Boreas
Boreas ( Greek Βορέας Boréas , German 'the Northern' ) was the personification of the winter north wind in Greek mythology . He was the son of the titan Astraios and the goddess Eos and was worshiped together with his brothers ( Anemoi ) Euros (east wind), Notos (south wind) and Zephyros (west wind).
myth
Boreas kidnapped the nymph Oreithyia , daughter of Erechtheus , a mythical king of Attica . As the nymph danced on the bank of the Ilisos , he wrapped her in a cloud and floated away with her to his native Thrace , where she bore him the sons of Kalaï and Zete and the daughters of Cleopatra and Chione . In addition, Boreas fathered twelve foals in horse form with the mares of the Dardan king Erichthonios , who were said to be able to gallop across a cornfield without kinking their stalks.
The Greeks believed that Boreas lived in Thrace, where he was equally revered. Herodotus and Pliny both describe the land of Hyperborea ("beyond the north wind"), where people live in complete happiness until old age. According to Claudius Aelianus , Boreas is said to have fathered three gigantic brothers in Chione , ruler of Hyperborea and priest of Apollo .
After all, Boreas is said to have been the father of Bute and his stepbrother Lykurgos. The descendants of Boreas are called Boreads .
cult
When ancient Athens was attacked by the Persian King Xerxes , the people prayed to Boreas. He sent strong winds on it, in which four hundred Persian ships sank. This gave Boreas the status of patron saint of Athens and a sanctuary on the banks of the Ilissus was consecrated to him and Oreithyia . He was also honored with annual festivals in Athens.
presentation
Both the passage in Homer , according to Boreas in the form of a stallion leaped the mares of Erichthonios, as well as his and the other wind gods close relationship with horses and the representation of the four Anemoi as Quadriga of Zeus suggest that Boreas like other wind gods originally horse-shaped.
In the traditional depictions (the robbery of the Oreithyia was a popular subject of Attic vase painting) he was mostly depicted as a bearded man with wings on his shoulders and feet. A relief on the well-known Tower of the Winds (Horologium des Andronikos) in Athens shows Boreas as a winged old man in a heavy robe and with a beard framed by icicles, as he blows the icy wind through a twisted conch shell .
Boreas and Aquilo among the Romans
Its equivalent in Roman mythology was Aquilo , a northeastern wind largely identified with Boreas. Like Boreas, he fathered the sons of Kalaï and Zete with Oreithyia ; he lived in a cave of Haemus in Thrace .
Vitruvius also lists aquilo in his wind list . The north wind with the Romans was called septentrio .
reception
In 1725 Antonio Vivaldi overwritten a passage in the first movement of his opus 8, No. 2 ( Le Quattro Stagioni - L'Estate ) with “Vento borea” (The North Wind). He is also mentioned again in the third movement of opus 8 No. 4 ( L'Inverno ).
The asteroid (1916) Boreas and Mount Boreas in Antarctica are named after him.
The latest generation of Russian submarines with ICBMs is named after Boreas (see Borei class ).
See also
literature
- Adolf Rapp : Boreas . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1.1, Leipzig 1886, Col. 803-814 ( digitized version ).
- Konrad Wernicke : Boreas 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 1, Stuttgart 1897, Col. 721-730.
- Robert Böker : Boreas. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 1, Stuttgart 1964, Col. 930.
- Leonhard Schmitz : Boreas . In: William Smith (Ed.): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology . tape 1 : Abaeus – Dysponteus . Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1870, p. 501 (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
Web links
- Boreas in the Theoi Project
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hesiod Theogony p. 378 ff.
- ↑ Pseudo-Apollodor Library 3.199
- ↑ Apollonius Rhodius Argonautika 1.212
- ↑ a b Guus Houtzager: Illustrated Greek Mythology Encyclopedia . Edition Dörfler im Nebelverlag, Eggolsheim 2006, ISBN 978-3-89555-400-1 , p. 73 (Dutch: Geïlustreerde Griekse mythologie encyclopedie . Translated by Michael Meyer).
- ↑ a b Homer Iliad 20.219 ff.
- ↑ Claudius Aelianus de natura animalium 11.1
- ↑ Diodor Library 5.50
- ↑ Plato Phaedrus 229
- ↑ Pausania's description of Greece 1.19.5, 3.15.1–4
- ↑ Virgil Georgika 3.267 ff.
- ↑ Quintus from Smyrna Posthomerica 12.189 ff.
- ↑ Ovid Metamorphoses 7.3
- ↑ Hyginus Mythographus Fabulae 14.
- ↑ Vitruv de architectura 1.6.9 f.