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 ...
, Atthis or Attis (
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
: Ἀτθίς or Ἀθθίς) was the eponymous heroine of
Attica
Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...
.
Family
Atthis was an
Athenian
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...
princess as the daughter of the
autochthonous King
Cranaus and
Pedias, the
Lacedaemonian
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referred ...
daughter of
Mynes. She was the sister of
Cranaë and
Cranaechme.
Mythology
When Attis died a virgin, her father Cranaus named in her honour the land Attica which was formerly called
Actaea (Acte or Actica) after King
Actaeus, its former ruler.
Other use
The two birds into which
Philomele and her sister
Procne were metamorphosed, were likewise called Attis.
[Martial, 1.54.9 & 5.67.2]
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
Princesses in Greek mythology
{{Greek-myth-stub
Attican characters in Greek mythology