| Thetis | |
|---|---|
| Member of theNereids | |
 Statue of Thetis with a triton, Roman copy | |
| Abode | theSea |
| Genealogy | |
| Parents | Nereus andDoris |
| Siblings | Nereids,Nerites |
| Consort | Peleus |
| Children | Achilles |
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Thetis (/ˈθiːtɪs/THEEH-tiss, or/ˈθɛtɪs/THEH-tiss;Ancient Greek:Θέτις,romanized: Thétispronounced[tʰétis]) is a figure fromGreek mythology with varying mythological roles. She mainly appears as a seanymph, a goddess of water, and one of the 50Nereids, daughters of the ancient sea godNereus.[1]
When described as a Nereid in Classical myths, Thetis was the daughter ofNereus andDoris,[2] and a granddaughter ofTethys with whom she sometimes shares characteristics. Often she seems to lead the Nereids as they attend to her tasks. Sometimes she also is identified withMetis.
Some sources argue that she was one of the earliest of deities worshipped inArchaic Greece, the oral traditions and records of which are lost. Only one written record, a fragment, exists attesting to her worship and an earlyAlcman hymn exists that identifies Thetis as thecreator of the universe. Worship of Thetis as the goddess is documented to have persisted in some regions by historical writers, such asPausanias.
In theTrojan War cycle of myth, the wedding of Thetis and theGreek heroPeleus is one of the precipitating events in the war which also led to the birth of their childAchilles.
One of her epithets wasHalosydne (Greek:Ἁλοσύδνη), meaning "sea-nourished" or "sea-born" goddess.[3]
Most extant material about Thetis concerns her role as mother ofAchilles, but there is some evidence that she was more central to the religious beliefs and practices ofArchaic Greece in her role as a sea-goddess. The pre-modern etymology of her name, fromtithemi (τίθημι), "to set up, establish", suggests a perception amongClassical Greeks of an earlypolitical role.Walter Burkert[4] considers her name a transformed doublet ofTethys.
After Achilles's death, Thetis does not need to appeal to Zeus for immortality for her son, as the two have an established rapport (due to Thetis helping him in a dispute with three other Olympians) and snatches him away to theWhite IslandLeuke in theBlack Sea, an alternateElysium,[5] where he has transcended death, and where an Achillescult lingered into historical times.
Pseudo-Apollodorus'sBibliotheke asserts that Thetis was courted by bothZeus andPoseidon, but she was married off to the mortalPeleus because of their fears about the prophecy byThemis[6] (orPrometheus, orCalchas, according to others) that her son would become greater than his father. Thus, she is revealed as a figure of cosmic capacity, quite capable of unsettling the divine order. (Slatkin 1986:12)
WhenHephaestus was thrown from Olympus, whether cast out by Hera for his lameness or evicted byZeus for taking Hera's side, theOceanid Eurynome and theNereid Thetis caught him and allowed him to stay on the volcanic isle ofLemnos, while he labored for them as a smith, "working there in the hollow of the cave, and the stream ofOkeanos around us went on forever with its foam and its murmur" (Iliad 18.369).
Thetis is not successful in her role protecting and nurturing a hero (the theme ofkourotrophos), but her role in succoring deities is emphatically repeated by Homer. Diomedes recalls that when Dionysus was expelled byLycurgus with the Olympians' aid, he took refuge in theErythraean Sea with Thetis in a bed ofseaweed (6.123ff). These accounts associate Thetis with "a divine past—uninvolved with human events—with a level of divine invulnerability extraordinary by Olympian standards. Where within the framework of theIliad the ultimate recourse is to Zeus for protection, here the poem seems to point to an alternative structure of cosmic relations."[7]
Once, Thetis andMedea argued inThessaly over which was the most beautiful; they appointed the CretanIdomeneus as the judge, who gave the victory to Thetis. In her anger, Medea called allCretans liars, and cursed them to never say the truth.[8]
| Trojan War |
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Trojans and allies |
Zeus had received a prophecy that Thetis's son would become greater than his father, as Zeus had dethroned his father to lead the succeeding pantheon. In order to ensure a mortal father for her eventual offspring,Zeus and his brotherPoseidon made arrangements for her to marry a human,Peleus, son ofAeacus, but she refused him.
Proteus, an early sea-god, advised Peleus to find the sea nymph when she was asleep and bind her tightly to keep her from escaping by changing forms. She did shapeshift, becoming flame, water, a raginglioness, and aserpent.[9] Peleus held fast. Subdued, she then consented to marry him. Thetis is the mother ofAchilles byPeleus, who became king of theMyrmidons.
According to classical mythology, the wedding of Thetis and Peleus was celebrated on MountPelion, outside the cave ofChiron, and attended by the deities: there they celebrated the marriage with feasting. Apollo played the lyre and theMuses sang,Pindar claimed. At the wedding Chiron gave Peleus an ashen spear that had been polished byAthena and had a blade forged by Hephaestus. While the Olympian goddesses brought him gifts: fromAphrodite, a bowl with an embossedEros, from Hera achlamys while from Athena a flute. His father-in-law Nereus endowed him a basket of the salt called 'divine', which has an irresistible virtue for overeating, appetite and digestion, explaining the expression'she poured the divine salt'. Zeus then bestowed the wings ofArce to the newly-wed couple which was later given by Thetis to her son, Achilles. Furthermore, the god of the sea, Poseidon gave Peleus the immortal horses,Balius and Xanthus.[10]Eris, the goddess of discord, had not been invited, however, and in spite, she threw a golden apple into the midst of the goddesses that was to be awarded only "to the fairest." In most interpretations, the award was made during theJudgement of Paris and eventually occasioned theTrojan War.
