Sea Goddesses

Greek Mythology Sea Goddesses

The sea goddesses of Greek myth are mostly members of one family. Tethys and Oceanus produced the Oceanids, Nereus and Doris produced the fifty Nereids, and Phorcys and Ceto produced a brood of monsters. Amphitrite, Thetis and Galatea are Nereids, Leucothea began as a mortal woman, and each has her own story in the poets.

Tethys and the Oceanids

Tethys, a Titan daughter of Uranus and Gaia, was the wife of Oceanus. In the Iliad (14.200–204) Hera calls Oceanus the origin of the gods and says she is going to visit him and “mother Tethys”, who nursed and cherished her in their halls. Hesiod (Theogony 337–370) says Tethys bore to Oceanus the rivers and the Oceanids, three thousand daughters in all, who are dispersed far and wide and serve the earth and the deep waters. He names the eldest of them, among them Doris, Metis, Eurynome, Calypso, Tyche and Styx, “who is the chiefest of them all”.

Doris and the Nereids

Doris, an Oceanid, was the wife of Nereus, and Hesiod (Theogony 240–264) lists their fifty daughters, the Nereids, among them Amphitrite, Thetis, Galatea, Galene, Psamathe and Nemertes. Apollodorus (1.2.7) gives a different list of names. In the Iliad (18.35–64) the Nereids gather around Thetis in her cave in the depths when Achilles cries out in grief for Patroclus. When the Argonauts sailed past Scylla, Charybdis and the Wandering Rocks, Thetis and the Nereids steered the ship through at Hera’s summons (Apollodorus 1.9.25).

Amphitrite

Hesiod counts Amphitrite among the Nereids (Theogony 243). Apollodorus names her among the Nereids in one place (1.2.7) and calls her a daughter of Oceanus in others (1.2.2; 1.4.5). She married Poseidon, and Hesiod (Theogony 930–933) says she bore him great Triton, who lives with his parents in a golden house in the depths. Apollodorus adds Rhode, who married the Sun (1.4.5), and Benthesicyme, who lived in Ethiopia and reared Poseidon’s son Eumolpus (3.15.4). In the Odyssey her name serves as a poetic word for the sea itself: Homer speaks of the “waves of Amphitrite” (3.91; 12.60).

Thetis

Thetis is the best known Nereid. In the Iliad Hera says that she herself reared Thetis and gave her in marriage to Peleus (24.59–61). When Hera threw her son Hephaestus from heaven, Thetis and Eurynome caught him and sheltered him for nine years in a cave by the stream of Oceanus, where he made them jewellery (Iliad 18.394–405). Achilles also reminds her that she once called the hundred-handed Briareus to Olympus to free Zeus when Hera, Poseidon and Athena tried to bind him (Iliad 1.396–406).

Zeus and Poseidon both wanted to marry her, but they withdrew when Themis prophesied that Thetis’ son would be mightier than his father (Apollodorus 3.13.5). Apollodorus adds two other versions: that Prometheus gave the warning, and that Thetis refused Zeus because Hera had brought her up, so that Zeus in anger married her to a mortal. Chiron advised Peleus to seize her and hold on in spite of her shape-shifting, and he did, though she changed into fire, water and a wild beast. They were married on Mount Pelion, where the gods celebrated the wedding with feasting and song, and their son was Achilles (3.13.5–6). Her story is told in full on her own page.

Galatea

Galatea is one of Hesiod’s Nereids (Theogony 250). She is known mainly through the story of the Cyclops Polyphemus. Theocritus has the young Cyclops sing of his hopeless love for her from the shore, finding in song his only cure (Idyll 11), and in another poem Galatea pelts his flock with apples to tease the laggard lover while he sits piping (Idyll 6). In Ovid (Metamorphoses 13.738–897) she tells Scylla that she loved Acis, the son of Faunus and a nymph, while the Cyclops loved her; Polyphemus sang his clumsy love-song to her from the shore, and when he caught sight of the lovers he crushed Acis under a piece torn from the mountain, and Galatea turned her lover into a river-god.

Ceto and Eurybia

Ceto (Keto) and Eurybia, “who has a heart of flint within her”, were daughters of Pontus and Gaia, and sisters of Nereus, Thaumas and Phorcys (Hesiod, Theogony 233–239). Ceto is the sea-goddess of monsters. Hesiod makes her the mother, by Phorcys, of the Graiai, the Gorgons, Echidna and the serpent that guards the golden apples (Theogony 270–336). Homer names Scylla’s mother Crataeis, “who bore her for a bane to mortals” (Odyssey 12.124–126). Eurybia married the Titan Crius, and their sons were Astraeus, Pallas and Perses (Theogony 375–377).

Ino Leucothea

Leucothea was born a mortal: Ino, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. She was the second wife of Athamas, and bore Learchus and Melicertes (Apollodorus 1.9.1). She and Athamas reared the infant Dionysus at Hermes’ request, and in anger Hera drove them mad. Athamas hunted Learchus down and killed him, and Ino leapt into the sea carrying Melicertes. She became Leucothea, and Melicertes became Palaemon (Apollodorus 1.9.2; 3.4.3). In the Odyssey (5.333–353) she rises from the sea like a gull and gives the shipwrecked Odysseus her immortal veil, telling him to stretch it beneath his breast and, when he reaches land, to throw it back into the sea.

See Also: Poseidon, Oceanus, Tethys, Nereus, Nereids, Thetis, Amphitrite, Keto, Ino