According toM. L. West, the etymology of Oceanus is "obscure" and "cannot be explained from Greek".[4] The use byPherecydes of Syros of the formŌgenós (Ὠγενός)[5] for the name lends support for the name being aloanword.[6] However, according to West, no "very convincing" foreign models have been found.[7] A Semitic derivation has been suggested by several scholars,[8] whileR. S. P. Beekes has suggested a loanword from the AegeanPre-Greek non-Indo-Europeansubstrate.[9] Nevertheless, Michael Janda sees possible Indo-European connections.[10]
According to Hesiod, there were three thousand (i.e. innumerable) river gods.[14] These included:Achelous, the god of theAchelous River, the largest river in Greece, who gave his daughter in marriage toAlcmaeon[15] and was defeated byHeracles in a wrestling contest for the right to marryDeianira;[16]Alpheus, who fell in love with thenymphArethusa and pursued her toSyracuse where she was transformed into a spring byArtemis;[17] andScamander who fought on the side of theTrojans during theTrojan War and got offended whenAchilles polluted his waters with a large number of Trojan corpses, overflowed his banks nearly drowning Achilles.[18]
Passages in a section of theIliad called theDeception of Zeus, suggest the possibility thatHomer knew a tradition in which Oceanus and Tethys (rather than Uranus and Gaia, as in Hesiod) were the primeval parents of the gods.[38] Twice Homer hasHera describe the pair as "Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys".[39] According toM. L. West, these lines suggests a myth in which Oceanus and Tethys are the "first parents of the whole race of gods."[40] However, asTimothy 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 withIliad21.195–197).[41] But, in a laterIliad 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.[42]
Plato, in hisTimaeus, provides a genealogy (probablyOrphic) which perhaps reflected an attempt to reconcile this apparent divergence between Homer and Hesiod, in which Uranus and Gaia are the parents of Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys are the parents of Cronus and Rhea and the other Titans, as well asPhorcys.[43] In hisCratylus, Plato quotesOrpheus 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.[44] Plato's apparent inclusion of Phorcys as a Titan (being the brother of Cronus and Rhea), and the mythographerApollodorus's inclusion ofDione, the mother ofAphrodite by Zeus, as a thirteenth Titan,[45] suggests an Orphic tradition in which the Titan offspring of Oceanus and Tethys consisted of Hesiod's twelve Titans, with Phorcys and Dione taking the place of Oceanus and Tethys.[46]
According toEpimenides, the first two beings,Night and Aer, producedTartarus, who in turn produced two Titans (possibly Oceanus and Tethys) from whom came theworld egg.[47]
When Cronus, the youngest of the Titans, overthrew his fatherUranus, thereby becoming the ruler of the cosmos, according to Hesiod, none of the other Titans participated in the attack on Uranus.[48] However, according to the mythographerApollodorus, all the Titans—except Oceanus—attacked Uranus.[49]Proclus, in his commentary on Plato'sTimaeus, quotes several lines of a poem (probably Orphic) which has an angry Oceanus brooding aloud as to whether he should join Cronus and the other Titans in the attack on Uranus. And, according to Proclus, Oceanus did not in fact take part in the attack.[50]
Oceanus seemingly also did not join the Titans in theTitanomachy, the great war between Cronus and his fellow Titans, andZeus and his fellowOlympians, for control of the cosmos; and following the war, although Cronus and the other Titans were imprisoned, Oceanus certainly seems to have remained free.[51] In Hesiod, Oceanus sends his daughterStyx, with her childrenZelus (Envy),Nike (Victory),Cratos (Power), andBia (Force), to fight on Zeus's side against the Titans,[52] And in theIliad, Hera says that during the war she was sent to Oceanus and Tethys for safekeeping.[53]
Sometime after the war,Aeschylus'sPrometheus Bound, has Oceanus visit his nephew the enchainedPrometheus, who is being punished by Zeus for his theft of fire.[54] Oceanus arrives riding a winged steed,[55] saying that he is sympathetic to Prometheus's plight and wishes to help him if he can.[56] But Prometheus mocks Oceanus, asking him: "How did you summon courage to quit the stream that bears your name and the rock-roofed caves you yourself have made ..."[57] Oceanus advises Prometheus to humble himself before the new ruler Zeus, and so avoid making his situation any worse. But Prometheus replies: "I envy you because you have escaped blame for having dared to share with me in my troubles."[58]
