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44-535: The Oceanids' father Oceanus was the great primordial world-encircling river, their mother Tethys was a sea goddess, and their brothers the Potamoi (also three thousand in number) were the personifications of the great rivers of the world. Like the rest of their family, the Oceanid nymphs were associated with water, as the personification of springs. Hesiod says they are "dispersed far and wide" and everywhere "serve

88-498: A Titan (being the brother of Cronus and Rhea), and the mythographer Apollodorus 's inclusion of Dione , the mother of Aphrodite by Zeus, as a thirteenth Titan, suggests an Orphic tradition in which Hesiod's twelve Titans were the offspring of Oceanus and Tethys, with Phorkys and Dione taking the place of Oceanus and Tethys. According to Epimenides , the first two beings, Night and Aer, produced Tartarus , who in turn produced two Titans (possibly Oceanus and Tethys) from whom came

132-876: A bronze Océanide in 1933 which was equally suited for outdoor display. Largely abstract in conception, the sea connection is suggested by the shell-like wave shape that upholds one of her legs. Several copies of the sculpture exist, displayed in the Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum outside Antwerp, the German Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. And in Australia Helen Leete went on to create an equally abstracted group of "Oceanides" in 1997 to mount on

176-460: A later Iliad passage, Hypnos also describes Oceanus as " genesis for all", which, according to Gantz, is hard to understand as meaning other than that, for Homer, Oceanus was the father of the Titans. Plato , in his Timaeus , provides a genealogy (probably Orphic ) which perhaps reflected an attempt to reconcile this apparent divergence between Homer and Hesiod, in which Uranus and Gaia are

220-485: A nude extended on the shore in the track of the incoming tide, of which a more sympathetic critic of the 1905 Salon noted how the artist delights in comparing a lissom body to the sea's undulations. Manchester-born Annie Swynnerton 's "Oceanid" emerging from the sea was painted the same year and is presently in the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford. Sculptures of the subject are comparable to

264-399: A person – or, less commonly, a place or thing – for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Eponym may also refer to someone or something named after, or believed to be named after, a person – or, less commonly, a place or thing. A person, place, or thing named after a particular person share an eponymous relationship. In this way, Elizabeth I of England is the eponym of

308-562: A pool, excavated from the House of the Calendar in Antioch, dated to shortly after AD 115 ( Hatay Archaeology Museum 850). Tethys, reclining on the left, with Oceanus reclining on the right, has long hair, a winged forehead, and is nude to the waist with draped legs. A ketos twines around her raised right arm. Other mosaics of Tethys with Oceanus include Hatay Archaeology Museum 1013 (from

352-502: A possible archaic myth "according to which [Tethys] was the mother of the gods, long estranged from her husband," speculating that the estrangement might refer to a separation of "the upper and lower waters ... corresponding to that of heaven and earth," which parallels the story of " Apsū and Tiamat in the Babylonian cosmology , the male and female waters, which were originally united ( En. El. I. 1 ff.)," but that, "By Hesiod's time

396-529: A relatively frequent feature of mosaics decorating baths, pools, and triclinia in the Greek East , particularly in Antioch and its suburbs. Her identifying attributes are wings sprouting from her forehead, a rudder/oar, and a ketos , a creature from Greek mythology with the head of a dragon and the body of a snake. The earliest of these mosaics, identified as Tethys, decorated a triclinium overlooking

440-493: Is on her way to visit Oceanus and Tethys in the hopes of reconciling her foster parents, who are angry with each other and are no longer having sexual relations. Originally Oceanus' consort, at a later time Tethys came to be identified with the sea, and in Hellenistic and Roman poetry Tethys' name came to be used as a poetic term for the sea. The only other story involving Tethys is an apparently late astral myth concerning

484-564: The Iliad , called the Deception of Zeus , suggest the possibility that Homer knew a tradition in which Oceanus and Tethys (rather than Uranus and Gaia, as in Hesiod) were the primeval parents of the gods. Twice Homer has Hera describe the pair as "Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys". According to M. L. West , these lines suggests a myth in which Oceanus and Tethys are

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528-500: The Elizabethan era , but the Elizabethan era can also be referred to as the eponym of Elizabeth I of England . Eponyms may be named for things or places, for example 10 Downing Street , a building named after its street address. Adjectives and verbs may be eponyms, for example bowdlerize . Adjectives derived from the word eponym include eponymous and eponymic . When Henry Ford is referred to as "the eponymous founder of

