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Eurynome (/jʊˈrɪnəmiː/;Ancient Greek:Εὐρυνόμη,romanized: Eurynómē) was a deity of ancient Greek religion worshipped at a sanctuary near the confluence of rivers called the Neda and the Lymax in classicalPeloponnesus. She was represented by a statue of what we would call amermaid. Tradition, as reported by the Greek traveller,Pausanias, identified her with theOceanid, or "daughter of Ocean", of Greek poetry.
The name is usually segmented Eury-nome, where eury- is "wide". This segment appears inLinear B as e-u-ru–, a prefix in a few men's names. It does not occur in anyMycenaean women's names, nor does –nome.
The root of –nome isProto-Indo-European *nem-, distribute, as in the Greekinfinitive, nemein, "to distribute." Words derived from *nem- had a large variety of senses. In the case of Eurynome, the two main senses proposed are "wanderer" and "ruler".
Robert Graves saw in Eurynome alunar goddess descending from the Pre-Hellenicmother goddess ofNeolithic Europe. In that case, –nome is as in our word nomad. The nomad wanders searching for pastureland, or land that has been "distributed" for the use of domestic animals. The moon is to be regarded as wandering. In the other interpretation, –nome is as in English auto-nomy. A ruler is someone who "distributes" law and justice. Neither case has any bearing on the status of Eurynome as a possiblePelasgianmother goddess.
If Eurynome was the descendant of a pre-Greek goddess, she must have had a pre-Greek name, and not the Greek name, Eurynome. If the name isIndo-European, it might have evolved intoGreek with the rest of the language. If it is not Indo-European, then it might result from renaming or from selecting the closest Greekhomonym.
In the epic tradition, Eurynome was one of the elderOceanids, that is, a daughter ofOceanus andTethys.[1] Eurynome was the third bride ofZeus and mother of theCharites, goddesses of grace and beauty.[2]
WhenHephaestus was cast fromOlympus by the goddessHera, who was disgusted at having borne a crippled child, he was caught by Eurynome andThetis (possibly a doubling forTethys, her mother). Eurynome and Thetis nursed the god Hephaestus on the banks of the earth-encircling river Oceanus, after his fall from heaven.[3]Charis, Eurynome's daughter, later became Hephaestus' bride.[4]
Eurynome is closely identified with another Eurynome, Queen of theTitans. This Eurynome was an early Titan queen who ruled Olympus beside her husbandOphion. The pair were wrestled for their thrones byCronus andRhea who cast them down into the earth-encircling river Oceanus.[5]
Homer and Hesiod establish that a belief in the Oceanid existed in the earliest literary times. The most likely circumstance, based on the testimony of Pausanias, is that both authors took their themes from a religion known to and believed in by all theHellenes; thus, it is probably best to assume that Eurynome the Oceanid is the same Oceanid of ancient Greek belief mentioned in all the classical sources.
Eurynome was worshipped at the confluence of the rivers Neda and Lymax inArcadia. Herxoanon, which could only be viewed when her sanctuary was opened once a year, was a wooden statue bound in golden chains depicting a woman's upper body and the lower body of a fish.[15] Her sonAsopus was the god of a nearby stream in the adjacent region ofSikyonia. The fish-tailed goddess, Eurynome, worshipped inArcadia, may have been Eurynome wife of Ophion, Tethys the wife of Oceanus, Eurynome mother of theCharites, the goddess of the river Neda, or a wateryArtemis.[16]
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