According toPherecydes, whileHeracles was travelling inHelios's golden cup, on his way toErytheia to fetch the cattle ofGeryon, Oceanus challenged Heracles by sending high waves rocking the cup, but Heracles threatened to shoot Oceanus with his bow, and Oceanus in fear stopped.[59]
Although sometimes treated as a person (such as Oceanus visiting Prometheus in Aeschylus'sPrometheus Bound, see above) Oceanus is more usually considered to be a place,[60] that is, as the great world-encircling river.[61] Twice Hesiod calls Oceanus "the perfect river" (τελήεντος ποταμοῖο),[62] and Homer refers to the "stream of the river Oceanus" (ποταμοῖο λίπεν ῥόον Ὠκεανοῖο).[63] Both Hesiod and Homer call Oceanus "backflowing" (ἀψορρόου), since, as the great stream encircles the earth, it flows back into itself.[64] Hesiod also calls Oceanus "deep-swirling" (βαθυδίνης),[65] while Homer calls him "deep-flowing" (βαθυρρόου).[66]Homer says that Oceanus "bounds the Earth",[67] and Oceanus was depicted on theshield of Achilles, encircling its rim,[68] and so also on the shield of Heracles.[69]
Both Hesiod and Homer locate Oceanus at the ends of the earth, near Tartarus, in theTheogony,[70] or nearElysium, in theIliad,[71] and in theOdyssey, has to be crossed in order to reach the "dank house ofHades".[72] And for both Hesiod and Homer, Oceanus seems to have marked a boundary beyond which the cosmos became more fantastical.[73] TheTheogony has such fabulous creatures as theHesperides, with their golden apples, the three-headed giantGeryon, and the snake-hairedGorgons, all residing "beyond glorious Ocean".[74] While Homer located such exotic tribes as theCimmerians, theAethiopians, and thePygmies as living nearby Oceanus.[75]
In Homer,Helios the sun, rises from Oceanus in the east,[76] and at the end of the day sinks back into Oceanus in the west,[77] and the stars bathe in the "stream of Ocean".[78] According to later sources, after setting, Helios sails back along Oceanus during the night from west to east.[79]
Just as Oceanus the god was the father of the river gods, Oceanus the river was said to be the source of all other rivers, and in fact all sources of water, both salt and fresh.[80] According to Homer, from Oceanus "all rivers flow and every sea, and all the springs and deep wells".[81] Being the source of rivers and springs would seem logically to require that Oceanus was himself a freshwater river, and so different from the salt sea, and in fact Hesiod seems to distinguish between Oceanus andPontus, the personification of the sea.[82] However elsewhere the distinction between fresh and salt water seems not to apply. For example, in HesiodNereus andThaumus, both sons of Pontus, marry daughters of Oceanus, and in Homer (who makes no mention of Pontus),Thetis, the daughter of Nereus, andEurynome the daughter of Oceanus, live together.[83] In any case, Oceanus can also to be identified with the sea.[84]
The concept of the surrounding Ocean, as expressed by Homer and Hesiod, remained in common use throughout antiquity. The Roman geographerPomponius Mela said that the inhabited earth "is entirely surrounded by the Ocean, from which it receives four seas".[85] These four seas were theCaspian Sea, thePersian Gulf, theArabian Gulf, and theMediterranean Sea. However increasing knowledge of the seas led to modifications in this view. The Greek geographerPtolemy identified various different oceans.[86] One of these, the Western Ocean (theAtlantic Ocean) was often called simply "'the Ocean"', for instance byJulius Caesar.[87]
Oceanus is represented, identified by inscription, as part of an illustration of the wedding ofPeleus andThetis on the early sixth century BCAtticblack-figure "Erskine"dinos bySophilos (British Museum 1971.111–1.1).[89] Oceanus appears near the end of a long procession of gods and goddesses arriving at the palace of Peleus for the wedding. Oceanus follows a chariot driven byAthena and containingArtemis. Oceanus has bull horns, holds a snake in his left hand and a fish in his right, and has the body of a fish from the waist down. He is closely followed by Tethys andEileithyia, withHephaestus following on his mule ending the procession.