572-759: The Ford Motor Company ", his surname "Ford" and the name of the motor company have an eponymous relationship. The word "eponym" can also refer to the title character of a fictional work (such as Rocky Balboa of the Rocky film series ), as well as to self-titled works named after their creators (such as the album The Doors by the band the Doors ). Walt Disney created the eponymous Walt Disney Company , with his name similarly extended to theme parks such as Walt Disney World . Medical eponymous terms are often called medical eponyms , although that usage

616-568: The Golden Fleece , the Argonauts made an offering of flour, honey, and sea to the ocean deities, sacrificed bulls to them, and entreated their protection from the dangers of their journey. They were also recorded as the companions of Persephone when she was abducted by Hades. The goddess Artemis requested that sixty Oceanids of nine years be made her personal choir, to serve her as her personal handmaids and remain virgins. Hesiod gives

660-486: The Nereids ; Callirhoe , the wife of Chrysaor and mother of Geryon ; Clymene , the wife of Iapetus, and mother of Atlas , Menoetius , Prometheus , and Epimetheus ; Perseis , wife of Helios and mother of Circe and Aeetes ; Idyia , wife of Aeetes and mother of Medea ; and Styx , goddess of the river Styx, and the wife of Pallas and mother of Zelus , Nike , Kratos , and Bia . Passages in book 14 of

704-538: The Trojan War and, offended when Achilles polluted his waters with a large number of Trojan corpses, overflowed his banks nearly drowning Achilles. According to Hesiod, there were also three thousand Oceanids. These included Metis , Zeus ' first wife, whom Zeus impregnated with Athena and then swallowed; Eurynome , Zeus' third wife, and mother of the Charites ; Doris , the wife of Nereus and mother of

748-599: The early sixth-century BC Attic black-figure François Vase (Florence 4209). Tethys probably also appeared as one of the gods fighting the Giants in the Gigantomachy frieze of the second-century BC Pergamon Altar . Only fragments of the figure remain: a part of a chiton below Oceanus' left arm and a hand clutching a large tree branch visible behind Oceanus' head. During the second to fourth centuries AD, Tethys—sometimes with Oceanus, sometimes alone—became

792-557: The world egg . Tethys played no active part in Greek mythology. The only early story concerning Tethys is what Homer has Hera briefly relate in the Iliad ’s Deception of Zeus passage. There, Hera says that when Zeus was in the process of deposing Cronus , she was given by her mother Rhea to Tethys and Oceanus for safekeeping and that they "lovingly nursed and cherished me in their halls". Hera relates this while dissembling that she

836-439: The "first parents of the whole race of gods." However, as Timothy Gantz points out, "mother" could simply refer to the fact that Tethys was Hera's foster mother for a time, as Hera tells us in the lines immediately following, while the reference to Oceanus as the genesis of the gods "might be simply a formulaic epithet indicating the numberless rivers and springs descended from Okeanos" (compare with Iliad 21.195–197 ). But, in

880-665: The House of Menander, Daphne ), Hatay Archaeology Museum 9095, and Baltimore Museum of Art 1937.126 (from the House of the Boat of Psyches: triclinium). In other mosaics, Tethys appears without Oceanus. One of these is a fourth-century AD mosaic from a pool (probably a public bath) found at Antioch , now installed in Boston , Massachusetts at the Harvard Business School 's Morgan Hall and formerly at Dumbarton Oaks , Washington, D.C. (Dumbarton Oaks 76.43). Besides

924-636: The Musée départemental de Gap . The other, titled simply The Oceanids (The Naiads of the Sea) (1869), was by Gustave Doré . Lehmann's painting was savaged as lacking in Classical decorum by the critics of the Salon at which it was exhibited; in particular, the nymphs clustered about the sea-girt rock on which Prometheus is chained were compared to "a troop of young seals clambering onshore". Doré's naiads, engaged in

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968-518: The Sophilos dinos, this is the only other representation of Tethys identified by inscription. Here Tethys, with a winged forehead, rises from the sea bare-shouldered, with long dark hair parted in the middle. A golden rudder rests against her right shoulder. Others include Hatay Archaeology Museum 9097, Shahba Museum ( in situ ), Baltimore Museum of Art 1937.118 (from the House of the Boat of Psyches: Room six), and Memorial Art Gallery 42.2. Toward

1012-603: The Titan offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Hesiod lists her Titan siblings as Oceanus , Coeus , Crius , Hyperion , Iapetus , Theia , Rhea , Themis , Mnemosyne , Phoebe , and Cronus . Tethys married her brother Oceanus, an enormous river encircling the world, and was by him the mother of numerous sons (the river gods ) and numerous daughters (the Oceanids ). According to Hesiod, there were three thousand (i.e. innumerable) river gods. These included Achelous ,

