Asteria (daughter of Koios)
Asteria ( Greek Ἀστερία ) is a titanide of Greek mythology .
In Hesiod's theogony and this subsequently in later mythographers , she is the daughter of the titan Koios and the titanide Phoibe and the sister of Leto . She is the mother of Hecate by Perses , although the fathers Zeus and Polus are also passed down as variants . According to Eudoxus of Knidos and Cicero , she is also the mother of the Tyrian Heracles , Nonnos of Panopolis names her as the daughter of Hyperion and the wife of the river god Hydaspes .
The myth of a floating island , which on the occasion of the birth of Apollo and Artemis by Leto, is supported by pillars rising from the seabed, is already known to Pindar . It is unclear whether Leto and Asteria Pindar's family relationship is known. At Callimachos and following this in the library of Apollodorus , Asteria, fleeing from Zeus, plunges into the sea in order to float around there as a floating island until Leto offers herself as the place of birth. Hyginus Mythographus reports as the best-known version of the myth that Asteria was transformed into a quail ( ortyx ) by Zeus and this was thrown into the sea because she rejected his approach. The floating "quail island" Ortygia emerges from it. On Hera's instructions , Asteria's sister Leto is not allowed to give birth where the sun shines. At the same time, she sends out Python to pursue Leto. Zeus therefore has Leto brought by the wind god Boreas to Poseidon , who brings her to Ortygia. Ortygia sinks into the sea when the twins are born and has been called Delos ("the visible one") since their reappearance .
In the library of Apollodorus she transforms herself into a quail in order to be able to flee from Zeus. At Servius she asks the gods to metamorphose into a quail, but when Zeus dives into the sea she is transformed into a rock, which then rises to the surface as an island at Leto's request. After his birth, Apollo attached them to the neighboring islands of Gyaros and Mykonos .
A pictorial representation of the Asteria can be found on the south frieze of the Pergamon Altar between Leto and Hekate.
literature
- Adolf Schirmer: Asteria 1 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, Col. 655 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Konrad Wernicke : Asteria 6 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 2, Stuttgart 1896, Col. 1781 f.
Web links
- Asteria in the Theoi Project (English)
Remarks
- ↑ Hesiod Theogony 404 ff.
- ^ Libraries of Apollodorus 1, 2, 2.
- ↑ a b Hyginus Mythographus , Fabulae Praefatio.
- ↑ Musaios in the Scholion to Apollonios of Rhodes 3, 467; 3, 1035.
- ↑ Eudoxus of Knidos in Athenaios 11 p. 392d.
- ↑ Cicero, De natura deorum 3, 16.
- ^ Nonnos of Panopolis, Dionysiaka 23, 236 f.
- ↑ Pindar, fragment 65 Bgk.
- ↑ Callimachos, Hymnos on the island of Delos 36 ff.
- ↑ a b Libraries of Apollodorus 1, 4, 1.
- ^ Hyginus Mythographus, Fabulae 53.
- ^ Maurus Servius Honoratius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneis 3, 73.