According to Hesiod, there were three thousand (i.e. innumerable) river gods.[6] These includedAchelous, the god of theAchelous River, the largest river in Greece, who gave his daughter in marriage toAlcmaeon[7] and was defeated byHeracles in a wrestling contest for the right to marryDeianira;[8]Alpheus, who fell in love with thenymphArethusa and pursued her toSyracuse, where she was transformed into a spring byArtemis;[9] andScamander who fought on the side of theTrojans during theTrojan War and, offended whenAchilles polluted his waters with a large number of Trojan corpses, overflowed his banks nearly drowning Achilles.[10]
Passages in book 14 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.[26] Twice Homer hasHera describe the pair as "Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys".[27] According toM. L. West, these lines suggests a myth in which Oceanus and Tethys are the "first parents of the whole race of gods."[28] 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).[29] 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.[30]
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.[31] In hisCratylus, 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.[32] Plato's apparent inclusion of Phorkys 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,[33] 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.[34]
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.[35]
Mosaic (detail) of Tethys, from Philipopolis (modernShahba,Syria), fourth-century AD, Shahba Museum.[36]
Tethys played no active part in Greek mythology. The only early story concerning Tethys is what Homer hasHera briefly relate in theIliad'sDeception of Zeus passage.[37] There, Hera says that whenZeus was in the process of deposingCronus, she was given by her motherRhea to Tethys and Oceanus for safekeeping and that they "lovingly nursed and cherished me in their halls".[38] Hera relates this while dissembling that she 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's consort, at a later time Tethys came to be identified with the sea, and in Hellenistic and Roman poetry Tethys's name came to be used as a poetic term for the sea.[39]
The only other story involving Tethys is an apparently late astral myth concerning the polar constellationUrsa Major (the Great Bear), which was thought to represent thecatasterism ofCallisto 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.[40]
Claudian wrote that Tethys nursed two of her nephlings in her breast,Helios andSelene, the children of her siblingsHyperion andTheia, during their infancy, when their light was weak and had not yet grown into their older, more luminous selves.[41]
M. L. West detects in theIliad'sDeception of Zeus passage an allusion to 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 andTiamat in theBabylonian cosmology, the male and female waters, which were originally united (En. El. I. 1 ff.)," but that, "By Hesiod's time the myth may have been almost forgotten and Tethys remembered only as the name of Oceanus' wife."[44] This possible correspondence between Oceanus and Tethys, and Apsū and Tiamat has been noticed by several authors, with Tethys's name possibly having been derived from that of Tiamat.[45]
Representations of Tethys before the Roman period are rare.[47]Tethys appears, identified by inscription (ΘΕΘΥΣ), as part of an illustration of the wedding ofPeleus andThetis on the early sixth-century BCAttic black-figure "Erskine"dinos bySophilos (British Museum 1971.111–1.1).[48] Accompanied byEileithyia, 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 the early sixth-century BC Attic black-figureFrançois Vase (Florence 4209).[49] Tethys probably also appeared as one of the gods fighting theGiants in theGigantomachy frieze of the second-century BCPergamon Altar.[50] Only fragments of the figure remain: a part of achiton below Oceanus's left arm and a hand clutching a large tree branch visible behind Oceanus's head.
During the second to fourth centuries AD, Tethys—sometimes with Oceanus, sometimes alone—became a relatively frequent feature of mosaics decorating baths, pools, andtriclinia in theGreek East, particularly inAntioch and its suburbs.[52] Her identifying attributes are wings sprouting from her forehead, a rudder/oar, and aketos, a creature from Greek mythology with the head of a dragon and the body of a snake.[53] The earliest of these mosaics, identified as Tethys, decorated a triclinium overlooking a pool, excavated from the House of the Calendar in Antioch, dated to shortly after AD 115 (Hatay Archaeology Museum 850).[54] 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. Aketos twines around her raised right arm. Other mosaics of Tethys with Oceanus includeHatay Archaeology Museum 1013 (from the House of Menander,Daphne),[55] Hatay Archaeology Museum 9095,[56] andBaltimore Museum of Art 1937.126 (from the House of the Boat of Psyches: triclinium).[57]
In other mosaics, Tethys appears without Oceanus. One of these is a fourth-century AD mosaic from a pool (probably a public bath) found atAntioch, now installed inBoston,Massachusetts at theHarvard Business School's Morgan Hall and formerly atDumbarton Oaks,Washington, D.C. (Dumbarton Oaks 76.43).[58] Besides 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,[59] Shahba Museum (in situ),[60] Baltimore Museum of Art 1937.118 (from the House of the Boat of Psyches: Room six),[61] andMemorial Art Gallery 42.2.[62]
Toward the end of the period represented by these mosaics, Tethys's iconography appears to merge with that of another sea goddessThalassa, the Greek personification of the sea (thalassa being the Greek word for the sea).[63] Such a transformation would be consistent with the frequent use of Tethys's name as a poetic reference to the sea in Roman poetry (see above).
^Hesiod,Theogony126 ff.; Caldwell, p. 35 line 126-128. Compare withDiodorus Siculus,5.66.1–3, which says that the Titans (including Tethys) "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.
^Gantz, p. 28: "For Tethys, there are no myths at all, save for Hera's comment in theIliad that she was given by Rhea to Tethys to raise when Zeus was deposing Kronos"; Burkert,p. 92: "Tethys is in no way an active figure in Greek mythology"; West 1997, p. 147: "In early poetry she is merely an inactive mythological figure who lives with Oceanus and has borne his children."
^West 1966, p. 204136. Τῃθύν; West 1997, p. 147; Hard,p. 40; Matthews,p. 199. According to Matthews the "metonymy 'Tethys' = 'sea' seems to occur first in Hellenistic poetry", see for exampleLycophron,Alexandria 1069 1069 (Mair, pp. 582–583)), becoming a frequent occurrence in Latin poetry, for example appearing nine times inLucan.
^This happened "even in antiquity", according to Burkert,p. 92.
^West 1966, p. 204; see also West 1983, pp. 120–121.
^West 1997, pp. 147–148; Burkert,pp. 91–93. For a discussion of the possibility of oriental sources for the Illiad's Deception of Zeus passage, see Budelmann and Haubold,pp. 20–22.
^LIMC1602 (Okeanos 3);Beazley Archive300000; PerseusFlorence 4209 (Vase). The identification as Tethys is accepted by Beazley,p. 27, and Gantz, p. 28, but found "unconvincing" by Carpenterp. 6. This vase is unremarked upon by Jentel, who says that the Sophilos dinos Tethys (LIMC Tethys I (S) 1) is the "seule representation de [Tethys] à l'époque archaique".
^For a discussion of this group of mosaics, see Jentel, 1194–1195, which lists 15 Roman period Tethys mosaics (Tethys I (S) 3–17), and Wages, pp. 119–128.Doro Levi identified the sea goddess in the Antioch mosaics as Thetis, however according to Wages, p. 126, "Neither the inscriptions nor the attributes in this group of mosaics support Doro Levi's identification". See also Kondoleon, p. 152 with p. 153 n. 2, which, in discussing one of these mosaics (Baltimore Museum of Art 1937.118, see below), says that "although the Baltimore goddess does not have any other attributes or label, she is convincingly identified as Tethys" saying further (in the note) that "Levi identified her as Thetis without much evidence, but Wages makes a good argument for identifying her as Tethys". Jentel identifies these mosaics as Tethys, while noting, p. 1195, that "Dès l'Antiquité et encore actuellement, certains auteurs ont confound [Tethys] avec la Néréeid Thetis."
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