Boreas (, , , , ; also , ) is the Greek god of the cold

north wind A north wind originates in the north and blows in a southward direction. The wind has had historical and literary significance, since it often signals cold weather and seasonal change in the Northern hemisphere. Mythology *In Greek mythology, ...

, storms, and winter. Although he was normally taken as the north wind, the Roman writers

Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, ...

and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

both took Boreas as a northeast wind, equivalent to the Roman god Aquilo or Septentrio. Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man or sometimes as a young man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a

conch Conch ( , , ) is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high Spire (mollusc), spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point on both ...

shell and wearing a billowing cloak. Boreas's most known myth is his abduction of the Athenian princess

Oreithyia In Greek mythology, Orithyia or Oreithyia (; ; ) was the name of the following women: *Orithyia or Orythya, the Nereid of raging seas and one of the 50 marine-nymph daughters of the ' Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. She and her ...

Description

Boreas, like the rest of the wind gods, was said to be the son of

Eos In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Eos (; Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek ''Ēṓs'', Attic Greek, Attic ''Héōs'', "dawn", or ; Aeolic Greek, Aeolic ''Aúōs'', Doric Greek, Doric ''Āṓs'') is the go ...

, the goddess of the dawn, by her husband

Astraeus In Greek mythology, Astraeus () or Astraios () is the son of Crius and Eurybia, and the consort of Eos. He is said to be the father of the winds. Etymology His name "Astraeus" (Ancient Greek , translit. ''Astraîos'') is derived from the G ...

, a minor star-god. He is thus brother to the rest of the

Anemoi In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, the Anemoi () were wind gods who were each ascribed a cardinal direction from which their respective winds came (see Classical compass winds), and were each associated with various nature, ...

(the wind gods), the five star-gods and the justice goddess

Astraea In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Astraea (; ), also spelled Astrea or Astria, is a daughter of Astraeus and Eos. She is the virgin goddess of justice, innocence, purity, and precision. She is closely associated with the Greek goddess of ...

. Boreas was closely associated with horses, storms, and winter. He was said to have fathered twelve colts, after taking the form of a stallion, to the mares of Erichthonius, king of Dardania. These were said to be able to run across a field of grain without trampling the plants.

(''Natural History'' iv.35 and viii.67) thought that mares might stand with their hindquarters to the North Wind and bear foals without a stallion. The Greeks believed that his home was in Thrace, and

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

and Pliny both describe a northern land known as

Hyperborea In Greek mythology, the Hyperboreans (, ; ) were a mythical people who lived in the far northern part of the Ecumene, known world. Their name appears to derive from the Greek , "beyond Boreas (god), Boreas" (the God of the north wind). Some schol ...

"Beyond the North Wind" where people lived in complete happiness and had extraordinarily long lifespans. He is said to have fathered three giant Hyperborean priests of

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

by Chione. Pausanias wrote that Boreas had

snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

s instead of feet, though in art he was usually depicted with winged human feet. In ancient art, he is usually depicted as a bearded older man.

Mythology

Oreithyia

Boreas was said to have kidnapped

Orithyia In Greek mythology, Orithyia or Oreithyia (; ; ) was the name of the following women: *Orithyia or Orythya, the Nereid of raging seas and one of the 50 marine-nymph daughters of the ' Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. She and he ...

, an

Athenian Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

princess, from the

Ilisos The Ilisos or Ilisus (, ) is a river in Athens, Greece. Originally a tributary of the Kifisos, it has been rechanneled to the sea. It is now largely channeled underground, though as of June 2019 there were plans to unearth the river. Together w ...

. Boreas had taken a fancy to Orithyia and had initially pleaded for her favours, hoping to persuade her. When this failed, he reverted to his usual temper and abducted her as she danced on the banks of the Ilisos. Boreas wrapped Orithyia up in a cloud, raped her, and with her, Boreas fathered two sons—the

Boreads The Boreads () are the two "wind brothers" in Greek mythology. They consist of Zetes (also Zethes) () and Calaïs (). Their place of origin was Thrace, home of their father Boreas (god), Boreas (the North wind). Description Zetes and Calais w ...