1056-453: The children of her siblings Hyperion and Theia , during their infancy, when their light was weak and had not yet grown into their older, more luminous selves. In Ovid 's Metamorphoses , Tethys turns Aesacus into a diving bird . Tethys was sometimes confused with another sea goddess, the sea-nymph Thetis , wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles . M. L. West detects in the Iliad ' s Deception of Zeus passage an allusion to

1100-560: The earth and the deep waters", while in Apollonius of Rhodes ' Argonautica , the Argonauts , stranded in the desert of Libya, beg the "nymphs, sacred of the race of Oceanus" to show them "some spring of water from the rock or some sacred flow gushing from the earth". The Oceanids are not easily categorized, nor confined to any single function, not even necessarily associated with water. Though most nymphs were considered to be minor deities, many Oceanids were significant figures. Metis ,

1144-459: The end of the period represented by these mosaics, Tethys' iconography appears to merge with that of another sea goddess Thalassa , the Greek personification of the sea ( thalassa being the Greek word for the sea). Such a transformation would be consistent with the frequent use of Tethys' name as a poetic reference to the sea in Roman poetry (see above). Tethys , a moon of the planet Saturn , and

1188-575: The god of the Achelous River , the largest river in Greece, who gave his daughter in marriage to Alcmaeon and was defeated by Heracles in a wrestling contest for the right to marry Deianira ; Alpheus , who fell in love with the nymph Arethusa and pursued her to Syracuse , where she was transformed into a spring by Artemis ; and Scamander who fought on the side of the Trojans during

1232-662: The mother of Iris and the Harpies . Other notable Oceanids include: Perseis , wife of the Titan sun god Helios and mother of Circe , and Aeetes the king of Colchis ; Idyia , wife of Aeetes and mother of Medea ; and Callirhoe , the wife of Chrysaor and mother of Geryon . Sailors routinely honored and entreated the Oceanids, dedicating prayers, libations, and sacrifices to them. Appeals to them were made to protect seafarers from storms and other nautical hazards. Before they began their legendary voyage to Colchis in search of

1276-425: The myth may have been almost forgotten and Tethys remembered only as the name of Oceanus' wife." This possible correspondence between Oceanus and Tethys, and Apsū and Tiamat has been noticed by several authors, with Tethys' name possibly having been derived from that of Tiamat. Representations of Tethys before the Roman period are rare. Tethys appears, identified by inscription (ΘΕΘΥΣ), as part of an illustration of

1320-572: The name of 41 Oceanids, with other ancient sources providing many more. While some were important figures, most were not. Some were perhaps the names of actual springs, others merely poetic inventions. Some names, consistent with the Oceanids' charge of having "youths in their keeping", represent things which parents might hope to be bestowed upon their children: Plouto ("Wealth"), Tyche ("Good Fortune"), Idyia ("Knowing"), and Metis ("Wisdom"). Others appear to be geographical eponyms , such as Europa, Asia, Ephyra ( Corinth ), and Rhodos ( Rhodes ). Several of

1364-527: The names of Oceanids were also among the names given to the Nereids . As a group, the Oceanids form the chorus of the ancient Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound , coming up from their cave beneath the ground to console the chained Titan Prometheus . There they are described as moving with haste, in contrast to the hero's immobility. In his new interpretation of the Greek play's continuation, Prometheus Unbound (1820), Percy Bysshe Shelley included three Oceanids among his characters. Ione and Panthea accompany

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1408-529: The paintings in some respects. In Johann Eduard Müller's marble statue of "Prometheus and the Oceanides" (1868–79), the nymphs scramble upwards in an attempt to alleviate the Titan's suffering, as they do in Lehmann's canvas. The smaller-scale Océanides (1905) of Auguste Rodin cluster like waves breaking at the base of a rock, their "supple feminine forms emerging from rough marble". A larger scale version of

1452-422: The parents of Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys are the parents of Cronus and Rhea and the other Titans, as well as Phorcys . In his Cratylus , Plato quotes Orpheus as saying that Oceanus and Tethys were "the first to marry", possibly also reflecting an Orphic theogony in which Oceanus and Tethys—rather than Uranus and Gaia—were the primeval parents. Plato's apparent inclusion of Phorkys as

