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 ...

, Rhodos/Rhodus () or Rhode (), was the goddess and personification of the island of

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

and a wife of the sun god

Helios In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Helios (; ; Homeric Greek: ) is the god who personification, personifies the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") an ...

Family

Various parents were given for Rhodos.

Pindar Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar i ...

makes her a daughter of

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

with no father mentioned, although scholia on Pindar add

Poseidon Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...

as the father; for Herodorus of Heraclea she was the daughter of Aphrodite and Poseidon, while according to

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...

she was the daughter of Poseidon and Halia, one of the

Telchines In Greek mythology, the Telchines () were the original inhabitants of the island of Rhodes and were known in Crete and Cyprus. Family Their parents were either Pontus (mythology), Pontus and Gaia (mythology), Gaia or Tartarus and Nemesis (mytholog ...

, the original rulers of Rhodes. According to

Apollodorus Apollodorus ( Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: :''Note: A ...

(referring to her as "Rhode") she was a daughter of Poseidon and Amphitrite, and full sister to Triton. However, for Epimenides, her father was

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 ...

, while according to a scholion on ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

'' 17.208 (calling her "Rhode"), her father was the river-god Asopus, thus making her a

Naiad In Greek mythology, the naiads (; ), sometimes also hydriads, are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water. They are distinct from river gods, who embodied ...

. Perhaps misreading Pindar, Asclepiades ("presumably the mythographer" Asclepiades of Tragilus) gives her father as Helios. Rhode together with Helios or Poseidon were the ancestors of Ialysus, Cameirus and Lindus, eponyms of the cities of Rhodes.

Mythology

The poet

tells the story, that when the gods drew lots for the places of the earth, Helios being absent received nothing. He complained to Zeus about it, who offered to make the division again. Helios refused, for he had seen a new island about to rise from the sea. So Helios, with

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

' consent, claimed a new island (Rhodes), which had not yet risen from the sea. And after it rose from the sea he lay with her and produced seven sons. According to another source, it was Helios himself who caused the water overflowing the island to disappear, and after that he named this island "Rhodes" after Rhodos. By Helios, Rhodos was the mother of the Heliadae, who succeeded the Telchines as rulers of Rhodes. According to Pindar, Rhodos had, by Helios, seven sons. Pindar does not name the sons, but according to

, the Heliadae were Ochimus, Cercaphus, Actis, Macar (i.e. Macareus), Candalus, Triopas, and Tenages. Diodorus Siculus also says that Helios and Rhodos had one daughter, Electryone. A scholion to Pindar gives the same list of sons, with Macareus (for Macar) and naming the last Heliadae as Phaethon, "the younger, whom the Rhodians call Tenages". The older Phaethon referred to here probably being the famous

Phaethon Phaethon (; , ), also spelled Phaëthon, is the son of the Oceanids, Oceanid Clymene (mother of Phaethon), Clymene and the solar deity, sun god Helios in Greek mythology. According to most authors, Phaethon is the son of Helios who, out of a de ...

(whose story is told by

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

) who drove Helios' chariot. The scholion on ''

'' 17.208 (perhaps drawing on either of the lost tragedies ''Heliades'' (Daughters of Helios) by

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

, and ''Phaethon'', by

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

), also makes Rhodos the mother, by Helios, of this famous Phaethon, as well as three daughters: Lampetie, Aigle, and Phaethousa. (In the ''Odyssey'', Lampetie and Phaethousa, the shepherds of Helios' cattle and sheep on Thrinacia, are instead the daughters of Helios by Neaera.) When

cursed Helios and made him fall in love with a mortal princess named Leucothoe, he is said to have forgotten about Rhodos, among other lovers.

Culture

While Rhodian coins were known for displaying the magnificent head of

, some of them showed the head of Rhodos; additionally, the

rose A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...

(Greek ''rhodon'') became the island's symbol. During the

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

, she was worshipped in Rhodes as the island's tutelary goddess.

Notes

References

, ''Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
*

, ''Diodorus Siculus: The Library of History''. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Twelve volumes.

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989
5.55
* Fowler, R. L. (2000), ''Early Greek Mythography: Volume 1: Text and Introduction'', Oxford University Press, 2000. . * Fowler, R. L. (2013), ''Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary'', Oxford University Press, 2013. . * Gantz, Timothy, ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2). * Grimal, Pierre
''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology''
Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, . * Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004, . *

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

; ''The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes''. Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Larson, Jennifer, ''Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore'',

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2001, . *

, ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'', Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
*

, ''Odes'', Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Smith, William; ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' is a biographical dictionary of classical antiquity, edited by William Smith (lexicographer), William Smith and originally published in London by John Taylor (English publisher), Tayl ...

'', London (1873). * Tzetzes, '' Chiliades'', editor Gottlieb Kiessling, F.C.G. Vogel, 1826. (English translation, Books II–IV, by Gary Berkowitz
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. {{Authority control Oceanids Children of Aphrodite Children of Poseidon Rhodian mythology Sea and river goddesses Women of Helios Naiads Metamorphoses characters Civic personifications Tutelary goddesses pl:Rhodos