, Zethes and Calais, who were part of the crew of the ''

Argo In Greek mythology, the ''Argo'' ( ; ) was the ship of Jason and the Argonauts. The ship was built with divine aid, and some ancient sources describe her as the first ship to sail the seas. The ''Argo'' carried the Argonauts on their quest fo ...

'' as

Argonauts The Argonauts ( ; ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo'', named after it ...

—and two daughters— Chione and

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

. From then on, the Athenians saw Boreas as a relative by marriage. When Athens was threatened by Xerxes I, Xerxes, the people prayed to Boreas, who was said to have then caused winds to sink 400 Persian ships. A cult was established in Athens in 480 B. C. E. in gratitude to the Boreas for destroying the approaching Persian fleet. A similar event had occurred twelve years earlier, and Herodotus writes:

, 7.189.3 : Now I cannot say if this was really why the Persians were caught at anchor by the stormwind, but the Athenians are quite positive that, just as Boreas helped them before, so Boreas was responsible for what happened on this occasion also. And when they went home they built the god a shrine by the River Ilissus. Two other cases of Boreas being honored by Greek states for similar assistance have been described, in Megalopolis, Greece, Megalopolis (against Laconia) and in Thurii (against Syracuse, Sicily, Syracuse). The latter case had Boreas being granted citizenship and a land plot. The abduction of Orithyia was popular in Athens before and after the Persian War, and was frequently depicted on vase paintings. In these paintings, Boreas was portrayed as a bearded man in a tunic, with shaggy hair that is sometimes frosted and spiked. The abduction was also dramatized in Aeschylus's lost play ''Oreithyia''.

Other love affairs

In some versions of Hyacinth (mythology), Hyacinthus's story, Boreas supplants his brother Zephyrus as the wind-god that bore a one-sided love for the beautiful Spartan prince, who preferred Apollo over him. In other accounts, Boreas was the father of Butes (by another woman) and the lover of the nymph Pitys (mythology), Pitys. In one story, both Pan and Boreas vied for Pitys's affections, and tried to make her choose between them. To impress her, Boreas uprooted all the trees with his might. Pan only laughed, and Pitys chose him instead of Boreas. Angry, Boreas chased Pitys down and threw her off a cliff, killing her. Gaia, pitying the girl, changed her dead body into a pine tree. During the journey of the

Zetes and Calais, Boreas's sons, describe Apollo as "beloved of our sire", perhaps implying a romantic connection between the two gods. King Erichthonius of Troy had in his possession three thousand mares. Boreas fell in love with them as they pastured in the grasslands, and took the form of a dark-maned stallion in order to mate with them. Thus he fathered twelve colts on these mares. In the words of William Smith (lexicographer), William Smith, this was "commonly explained as a mere figurative mode of expressing the extraordinary swiftness of those horses."

Other traditions

Boreas is featured in the oldest tale concerning the creation of the cypress tree; the myth goes that in order to honour his dead daughter Cyparissia, Boreas planted a new tree, the cypress. The inclusion of Boreas in the story continues the pattern of a wind god appearing in the story of a plant (like he does in the story of Pitys, or Zephyrus in the stories of Cyparissus and Hyacinthus). When the goddess Leto, pregnant with Artemis and Apollo, was due, Boreas was ordered by Zeus to bring her to Poseidon, who in turn led her to the island of Ogygia where she could give birth to the twins, as Zeus' wife Hera had ordered all places and land to shun Leto. In an Aesop Aesop's Fables, fable, Boreas and his uncle Helios the sun god The North Wind and the Sun, argued about which one between them was the strongest god. They agreed that whoever was able to make a passing traveller remove his cloak would be declared the winner. Boreas was the one to try his luck first; but no matter how hard he blew, he could not remove the man's cloak, instead making him wrap his cloak around him even tighter. Helios shone bright then, and the traveller, overcome with the heat, removed his cloak, giving him the victory (the moral being that persuasion is better than force). According to Pausanias, Boreas blessed Musaeus of Athens, Musaeus with the gift of flight. When Sirius (mythology), Sirius, the dog star, began to burn hot after he could not have his beloved Opora (mythology), Opora, a minor goddess connected to the harvest, Boreas dealt with the intense heat by ordering his sons to deliver Opora to Sirius, while he cooled the earth down with blast of cold wind.

