Aither

Aither or Aether ( ancient Greek Αἰθήρ Aithḗr ) is the personification of the “upper heaven” in Greek mythology, which was thought to be the seat of light and gods.

In the Orphic hymns he is the soul of the world and element of all life. Until the archaism in the prevailed Greek religion the idea before, the soul climb up into the Aether, while the body in Gaia down fall.

myth

According to Hesiod's theogony , he is the son of Erebos and Nyx and brother of Hemera , also with Cicero .

In the cosmogony of the Orphics , he is the son of Chronos and Ananke and brother of Chaos and Erebos . According to the Orphic Argonautica of Chaos and Phanes . Chronos brought out the windless aither and chaos. Chaos, the hollow space with no solid ground, and Aither parted after Phanes appeared.

With Alkman , Callimachos and Cicero, Uranus emerges from him, with Aristophanes he is the father of the Nephelai (clouds).

At Hyginus he comes from Chaos and is the brother of Erebos, Hemera and Nyx. Von Hemera is the father of Gaia , Uranos and Thalassa . From Gaia he is the father of the daimones Dolor (pain), Dolus , Ira (anger), Luctus (sadness), Mendacium (lie), Iusiurandum (oath), Ultio (vengeance), Intemperantia (intemperance), Altercatio (quarrel), Oblivio (Oblivion), Socordia (laziness), Timor (fear), Superbia (pride), Incestum (lust) and Pugna (struggle).

The island of Borysthenes (Beresan) in the Black Sea was also called Hagios Aitherios ( Saint Aitherios ).

literature

• Konrad Wernicke : Aither . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 1093 f.
• Leonhard Schmitz : Aether . In: William Smith (Ed.): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology . tape 1 : Abaeus – Dysponteus . Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1870, p. 49–50 (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher: Aither . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, Col. 198 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Radcliffe Guest Edmonds: Myths of the underworld journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the 'Orphic' gold tablets. Cambridge University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-521-83434-1 .
• William Keith Chambers Guthrie: Orpheus and Greek religion: a study of the Orphic movement. Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-691-02499-5 .

Web links

• Aither in the Theoi Project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Orphic Hymn 5.
2. ^ Radcliffe Guest Edmonds: Myths of the underworld journey. P. 211.
3. ^ Hesiod : Theogony 124.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Cicero : De natura deorum. 3, 17.
5. ↑ Fragment 54 in: Otto Kern : Orphicorum Fragmenta
6. ↑ Orphic Argonautics 12.
7. ↑ Karl Kerényi : The mythology of the Greeks. dtv 1997, p. 20 and p. 91 f.
8. ↑ Otto Kern : Orphicorum fragmenta.
9. ↑ Alkman : Fragment 61.
10. ↑ Callimachus : Fragment 498.
11. ↑ Aristophanes : The clouds . 563.
12. ^ ^{A b} Hyginus : Fabulae Praefatio.