Thalassa (Ancient Greek:θάλασσα,lit. 'sea')[2][a] was the general word for 'sea' and for its divine female personification inGreek mythology. The word may have been ofPre-Greek origin[5] and connected to the name of the Mesopotamian primordial sea goddessTiamat.[6]
The Roman mythographerHyginus (c. 64 BC – AD 17), in the preface to hisFabulae, calls Mare (Sea, another name for Thalassa)[11] the daughter ofAether andDies (Day), and thus the sister ofTerra (Earth) andCaelus (Sky).[12] With her male counterpartPontus, she spawns the species of fish.[13]
Thalassa defends herself in Aesop's fable, "The Farmer and the Sea"
Two rather similar fables are recorded byBabrius. In one, numbered 168 in thePerry Index, a farmer witnesses a shipwreck and reproaches the sea for being "an enemy of mankind". Assuming the form of a woman, she answers by blaming the winds for her turbulence. Otherwise, "I am gentler than that dry land of yours."[14] In the other, a survivor from a shipwreck accuses the sea of treachery and receives the same excuse. But for the winds, "by nature I am as calm and safe as the land."[15]
In yet another fable, Perry's number 412 and only recorded bySyntipas, the rivers complain to the sea that their sweet water is turned undrinkably salty by contact with her. The sea replies that if they know as much, they should avoid such contact. The commentary suggests that the tale may be applied to people who criticize someone inappropriately even though they may actually be helping them.[16]
In the 2nd century CE, Lucian represented Thalassa in a comic dialogue with Xanthus, the god of the RiverScamander, who had been attacked by a rival Greek deity for complaining that his course was being choked with dead bodies during theTrojan War. In this case he had been badly scorched and asks her to soothe his wounds.[17]
Illustration of coral with the goddess at the base, from a 6th-century medical discourse
While the sea-divinities Tethys and Oceanus were formerly represented in Roman-era mosaics, they were replaced at a later period by the figure of Thalassa, especially inWestern Asia. There she was depicted as a woman clothed in bands of seaweed and half submerged in the sea, with the crab-claw horns that were formerly an attribute of Oceanus now transferred to her head. In one hand she holds a ship's oar, and in the other a dolphin.[18]
Lucian,Lucian of Samosata, from the Greek, with the Comments and Illustrations of Wieland and others, Volume I, translated byWilliam Tooke, London, 1820.Google Books.
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