Aquilo (Septentrio)

The Roman mythology, Roman equivalent of Boreas was Aquilo. This north (and slightly east) wind was associated with winter. The poet Virgil writes: For the wind which came directly from the north the Romans sometimes used the name Septentrio, which refers to the seven () stars of the Big Dipper, Plow or Big Dipper constellation. The name "Septentrio" gave rise to the pre-modern compass point ''Septentrionalis''.

Outside Greco-Roman culture

Greek deities were abundantly used in Greco-Buddhist art, so too Boreas and its velificatio depiction element. Boreas became the Japanese wind god Fūjin, Fujin through the Greco-Buddhist Wardo/Oado and Chinese Fengbo (deity), Feng Bo/Feng Po ("Uncle Wind"; among various other names).

Genealogy

Gallery

File:Evelyn de Morgan - Boreas and Oreithyia, 1896.jpg, ''Boreas and Oreithyia'', oil o canvas, ca 1896 Evelyn De Morgan. File:Boreas and Oreithyia, from 'Game of Mythology' (Jeu de la Mythologie) MET DP817665.jpg, Boreas abducts Oreithyia, engraving by Stefano della Bella. File:Boreas Oreithyia Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2345 n2.jpg, Boreas takes Oreithyia as Herse tries to help her sister, Attic red-figure pointed amphora, 470–460 BC. File:Oreithyia Painter ARV 496 2 Boreas and Oreithyia (06).jpg, Boreas detail from an Attic red figure pointed amphora. File:Evelyn De Morgan - Boreas and the Fallen Leaves - 1910-14.jpg, Boreas and fallen leaves, Evelyn de Morgan. File:Attic red-figure Pelikai MKG 1980.174.jpg, Boreas and Oreithyia, Attic red-figure. File:Boreas orithya.jpg, The abduction by German painter and illustrator Heinrich Lossow (1840-1897). File:Boreas-Orithyia mirror.jpg, Boreas and Oreithyia on a mirror, pos-300 BC, from Eretria. File:Jan Frans van Geel - Boreas abducting Oreithyia.jpg, ''Boreas abducting Oreithyia'', ca. 1800-1812, wood statue by Jan Frans van Geel. File:Peter Paul Rubens 135.jpg, ''The Rape of Orithyia by Boreas'', oil on canvas, by Peter Paul Rubens.

References

Bibliography

* Diodorus Siculus, ''Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1–2''. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888–1890
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* * Hesiod, ''Theogony'', in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Homer, ''The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PhD in two volumes''. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Gaius Julius Hyginus, Hyginus, Gaius Julius
''The Myths of Hyginus''
Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. * Nonnus, ''Dionysiaca''; translated by W. H. D. Rouse, Rouse, W H D, I Books I–XV. Loeb Classical Library No. 344, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1940
Internet Archive
* Pausanias, ''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
*
Online version at the Perseus.tufts library.
* Virgil, Vergil, ''Aeneid.'' Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

External links

The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Boreas)
{{Greek mythology (deities) Children of Eos Avian humanoids Anemoi Greek gods Metamorphoses characters Characters in the Odyssey Deities in the Iliad Personifications in Greek mythology Helios in mythology Deities in the Aeneid Sky and weather gods Zoophilia in culture Male lovers of Apollo Mythological rapists Shapeshifters in Greek mythology Wind gods Winter deities