As is recounted in theArgonautica, written by the Hellenistic poetApollonius of Rhodes, Thetis, in an attempt to make her son Achilles immortal, would burn away his mortality in a fire at night and during the day, she would anoint the child withambrosia. When Peleus caught her searing the baby, he let out a cry.
Thetis heard him, and catching up the child threw him screaming to the ground, and she like a breath of wind passed swiftly from the hall as a dream and leapt into the sea, exceeding angry, and thereafter returned never again.
Some myths relate that because she had been interrupted byPeleus, Thetis had not made her son physically invulnerable. His heel, which she was about to burn away when her husband stopped her, had not been protected. (A similar myth of immortalizing a child in fire is seen in the case ofDemeter and the infantDemophoon). In a variant of the myth first recounted in theAchilleid, an unfinished epic written between 94 and 95 AD by the Roman poetStatius, Thetis tried to make Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in theRiver Styx (one of the five rivers that run throughHades, the realm of the dead). However, the heel by which she held him was not touched by the Styx's waters and failed to be protected.
Peleus gave the boy toChiron to raise. Prophecy said that the son of Thetis would have either a long but dull life, or a glorious but brief one. When the Trojan War broke out, Thetis was anxious and concealed Achilles, disguised as a girl, at the court ofLycomedes, king of Scyros. Achilles was already famed for his speed and skill in battle.Calchas, a priest of Agamemnon, prophesied the need for the great soldier within their ranks. Odysseus was subsequently sent by Agamemnon to try and find Achilles. Scyros was relatively close to Achilles's home and Lycomedes was also a known friend of Thetis, so it was one of the first places that Odysseus looked. When Odysseus found that one of the girls at court was not a girl, he came up with a plan. Raising an alarm that they were under attack, Odysseus knew that the young Achilles would instinctively run for his weapons and armour, thereby revealing himself. Seeing that she could no longer prevent her son from realizing his destiny, Thetis then hadHephaestus make a shield and armor.
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Thetis played a key part in the events of the Trojan War. Beyond the fact that theJudgement of Paris, which kicked off the war, occurred at her wedding toPeleus, Thetis consistently influenced the actions of theTwelve Olympians and her son,Achilles.
Nine years after the beginning of the Trojan War, Homer'sIliad starts withAgamemnon (king of Mycenae and the commander of theAchaeans) and Achilles (son of Thetis) arguing overBriseis, a woman married toMynes (son of the king ofLyrnessus). She was kidnapped and enslaved by Achilles. After initially refusing, Achilles relents and gives Briseis to Agamemnon. However, Achilles feels disrespect for having to hand over Briseis and prays to Thetis, his mother, for restitution of his lost honor.[11] She urges Achilles to wait until she speaks withZeus to rejoin the fighting, and Achilles listens.[12] When she finally speaks to Zeus, Thetis convinces him to do as she bids, and he seals his agreement with her by bowing his head, the strongest oath that he can make.[13]
Following the death of Patroclus, who wore Achilles's armor in the fighting, Thetis comes to Achilles to console him in his grief. She vows to return to him with armor forged byHephaestus, the blacksmith of the gods, and tells him not to arm himself for battle until he sees her coming back. While Thetis is gone, Achilles is visited byIris, the messenger of the gods, sent byHera, who tells him to rejoin the fighting. He refuses, however, citing his mother's words and his promise to her to wait for her return.[14] Thetis, meanwhile, speaks with Hephaestus and begs him to make Achilles armor, which he does. First, he makes for Achilles a splendidshield, and having finished it, makes a breastplate, a helmet, and greaves.[15] When Thetis goes back to Achilles to deliver his new armor, she finds him still upset over Patroclus. Achilles fears that while he is off fighting the Trojans, Patroclus's body will decay and rot. Thetis, however, reassures him and places ambrosia and nectar in Patroclus's nose in order to protect his body against decay.[16]
After Achilles uses his new armor to defeatHector in battle, he keeps Hector's body to mutilate and humiliate. However, after nine days, the gods call Thetis to Olympus and tell her that she must go to Achilles and pass him a message, that the gods are angry that Hector's body has not been returned. She does as she is bid, and convinces Achilles to return the body for ransom, thus avoiding the wrath of the gods.[17]
A noted exception to the general observation resulting from the existing historical records, that Thetis was not venerated as a goddess by cult, was inconservativeLaconia, wherePausanias was informed that there had beenpriestesses of Thetis in archaic times, when a cult that was centered on a woodencult image of Thetis (axoanon), which preceded the building of the oldest temple; by the intervention of a highly placed woman, her cult had been re-founded with a temple; and in the second century AD she still was being worshipped with utmost reverence. TheLacedaemonians were at war with theMessenians, who had revolted, and their king Anaxander, having invaded Messenia, took as prisoners certain women, and among them Cleo, priestess of Thetis. The wife of Anaxander asked for this Cleo from her husband, and discovering that she had the wooden image of Thetis, she set up the woman Cleo in a temple for the goddess. This Leandris did because of avision in a dream, but the wooden image of Thetis is guarded in secret.[18]
In one fragmentaryhymn[19] by the seventh-century BCSpartan poetAlcman, Thetis appears as ademiurge, beginning her creation withporos (πόρος)'path, track' andtekmor (τέκμωρ)'marker, end-post'; third wasskotos (σκότος)'darkness', and then theSun and theMoon. A close connection has been argued between Thetis andMetis, anothershapeshifting sea-power later beloved by Zeus, that was bound by prophecy to bear a son greater than his father.[20]
Herodotus noted that thePersians sacrificed to "Thetis" at Cape Sepias. By the process ofinterpretatio graeca, Herodotus identifies a sea-goddess of another culture (probablyAnahita) as the familiar Hellenic "Thetis".[21]
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