5 includes (i) Aesyle (or Phaisyle), Coronis, Cleeia (or Cleis),Phaeo and Eudora or (ii) Aesyle (or Phaisyle), Coronis, Eudora, Ambrosia andPolyxo or (iii)Pytho,Synecho,Baccho,Cardie andNiseis
Maia is the daughter ofAtlas[3][4] andPleione theOceanid, and is the oldest of the seven Pleiades.[5] They were born on MountCyllene inArcadia,[4] and are sometimes called mountainnymphs,oreads;Simonides of Ceos sang of "mountain Maia"(Maiados oureias) "of the lovely black eyes."[5] Because they were daughters of Atlas, they were also called the Atlantides.[6]
According to theHomeric Hymn to Hermes, Zeus, in the dead of night, secretly made love to Maia,[8] who avoided the company of the gods, in a cave of Cyllene. She became pregnant withHermes. After giving birth to the baby, Maia wrapped him in blankets and went to sleep. The rapidly maturing infant Hermes crawled away toThessaly, where, by nightfall of his first day, he stole some of his half-brotherApollo's cattle and invented thelyre from a tortoise shell. Maia refused to believe Apollo when he claimed that Hermes was the thief, and Zeus then sided with Apollo. Finally, Apollo exchanged the cattle for the lyre, which became one of his identifying attributes.[9]
Although theHomeric Hymn has Maia as Hermes' caretaker and guardian, inSophocles's now lostsatyr playIchneutae, Maia entrusted the infant Hermes toCyllene (the local mountain goddess) to nurse and raise, and thus it is her that the satyrs and Apollo confront when looking for the god's missing cattle.[10]
Maia also raised the infantArcas, the child ofCallisto with Zeus. Wronged by the love affair, Zeus' wifeHera in a jealous rage had transformed Callisto into a bear.[11] Arcas is theeponym ofArcadia, where Maia was born.[4] The story of Callisto and Arcas, like that of the Pleiades, is anaition for a stellar formation, the constellationsUrsa Major andUrsa Minor, the Great and Little Bear.
Her name is related to μαῖα (maia), an honorific term for older women related to μήτηρ (mētēr) 'mother',[citation needed] also meaning "midwife" in Greek.[12]
In an archaic Roman prayer,[15] Maia appears as an attribute ofVulcan, in aninvocational list of male deities paired with female abstractions representing some aspect of their functionality. She was explicitly identified with Earth (Terra, theRoman counterpart of Gaia) and the Good Goddess (Bona Dea) in at least one tradition.[16][17] Her identity became theologically intertwined also with the goddessesFauna,Ops,Juno,Carna, and theMagna Mater ("Great Goddess", referring to the Roman form of Cybele but also a cult title for Maia), as discussed at some length by thelateantiquarian writerMacrobius.[18] This treatment was probably influenced by the 1st-century BC scholarVarro, who tended to resolve a great number of goddesses into one original "Terra".[17] The association with Juno, whoseEtruscan counterpart wasUni, is suggested again by the inscriptionUni Mae on thePiacenza Liver.[19]
The month of May (LatinMaius) was named for Maia,[20] though ancient etymologists also connected it to themaiores "ancestors", again from the adjectivemaius, maior, meaning those who are "greater" in terms of generational precedence.[citation needed][21] On the first day of May, theLares Praestites were honored asprotectors of the city,[22] and theflamen of Vulcan sacrificed a pregnant sow to Maia, a customary offering to an earth goddess[23] that reiterates the link between Vulcan and Maia in the archaic prayer formula. InRoman myth,Mercury (Hermes), the son of Maia, was the father of the twin Lares, a genealogy that sheds light on the collocation of ceremonies on theKalends of May.[24] On May 15, theIdes, Mercury was honored as a patron of merchants and increaser of profit (through an etymological connection withmerx, merces, "goods, merchandise"), another possible connection with Maia his mother as a goddess who promoted growth.[13]
^The alternate spellingMaja represents theintervocalici asj, pronounced similarly to an initialy in English; hence Latinmaior, "greater," in English became "major."
^The alternate spellingMaja represents theintervocalici asj, pronounced similarly to an initialy in English; hence Latinmaior, "greater," in English became "major."
^Although the identification of Mercury is secure, based on the presence of thecaduceus, the one-shouldered garment called thechlamys, and his winged head, the female figure has been identified variously. The cup is part of theBerthouville Treasure, found within aGallo-Roman temple precinct; see Lise Vogel,The Column of Antoninus Pius, Loeb Classical Library Monograph (Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 79 f., and Martin Henig,Religion in Roman Britain, Taylor & Francis, 1984, 2005, p. 119 f. InGaul, Mercury's regular consort is one of the Celtic goddesses, usuallyRosmerta. Theetymology of Rosmerta's name as "Great Provider" suggests a theology compatible with that of Maia "the Great". The consort on the cup has also been identified asVenus by M. Chabouillet,Catalogue général et raisonné des camées et pierres gravées de la Bibliothéque Impériale, Paris 1858, p. 449. Maia is suggested by the concomitant discovery of a silver bust, not always considered part of the hoard proper but more securely identified as Maia and connected to Rosmerta; see E. Babelon,Revue archéologique 24 (1914), pp. 182–190, as summarized inAmerican Journal of Archaeology 19 (1915), p. 485.
^Nutton, Vivian (2005).Ancient Medicine. London: Routledge. p. 101.ISBN9780415086110.
^abTurcan, Robert (2001).The Gods of Ancient Rome - Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times. London: Routledge. p. 70.ISBN9780415929745.
^Grimal, Pierre (1996).The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Blackwell. p. 270.
^In Mario Torelli's diagram of thisharuspicial object, the namesUni andMae appear together in a cell on the edge of the liver; see Nancy Thompson de Grummond,Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology, 2006, p. 44 (online).