Oceanus also appears, as part of a very similar procession of Peleus and Thetis's wedding guests, on another early sixth century BC Attic black-figure pot, theFrançois Vase (Florence 4209).[91] As in Sophilos's dinos, Oceanus appears at the end of the long procession, following after the last chariot, with Hephaestus on his mule bringing up the rear. Although little remains of Oceanus, he was apparently shown here with a bull's head.[92] The similarity in the order of the wedding guests on these two vases, as well as on the fragments a second Sophilos vase (Athens Akr 587), suggests the possibility of a literary source.[93]
Oceanus is depicted (labeled) as one of the gods fighting theGiants in theGigantomachy frieze of the second century BCPergamon Altar.[94] Oceanus stands half nude, facing right, battling a giant falling to the right. Nearby Oceanus are fragments of a figure thought to be Tethys: a part of achiton below Oceanus's left arm and a hand clutching a large tree branch visible behind Oceanus's head.
In Hellenistic and Roman mosaics, this Titan was often depicted as having the upper body of a muscular man with a long beard and horns (often represented as the claws of a crab) and the lower body of aserpent (cfr.Typhon).[95] In Roman mosaics, such as that fromBardo, he might carry a steering-oar and cradle a ship.[citation needed]
Oceanus appears in Helleniccosmography as well asmyth. Cartographers continued to represent the encircling equatorial stream much as it had appeared onAchilles's shield.[96]
Herodotus was skeptical about the physical existence of Oceanus and rejected the reasoning—proposed by some of his coevals—according to which the uncommon phenomenon of the summerlyNile flood was caused by the river's connection to the mighty Oceanus. Speaking about the Oceanus myth itself he declared:
As for the writer who attributes the phenomenon to the ocean, his account is involved in such obscurity that it is impossible to disprove it by argument. For my part I know of no river called Ocean, and I think that Homer, or one of the earlier poets, invented the name, and introduced it into his poetry.[97]
Some scholars[who?] believe that Oceanus originally represented all bodies of salt water, including theMediterranean Sea and theAtlantic Ocean, the two largest bodies known to the ancient Greeks.[citation needed] However, as geography became more accurate, Oceanus came to represent the stranger, more unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean (also called the "Ocean Sea"), while the newcomer of a later generation,Poseidon, ruled over the Mediterranean Sea.[citation needed]
Late attestations for an equation with theBlack Sea abound, the cause being – as it appears – Odysseus's travel to theCimmerians whose fatherland, lying beyond the Oceanus, is described as a country divested from sunlight.[98] In the fourth century BC,Hecataeus of Abdera writes that the Oceanus of theHyperboreans is neither the Arctic nor Western Ocean, but the sea located to the north of the ancient Greek world, namely theBlack Sea, called "the most admirable of all seas" byHerodotus,[99] labelled the "immense sea" byPomponius Mela[100] and byDionysius Periegetes,[101] and which is namedMare majus on medieval geographic maps.Apollonius of Rhodes, similarly, calls the lower Danube theKéras Okeanoío ("Gulf" or "Horn of Oceanus").[102]
Hecataeus of Abdera also refers to a holy island, sacred to the Pelasgian (and later, Greek)Apollo, situated in the westernmost part of theOkeanós Potamós, and called in different times Leuke or Leukos, Alba, Fidonisi orIsle of Snakes. It was on Leuke, in one version of his legend, that the heroAchilles, in a hilly tumulus, was buried (which iserroneously connected to the modern town ofKiliya, at theDanube delta).Accion ("ocean"), in the fourth century ADGaulish Latin ofAvienius'sOra maritima, was applied to great lakes.[103]
^Hesiod,Theogony132–138;Apollodorus,1.1.3. Compare withDiodorus Siculus,5.66.1–3, which says that the Titans (including Oceanus) "were born, as certain writers of myths relate, of Uranus and Gê, but according to others, of one of theCuretes and Titaea, from whom as their mother they derive the name".
^Apollodorus addsDione to this list, while Diodorus Siculus leaves out Theia.
^One of theOceanid daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, atHesiod,Theogony351. However, according toApollodorus,1.2.3, a different Oceanid, Asia was the mother, by Iapetus, of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus.
^Although usually, as here, the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, in theHomeric Hymn to Hermes (4),99–100, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
^Aeschylus (?),Prometheus Bound286–289,395 (which describes the beast as "four-footed"). Hard,p. 40 suggests that Oceanus' steed is a griffin or griffin-like, while Gantz, p. 28, suggests griffin or hippocamp.
^Livio Catullo Stecchini."Ancient Cosmology".www.metrum.org. Archived from the original on 2017-10-29. Retrieved2017-03-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) (archived)
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