Spercheios (river god)

Spercheios ( Greek Σπερχειός ) is the god of the river of the same name in Greek mythology .

He was supposedly a son of the primordial deities Oceanus and Gaia (sea and earth), but this information is not based on any ancient sources. Peleus sacrificed the hair of his son Achilles on his head in order to secure his safe return from Troy . With Peleus' daughter Polydora, Spercheius begat Menesthios ; Polydora's husband Boros recognized the offspring as his own.

Depending on the legend gave birth to another Polydora (the Danaide ) the flow God Dryops , the eponym of Dryopes .

Phthios and Lycetus are named as further sons of Spercheios . Ovid reports of the latter that Perseus killed him at the wedding with Andromeda . Here there is a parallel to the story of the wedding of Peirithoos , where he slew a centaur named Lycetus .

literature

Hermann Easter : Spercheios . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 4, Leipzig 1915, Col. 1292-1294 ( digitized version ).

Individual evidence

^ Anton Scheiffele : Spercheios . In: Real Encyclopedia of Classical Classical Antiquities in alphabetical order . Volume 6/1, Stuttgart 1832, p. 1366.
↑ Hermann Easter : Spercheios . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 4, Leipzig 1915, column 1292 ( digitized version ).
^ Ovid, Metamorphoses , 5, 86.

[1] Anton Scheiffele : Spercheios . In: Real Encyclopedia of Classical Classical Antiquities in alphabetical order . Volume 6/1, Stuttgart 1832, p. 1366.

[2] Hermann Easter : Spercheios . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 4, Leipzig 1915, column 1292 ( digitized version ).

[3] Ovid, Metamorphoses , 5, 86.