Adranus or Adranos (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: ) was a fire god worshipped by the

Sicels The Sicels (; la, Siculi; grc, Σικελοί ''Sikeloi'') were an Italic tribe who inhabited eastern Sicily during the Iron Age. Their neighbours to the west were the Sicani. The Sicels gave Sicily the name it has held since antiquity, b ...

, an ancient population of the island of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. His worship occurred all over the island, but particularly in the town of Adranus, modern

Adrano Adrano (, scn, Ddirnò), ancient '' Adranon'', is a town and in the Metropolitan City of Catania on the east coast of Sicily. It is situated around northwest of Catania, which was also the capital of the province to which Adrano belonged, ...

, near

Mount Etna Mount Etna, or simply Etna ( it, Etna or ; scn, Muncibbeḍḍu or ; la, Aetna; grc, Αἴτνα and ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina a ...

. According to Aelian, about a thousand sacred dogs were kept near his temple in this town. Adranus was said to have lived under

before being driven out by the Greek god

Hephaestus Hephaestus (; eight spellings; grc-gre, Ἥφαιστος, Hḗphaistos) is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire (compare, however, with Hestia), and volcanoes.Walter ...

, or Vulcan. According to Hesychius, Adranus was the father of the Palici, born to Adranus' lover, 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 ...

Thalia. Some modern commentators have suggested that Adranus may have been related to the similarly named gods Adar and Adrammelech, from

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkme ...

and

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their his ...

respectively, who were also personifications of the sun or of fire in general.

References

Sources

* Fire gods Sicilian characters in Greek mythology Roman gods {{AncientRome-myth-stub