Maia (daughter of Atlas)
Maia ( Greek Μαῖα, Μαίας or Μαίη ) is one of the seven Pleiades in Greek mythology .
She is the daughter of the titans Atlas and Pleione and through Zeus becomes the mother of Hermes , who is therefore also called Maiadeus or Maias hyios . She is the nymph of the Kyllene Mountains , where she was impregnated by Zeus. With Sophocles , Hermes had the nymph Kyllene as a wet nurse when Maia fell ill and, according to the library of Apollodorus , she is the foster mother of Arkas after the death of his mother Callisto . After her death, like the other Pleiades, she was placed under the stars.
In the Greek area there are no pictorial or written references to a cult of the Maia; Pausanias does not mention it when he visited the Hermes Temple on Mount Kyllene .
It appears in pictorial representations in connection with Hermes. For example, she is shown on the François vase at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, standing next to him on a chariot.
literature
- Henry Link , Wilhelm Gundel : Maia 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XIV, 1, Stuttgart 1928, Sp. 527-530.
- Brigitte Rafn: Maia . In: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). Volume VI, Zurich / Munich 1992, pp. 333–334.
- Katharina Waldner : Maia 1. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 7, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01477-0 , column 707 f.
- Paul Weizsäcker : Maia 1 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.2, Leipzig 1897, Col. 2234 f. ( Digitized version ).
Web links
- Maia in the Theoi Project (English)