Anemoi
Encyclopedia
In Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, the Anemoi (in Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

, Ἄνεμοι — "winds") were Greek wind god
Wind god
There are many different gods of wind in different religions:*Aeolus, the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology*Amun, Egyptian god of creation and the wind*Anemoi, the Greek wind gods Boreas, Notus, Eurus, and Zephyrus...

s who were each ascribed a cardinal direction
Cardinal direction
The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the directions of north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials: N, E, S, W. East and west are at right angles to north and south, with east being in the direction of rotation and west being directly opposite. Intermediate...

 from which their respective winds came (see Classical compass winds
Classical compass winds
thumb|250px|The [[Tower of the Winds]] in [[Athens]]Classical compass winds refers to the naming and association of winds in Mediterranean classical antiquity with the points of geographic direction and orientation...

), and were each associated with various season
Season
A season is a division of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight.Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution...

s and weather
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...

 conditions. They were sometimes represented as mere gusts of wind
Wind
Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...

, at other times were personified as wing
Wing
A wing is an appendage with a surface that produces lift for flight or propulsion through the atmosphere, or through another gaseous or liquid fluid...

ed men, and at still other times were depicted as horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s kept in the stables of the storm god Aeolus
Aeolus
Aeolus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which...

, who provided Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....

 with the Anemoi in the Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

. Astraeus
Astraeus
In Greek mythology, Astraeus or Astraeos was an astrological deity and the Titan-god of the dusk. In Hesiod's Theogony and in the Bibliotheca, Astraeus is a second-generation Titan, descended from Crius and Eurybia. However, Hyginus wrote that he was descended directly from Tartarus and Gaia, and...

, the astrological deity sometimes associated with Aeolus
Aeolus
Aeolus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which...

, and Eos
Eos
In Greek mythology, Eos is the Titan goddess 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.- Greek literature :...

, the goddess of the dawn
Dawn
Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of the twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the presence of weak sunlight, while the sun itself is still below the horizon...

, were the parents of the Anemoi, according to the Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 poet Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

.

Of the four chief Anemoi, Boreas (Aquilon in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

) was the north wind and bringer of cold winter air, Notus was the south wind and bringer of the storms of late summer and autumn, and Zephyrus was the west wind and bringer of light spring and early summer breezes; Eurus, the east wind, was not associated with any of the three Greek seasons
Attic calendar
The Attic calendar is a hellenic calendar that was in use in ancient Attica, the ancestral territory of the Athenian polis. This article focuses on the 5th and 4th centuries BC, the classical period that produced some of the most significant works of ancient Greek literature. Because of the...

, and is the only one of these four Anemoi not mentioned in Hesiod's Theogony
Theogony
The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies of the gods of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC...

or in the Orphic Hymns. Additionally, four lesser Anemoi were sometimes referenced, representing the northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest winds.

The deities equivalent to the Anemoi in Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...

 were the Venti (in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, "winds"). These gods had different names, but were otherwise very similar to their Greek counterparts, borrowing their attributes and being frequently conflated with them.

Boreas

Boreas was the Greek god of the cold north wind
North wind
A north wind is a wind that originates in the north and blows south. The north wind has had historical and literal significance, since it often signals cold weather and seasonal change in the Northern hemisphere.-Mythology:...

 and the bringer of winter. His name meant "North Wind" or "Devouring One". Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch
Conch
A conch is a common name which is applied to a number of different species of medium-sized to large sea snails or their shells, generally those which are large and have a high spire and a siphonal canal....

 shell and wearing a billowing cloak. Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

 wrote that Boreas had snake
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

s instead of feet, though in art he was usually depicted with winged human feet.

Boreas was closely associated with horses. He was said to have fathered twelve colts after taking the form of a stallion, to the mares of Erichthonius
Erichthonius of Athens
King Erichthonius was a mythological early ruler of ancient Athens, Greece. He was, according to some legends, autochthonous and raised by the goddess Athena. Early Greek texts do not distinguish between him and Erectheus, his grandson, but by the fourth century B.C...

, king of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

. These were said to be able to run across a field of grain without trampling the plants. Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 (Natural History iv.35 and viii.67) thought that mares might stand with their hindquarters to the North Wind, and bear foals without a stallion. The Greeks believed that his home was in Thrace, and Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

 and Pliny both describe a northern land known as Hyperborea ("Beyond the North Wind"), where people lived in complete happiness and had extraordinarily long lifespans.