1496-624: The personification of intelligence, was Zeus ' first wife, whom Zeus impregnated with Athena and then swallowed. The Oceanid Doris , like her mother Tethys, was an important sea-goddess. While their brothers, the Potamoi, were the usual personifications of major rivers, Styx (according to Hesiod the eldest and most important Oceanid) was also the personification of a major river, the underworld 's river Styx. And some, like Europa, and Asia , seem associated with areas of land rather than water. The Oceanids were also responsible for keeping watch over

1540-583: The polar constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear), which was thought to represent the catasterism of Callisto who was transformed into a bear and placed by Zeus among the stars. The myth explains why the constellation never sets below the horizon, saying that since Callisto had been Zeus's lover, she was forbidden by Tethys from "touching Ocean's deep" out of concern for her foster-child Hera, Zeus's jealous wife. Claudian wrote that Tethys nursed two of her nephlings in her breast, Helios and Selene ,

1584-638: The prehistoric Tethys Ocean are named after this goddess. Eponyms An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word eponym include eponymous and eponymic . Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovations, biological nomenclature, astronomical objects, works of art and media, and tribal names. Various orthographic conventions are used for eponyms. The term eponym functions in multiple related ways, all based on an explicit relationship between two named things. Eponym may refer to

1628-499: The same occupation, were eventually identified more elegantly by Dorothea Tanning as akin to mermaids. Later artists reinterpreted the nymphs tumbling among the waves, as depicted by both painters, in order to portray individual Oceanids as female manifestations of sea foam. Examples include Wilhelm Trübner 's study of a female form in a frothy wave ( Weiblicher Akt im Schaum einer Welle ), which he titled "Oceanide" (1872); and William-Adolphe Bouguereau 's Océanide (1904), portraying

1672-524: The sculpture was finally cast in bronze in 1925 and is in Philadelphia's Rodin Museum . The fountain at York House, Twickenham concentrates on a purely marine theme and is of much wider extent. This gave the turn of the century sculptor, Oscar Spalmach (1864–1917), the opportunity to drape his white marble Oceanids about the rocks of the cascade in a variety of painterly poses. Henri Laurens created

1716-682: The seaside rocks off Manly, New South Wales . A musical interpretation of these mythical figures was the result of the visit by Jean Sibelius to the US in 1914, before which he was commissioned to compose a tone poem . Though this is generally titled The Oceanides (Opus 73), Sibelius referred to it in his diary as Aallottaret : the Finnish word for "nymphs of the waves". Tethys (mythology) Many Oceanids including: In Greek mythology , Tethys ( / ˈ t iː θ ɪ s , ˈ t ɛ -/ ; Ancient Greek : Τηθύς , romanized :  Tēthýs )

1760-472: The suffering hero and are joined by his lover, Asia . The setting is in the Caucasus mountains and Shelley describes these characters as winged beings. Two 19th century artists depicted the mourning of the Oceanids about the rock on which Prometheus is chained, which was interpreted in this case as rising mid-ocean. The first of these was La Désolation des Océanides (1850) by Henri Lehmann , presently in

1804-426: The wedding of Peleus and Thetis on the early sixth-century BC Attic black-figure "Erskine" dinos by Sophilos ( British Museum 1971.111–1.1). Accompanied by Eileithyia , the goddess of childbirth, Tethys follows close behind Oceanus at the end of a procession of gods invited to the wedding. Tethys is also conjectured to be represented in a similar illustration of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis depicted on

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1848-484: The young. According to Hesiod, who described them as "neat-ankled daughters of Ocean ... children who are glorious among goddesses", they are "a holy company of daughters who with the lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping—to this charge Zeus appointed them". Like Metis, the Oceanids also functioned as the wives (or lovers) of many gods, and the mothers, by these gods, of many other gods and goddesses. Doris

1892-470: Was a Titan daughter of Uranus and Gaia , a sister and wife of the Titan Oceanus , and the mother of the river gods and the Oceanids . Although Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults, she was depicted in mosaics decorating baths, pools, and triclinia in the Greek East , particularly in Antioch and its suburbs, either alone or with Oceanus. Tethys was one of

1936-544: Was the wife of the sea-god Nereus , and the mother of the fifty sea nymphs, the Nereids . Styx was the wife of the Titan Pallas , and the mother of Zelus , Nike , Kratos , and Bia . Eurynome , Zeus' third wife, was the mother of the Charites . Clymene was the wife of the Titan Iapetus , and mother of Atlas , Menoetius , Prometheus , and Epimetheus . Electra was the wife of the sea god Thaumas and

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