phorcys was depicted as a fish-tailed merman with crab-claw legs and red, spiky skin. According to Servius, commentator on the Aeneid, who reports a very ancient version already reflected in Varro, distinct from the Greek vulgate: Phorcos was once king of Sardinia and Corsica; annihilated in a naval battle in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and then shot down by King Atlas with a large part of his army, his companions imagined him transformed into a marine deity, perhaps a monster, half man and half sea ram. Parents According to Hesiod's ''Theogony'', Phorcys is the son of Pontus and Gaia, and the brother of Nereus, T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
