- For other uses of the name Eos, see Eos (disambiguation). For the Slavic
goddesses called the Auroras, see The Zorya.
Eos, by
Evelyn De Morgan (1850 - 1919), 1895 (Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia,
SC): for a
Pre-Raphaelite painter, Eos was still the classical pagan
equivalent of an angel
Eos (Greek Ηώς, or Έως "dawn") is, in Greek mythology,
the Titanic goddess[1] of the dawn, who rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the Ocean that surrounds the world, to herald her brother Helios, the
sun.
The Greek worship of the dawn as a goddess is believed to be inherited from Indo-European times. The name Eos is cognate to Latin
Aurora and to Vedic
Ushas.
Descriptions
As the dawn goddess, Eos opened the gates of heaven (with "rosy fingers") so that Helios could ride his chariot across
the sky every day. In Homer (Iliad viii.1; xxiv.695), her yellow robe is embroidered or
woven with flowers (Odyssey vi:48 etc); rosy-fingered and with golden arms, she is pictured on Attic vases as a
supernaturally beautiful woman, crowned with a tiara or diadem and with the large white-feathered wings of a bird.
Quintus Smyrnaeus pictured her exulting in her heart over the radiant horses
(Lampos and Phaithon) that drew her chariot, amidst the bright-haired Horae, the feminine Hours,
climbing the arc of heaven and scattering sparks of fire (Posthomerica 1.48).
She is most often associated with her Homeric epithet "rosy-fingered" (rhododactylos),
but Homer also calls her Eos Erigeneia:
- "That brightest of stars appeared, Eosphoros, that most often heralds the light of
early-rising Dawn (Eos Erigeneia)."
- —Odyssey 13.93
Hesiod wrote: "And after these Erigeneia ["Early-born"] bore the star Eosphoros ("Dawn-bringer"), and the gleaming stars with which heaven is crowned."
-
- —Theogony 378-382
Thus Eos, preceded by the Morning Star (Venus),
is seen as the genetrix of all the stars and planets; her tears are considered to have created the morning dew, personified as
Ersa or Herse.
Genealogy
Eos is the daughter of Hyperion and Theia (or
Pallas and Styx) and sister of
Helios the sun and Selene the moon, "who shine upon all that are
on earth and upon the deathless Gods who live in the wide heaven" Hesiod told in
Theogony (371-374).
The generation of Titans preceded all the familiar deities of Olympus, who supplanted them.
Lovers
Eos is free with her favors and had many consorts, both among the generation of Titans and among the handsomest mortals. With
Astraios, she bore all the winds and stars. Her passion for the Titan Orion was unrequited. Eos kidnapped Cephalus, Clitus, Ganymede, and Tithonus to be her
lovers. Eos' most faithful consort was Tithonus, from whose couch the poets imagine her arising. When Zeus stole Ganymede from her to be his cup-bearer, she asked for Tithonus to be made immortal, but forgot to ask
for eternal youth. Tithonus indeed lived forever but grew more and more ancient, eventually turning into a cricket.
In the more restrictive Hellenic world, Apollodorus, a later Greek poet, claimed, in an
anecdote rather than a myth, that her disgraceful abandon was a torment from Aphrodite, who
found her on the couch with Ares. (Apollodorus, Library 1.27).
Children
Eos and the slain Memnon on an Attic red-figure cup, ca. 490–480 BCE, the so-called "Memnon Pietà" found at
Capua (
Louvre)
According to Hesiod (Theogony 984ff) by Tithonus Eos had two sons, Memnon
and Emathion. Memnon fought among the Trojans in the Trojan
War and was slain. Her image with the dead Memnon across her knees, like Thetis with the
dead Achilles and Isis with the dead Osiris, are icons that inspired the Christian Pietà.
The abduction of Cephalus had special appeal for an Athenian audience because Cephalus was a local boy,[2] and so this myth element appeared frequently in Attic vase-paintings and
was exported with them. In the literary myths[3] Eos
kidnapped Cephalus when he was hunting and took him to Syria. The second-century CE traveller
Pausanias was informed that the abductor of Cephalus was Hemera, goddess of Day.[4] Although Cephalus was already married to Procris, Eos bore him three sons, including Phaeton and Hesperus, but he then began pining for Procris, causing a disgruntled Eos to return him to her — and put a
curse on them. in Hyginus' report[5] telling Cephalus
accidentally killed Procris some time later after he mistook her for an animal while hunting; in Ovid's Metamorphoses vii,
Procris, a jealous wife, was spying on him and heard him singing to the wind, "Aura", but thought he was serenading his ex-lover
Aurora (Eos).
Etruscan interpretations
Among the Etruscans, the generative dawn-goddess was Thesan. Depictions of the dawn-goddess
with a young lover became popular in Etruria in the fifth century, probably inspired by imported Greek vase-painting.[6] Though Etruscans preferred to show the goddess as a nurturer
(Kourotrophos) rather than an abductor of young men, the late Archaic sculptural acroterion from Etruscan Cære (Cerveteri), now in Berlin, showing the
goddess in archaic running pose adapted from the Greeks, and bearing a boy in her arms, has commonly been identified as Eos and
Cephalus.[7] On an
Etruscan mirror Thesan is shown carrying off a young man, whose name is inscribed TINTHU[N].[8]
Roman Iiterpretation
Her Roman equivalent is Aurora, her
Etruscan equivalent is Thesan. The Dawn became
associated in Roman cult with Matuta; later known as Mater Matuta she was also associated with the sea harbors and ports. She had
a temple on the Forum Boarium. On June 11, the
Matralia was celebrated at that temple in honor of Mater Matuta; this festival was only for women
in their first marriage.
List of consorts and children
The following are lovers of Eos, described in various myths, and her children by them.
- With Astraios
- Boreas
- Eurus
- Eosphoros
- Hesperos
- Notus
- All the stars/planets
- Zephyrus
- With Tithonus
- Emathion
- Memnon
- With Cephalus
- Phaëton
- Tithonos
- With Zeus
- Ersa
- Carae
Notes
- ^ Lycophron calls her by an archaic name,
Tito ("the Titaness") Kerenyi, noting this observes that Tito shares a linguistic origin with Eos' lover Tithonus, that belonged to an older, pre-Greek language (Kerenyi 1951:199 note 637).
- ^ Mary R. Lefkowitz, "'Predatory' Goddesses" Hesperia 71.4
(October 2002, pp. 325-344) p. 326.
- ^ (Hesiod Theogony 984; pseudo-Apollodorus Bibliotheke iii. 14.3; Pausanias i.
3.1; Ovid Metamorphoses vii. 703ff; Hyginus Fabula
189.
- ^ Pausanias remarking on the subjects shown in the Royal Stoa, Athens (1.3.1)
and on the throne of Apollo at Amyklai (3.18.10ff).
- ^ Hyginus, Fabula 189.
- ^ Marilyn Y. Goldberg, "The 'Eos and Kephalos' from Cære: Its Subject and
Date" American Journal of Archæology 91.4 (October 1987, pp. 605-614) p 607.
- ^ Goldberg 1987:605-614 casts doubt on the boy's identification, in the
context of Etruscan and Greek abduction motifs.
- ^ Noted by Goldberg 1987: in I. Mayer-Prokop, Die gravierten etruskischen
Griffspiegel archaischen Stils (Heidelberg) 1966, fig. 61.
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References
External links
- Theoi Project, Eos many references
from Greek and Roman written sources, from Homer to Late Antiquity.
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