GREEK MYTHOLOGY

Hydros (or Hydrus)was theprotogenosof the primordial waters. In theOrphic TheogoniesWater was the first being to emerge at creation alongside Creation (Thesis, goddess of creation) and Mud. The primordial mud solidified into Gaia (Earth) and with Hydros produced Kronos (time) and Ananke (compulsion). These two in turn caught the early cosmos in the coils, and split it apart to form the god Phanes (creator of life), and the four ordered elements of Heaven (fire), Earth, Air and Sea (water). The Orphic Rhapsodies later discarded the figures the Kronos and Ananke, and have Phanes instead born directly from Hydros and Gaia [Homer, Iliad 14. 200 ff (trans. Lattimore) Greek epic C8th BC].

In Greek mythology the Twelve Olympians were the principal gods of the Greek pantheon, residing atop Mount Olympus. There were, at various times, fourteen different gods recognised as Olympians, though never more than twelve at one time. In Greek mythology, the twelve gods and goddesses ruled the universe from atop Greece’s Mount Olympus. These Olympians, all related to one another, had come to power after their leader, Zeus, overthrew his father, Kronos, leader of the Titans. Later the Romans adopted most of these Greek gods and goddesses, but with new names.

1.5.1 Olympian gods and goddesses

Achelous (Figure 1.5), named after the Achelous River (largest river in Greece), was the chief of all river deities. The name is pre-Greek and the meaning unknown. Every river had its own river spirit. Tethys was a Greek deity who oversaw the fresh water rivers of the world and the mother and grandmother of thousands of other deities.

Tethys (Figure 1.6) was a goddess who most probably was a primordial deity in Archaic Greece, but who was seen in Classical myths as the deity responsible for the fresh water rivers of the world and the progenitor of thousands of water deities. Tethys was described in classical myths as the deity responsible for the fresh water rivers of the world and the progenitor of thousands of water deities. Tethys was considered as an embodiment of the waters of the world making her also a counterpart of Thalassa, the embodiment of the sea.

Demeter (Figure 1.7), the goddess of earth, agriculture, water and fertility, was the second daughter of the major Titans Rhea and Cronus, after Hestia, the goddesses of the hearth. Demeter was a peace-loving deity and the source of all growth and life; she was the goddess who provided all nutrition on the earth and taught Figure 1.5 Achelous was often reduced to a bearded mask, an inspiration for the medieval Green Man.

Shown is floor mosaic of Achelous in Zeugma, Turkey (Source: Wikipedia Commons, in public domain).

mortals how to cultivate the earth and ease life. Demeter was most appreciated for introducing wheat to mankind, making man different from animals.

Figure 1.6 Mosaics of Tethys: (a) Mosaic from Phillopolis that dates to the mid-fourth century (Source:

Wikipedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons, GNU Free Documentation Licence) and (b) Mosaic on the floor at the bathhouse of Garni with the image of Tethys, constructed between the first and third centuries AD (Source: Wikipedia Commons, in public domain).

Figure 1.7 Demeter: (a) Votive relief of Demeter, on the left, during a ritual holding a sceptre in her left hand offering wheat to Triptolemos, son of the Eleusinian King Keleos, for bestowing on mankind. On the right Persephone, with a mantle and holding a torch, blesses Triptolemos with her right hand. This is the largest and most known votive relief (ca. 440−430 BC), which was found in Eleusis, and now resides in the Archaeological Museum of Athens, Greece. The relief was apparently famous in antiquity and was copied in the Roman period with one copy now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. (with permission of A. N. Angelakis) and (b) Demeter and Metanira. Detail of the belly of an Apulian red-figure hydria,ca.340 BC (Source: Wikipedia Commons, in public domain).

1.5.2 Zeus or Poseidon of rain

The ancient Greeks worshipped Zeus or Poseidon (Figure 1.8) god of rain and in colloquial speech one can say“Zeus is raining”(Haland, 2007). Children in Ancient Greece sang:“Rain, rain, o dear Zeus, on the fields of the Athenians.”According to the tradition, Zeus was the god of rain (Hes.Op. 488).

Fully-fledged rain-magic is found in the cult of Zeus Lykaios in Arkadia, where nevertheless one of the Nymphs who reared him also has something to say: if a severe drought lasts a long time the priest of Zeus will go to the spring of the Nymph Hagno, make a sacrifice, and let the blood run into the spring (Haland, 2007). Then, after prayer, he dips a branch from an oak (the sacred tree of Zeus) into the water, and forthwith a vapour will rise up from the spring like a mist,‘and a little way off the mist becomes a cloud, collects other clouds, and makes the rain drop on Arkadian land, (Haland, 2009).

Among the ancient Greeks, a king is often a magician in the service of the gods. Part of his duty is to be a weather-king. He is“making the weather”, and this means that he is making rain, for example by shaking rattles or by other means trying to make thunder and lightning. In ancient Thessaly, when the land suffered from drought, they shook a bronze wagon by way of praying the god for rain, and it was said rain came. This was a traditional public ceremony for the making of rain (Haland, 2007).

According to (Haland, 2009)‘Greece had been withering under a drought: neither inside the isthmus (of Corinth) nor outside it would rain, until they sent to Delphi to discover the reasons and ask for relief. The Pythian priestess told them to placate Zeus, but, if he were to listen, it had to be Aiakos who made the ritual supplication. They sent men from every city to beseech Aiakos son of Zeus; he sacrificed and prayed to Panhellenic Zeus, and brought rain to Greece; so the Aiginetans made the portraits of the ambassadors’ (Haland, 2007).

1.5.3 Nymphs

In Greek mythology a nymph was a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Nymphs were generally regarded as divine spirits who animated nature, and were usually Figure 1.8 Poseidon (a) Poseidon holding a trident (Corinthian plaque, 550–525 BC) from Penteskouphia at Louvre Museum, photographed by Marie-Lan Nguyen, Jastrow (2006) (Source Wikipedia Commons, in public domain); (b) Bronze statue of Zeus or Poseidon (from Archaeological Museum of Athens). It is certainly the work of a great sculptor of the early Classical periodca. 460 BC (with permission of A. N. Angelakis); and (c) Head of Poseidon, photographed by Marie-Lan Nguyen, Jastrow (Source: Wikipedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic licence).

depicted as beautiful, young maidens who loved to dance and sing. Water nymphs (Hydriades or Ephydriades) included freshwater nymphs (naiads or naides) who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks, but not rivers.Naiads(see Figure 1.9) were either daughters of Poseidon or variousOceanids, who were the patrons of a particular spring, river, sea, lake, pond, pasture, flower or cloud. Oceanids were the three thousand daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. Water nymphs associated with particular springs were known all through Europe at locations with no direct connection with Greece.

Limnades or leimenides were naiads that lived in freshwater lakes, whose parents were river or lake gods.

Pegaeae were naiads that lived in springs and were often considered daughters of the river gods (Potamoi).

They established a mythological relationship between a river and its springs. Crinaeae were naiads associated with fountains or wells. Eleionomae were naiads associated with living in marshes and often misled travellers with their illusions that were images of a traveller’s loved ones. They also lured young, virgin boys seducing them with their beauty (see Figure 1.9).