Boreas was also said to have kidnapped Oreithyia
Oreithyia
Orithyia ; ) was the daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens and his wife, Praxithea, in Greek mythology. Her brothers were Cecrops, Pandorus, and Metion, and her sisters were Procris, Creusa, and Chthonia....

, an Athenian
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 princess, from the river Ilissus. Boreas had taken a fancy to Oreithyia, and had initially pleaded for her favours, hoping to persuade her. When this failed, he reverted to his usual temper and abducted her as she danced on the banks of the Ilissus. Boreas wrapped Oreithyia up in a cloud, raped her, and with her, Boreas fathered two sons—the Boreads
Boreads
The Boreads, in Greek mythology, were Calaïs and Zetes . They were the sons of Boreas and Oreithyia, daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens...

, Zethes and Calais—and two daughters— Khione
Chione (daughter of Boreas)
In Greek mythology Chione, or Khione, , the nymph or minor goddess of snow, was the daughter of Boreas, the North Wind, and Oreithyia, an Athenian princess whom he abducted. Her siblings included Zetes, Calaides and Cleopatra. She was loved by Poseidon and had with him a son Eumolpus...

, goddess of snow, and Cleopatra.

From then on, the Athenians saw Boreas as a relative by marriage. When Athens was threatened by Xerxes, the people prayed to Boreas, who was said to have then caused winds to sink 400 Persian ships. A similar event had occurred twelve years earlier, and Herodotus writes:
The abduction of Oreithyia was popular in Athens before and after the Persian War, and was frequently depicted on vase paintings. In these paintings, Boreas was portrayed as a bearded man in a tunic, with shaggy hair that is sometimes frosted and spiked. The abduction was also dramatized in Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...

's lost play Oreithyia.

In late accounts, Boreas was the father of Lycurgus (by another woman) and the lover of the nymph Pitys.

Aquilo

The Roman
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...

 equivalent of Boreas was Aquilo, or Aquilon. An alternate, rarer name used for the northern wind was Septentrio, a word derived from septem triones ("seven oxen") referring to the seven prominent stars in the northern constellation Ursa Major
Ursa Major
Ursa Major , also known as the Great Bear, is a constellation visible throughout the year in most of the northern hemisphere. It can best be seen in April...

. Septentrio is also the source of the obscure word septentrional
Septentrional
Septentrional is a word that means "of the north", rarely used in English but commonly used in Latin and in the Romance languages. Early maps of North America, mostly those before 1700, often refer to the northern- or northwestern-most unexplored areas of the continent at "Septentrional" or...

, a synonym for boreal meaning "northern".

Notus

Notus (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 Νότος, Nótos) was the Greek god of the south wind
South wind
For other uses, see South wind .A south wind is a wind that originates in the south and blows north.Words used in English to describe the south wind are auster, buster , föhn/foehn , gibli , friagem , khamsin For other uses, see South wind (disambiguation).A south wind is a wind that originates in...

. He was associated with the desiccating hot wind of the rise of Sirius
Sirius
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The name "Sirius" is derived from the Ancient Greek: Seirios . The star has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris...

 after midsummer
Midsummer
Midsummer may simply refer to the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, but more often refers to specific European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice, or that take place on a day between June 21 and June 24, and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different...

, was thought to bring the storms of late summer and autumn, and was feared as a destroyer of crops.

Auster

Notus' equivalent in Roman mythology was Auster, the embodiment of the sirocco
Sirocco
Sirocco, scirocco, , jugo or, rarely, siroc is a Mediterranean wind that comes from the Sahara and reaches hurricane speeds in North Africa and Southern Europe. It is known in North Africa by the Arabic word qibli or ghibli Sirocco, scirocco, , jugo or, rarely, siroc is a Mediterranean wind...

 wind, who brought heavy cloud cover and fog or humidity.

The Auster winds are mentioned in Vergil's Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

 Book II, lines 304-307:
'"in segetem veluti cum flamma furentibus Austris incidit, aut rapidus montano flumine torrens sternit agros, sternit sata laeta boumque labores, praecipitesque trahit silvas"

(Auster
Auster
Auster Aircraft Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer from 1938 to 1961.-History:The company began in 1938 at the Britannia Works, Thurmaston near Leicester, England, as Taylorcraft Aeroplanes Limited, making light observation aircraft designed by the Taylorcraft Aircraft Corporation of...

is also the name of a defunct British aircraft manufacturer from the 1940s–1950s.)

