Periboia (wife of Polybos)
Periboia ( ancient Greek Περίβοια ) is in Greek mythology the wife of King Polybos of Sicyon or Corinth and foster mother of Oedipus , who is either given to her as an infant or who she finds abandoned on the beach.
According to the older saga tradition reproduced by Hyginus Mythographus , she is Queen of Sikyon and finds Oedipus abandoned on the beach when she wants to wash her clothes. She takes him in and hands him over to her husband Polybos, or puts him under him as an allegedly own child. The childless royal couple thus becomes the foster parents of Oedipus. Many years later, Periboia travels to Thebes and explains to him that she and Polybos were just his foster parents. The version that Oedipus was found at the stand and the foster son of Polybius in Sikyon is also known to a Scholion about the Phoenicians .
According to the better known version , since it was also processed by Sophocles , she and her husband lived in Corinth. Little Oedipus was given to her by shepherds who had found him abandoned at the Kithairon . When Oedipus, who has grown up in the meantime, is later mocked by young men other than his parents, he asks Periboia in vain to give him information.
On a relief bowl from Tanagra , one of the so-called Homeric cups , Periboia is depicted in two scenes: on the right, on the beach, she is holding little Oedipus in her arms after she has discovered him in a basket lying next to her; opposite her stands Hermes . The scene on the left shows the boy on Polybos' lap after Periboia handed him over to her husband.
literature
- Otto Höfer : Oidipus . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.1, Leipzig 1902, Col. 705-709 ( digitized version ).
- Heinrich Lewy : Periboia 9 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.2, Leipzig 1909, column 1961 ( digitized version ).
- Marc Huys: The Tale of the Hero who was Exposed at Birth in Euripidean Tragedy. A Study of Motifs. Leuven University Press, 1995, pp. 182-185. ISBN 9789061867135