Eurus

Eurus was the Greek deity representing the unlucky east wind
East wind
An east wind is a wind that originates in the east and blows west. In Greek mythology, Eurus, the east wind, was the only wind not associated with any of the three Greek seasons, and is the only one of these four Anemoi not mentioned in Hesiod's Theogony or in the Orphic Hymns.-Biblical...

. He was thought to bring warmth and rain, and his symbol was an inverted vase, spilling water. His Roman counterpart was Vulturnus (not to be confused with Volturnus
Volturnus
In Roman mythology, Volturnus was a god of the waters, probably derived from a local Samnite cult. His festival, Volturnalia, was held on August 27.The Volturno river in Campania is named in his honour....

, a tribal river-god who later became a Roman deity of the River Tiber
Tiber
The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at...

).

Zephyrus

Zephyrus, or just Zephyr , in Latin Favonius, is the Greek god of the west wind
West wind
A west wind is a wind that blows from the west, in an eastward direction. In Western tradition, it has usually been considered the mildest and most favorable of the directional winds....

. The gentlest of the winds, Zephyrus is known as the fructifying wind, the messenger of spring. It was thought that Zephyrus lived in a cave in Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

.

Zephyrus was reported as having several wives in different stories. He was said to be the husband of his sister Iris
Iris (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. As the sun unites Earth and heaven, Iris links the gods to humanity...

, the goddess of the rainbow. He abducted another of his sisters, the goddess Chloris, and gave her the domain of flowers. With Chloris
Chloris
thumb|250px|right| "As she talks, her lips breathe spring roses:I was Chloris, who am now called Flora." [[Ovid]]There are many stories in Greek mythology about figures named Chloris...

, he fathered Carpus
Karpos
This article is about the Greek mythological character, for the unit within the city of Skopje, go to Karpoš Municipality.In Greek mythology, Karpos , was a youth renowned for his beauty...

 ("fruit"). He is said to have vied for Chloris's love with his brother Boreas, eventually winning her devotion. Additionally, with yet another sister and lover, the harpy
Harpy
In Greek mythology, a harpy was one of the winged spirits best known for constantly stealing all food from Phineas...

 Podarge
Podarge
In Greek mythology, Podarge referred to several different beings.*One of the Harpies is named Podarge and, due to her union with Zephyrus, the god of the West Wind, was the mother of Balius and Xanthus, the horses of Achilles.*The rainbow/messenger goddess Iris is sometimes also referred to as...

 (also known as Celaeno
Celaeno
In Greek mythology, Celaeno referred to several different figures.*Celaeno, one of the Harpies, whom Aeneas encountered at Strophades. She gave him prophecies of his coming journeys.*Celaeno, one of the Pleiades...

), Zephyrus was said to be the father of Balius and Xanthus
Balius and Xanthus
In Greek mythology, Balius and Xanthus were two immortal horses, the offspring of the harpy Podarge and the West wind, Zephyros ; following another tradition, their father was Zeus.Note: Balius and Xanthus are the Latin forms of the Greek names Balios and Xanthos.-Horses of Achilles:Poseidon...

, Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

' horses.

One of the surviving myths in which Zephyrus features most prominently is that of Hyacinth
Hyacinth (mythology)
Hyacinth or Hyacinthus is a divine hero from Greek mythology. His cult at Amyclae, southwest of Sparta, where his tumulus was located— in classical times at the feet of Apollo's statue in the sanctuary that had been built round the burial mound— dates from the Mycenaean era...

. Hyacinth was a very handsome and athletic Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

n prince. Zephyrus fell in love with him and courted him, and so did Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

. The two competed for the boy's love, but he chose Apollo, driving Zephyrus mad with jealousy. Later, catching Apollo and Hyacinth throwing a discus
Discus
Discus, "disk" in Latin, may refer to:* Discus , a progressive rock band from Indonesia* Discus , a fictional character from the Marvel Comics Universe and enemy of Luke Cage* Discus , a freshwater fish popular with aquarium keepers...

, Zephyrus blew a gust of wind at them, striking the boy in the head with the falling discus. When Hyacinth died, Apollo created the hyacinth flower from his blood.

In the story of Cupid and Psyche
Cupid and Psyche
Cupid and Psyche , is a legend that first appeared as a digressionary story told by an old woman in Lucius Apuleius' novel, The Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century CE. Apuleius likely used an earlier tale as the basis for his story, modifying it to suit the thematic needs of his novel.It has...

, Zephyrus served Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...

 by transporting Psyche to his cave.

Favonius

Zephyrus' Roman equivalent was Favonius, who held dominion over plants and flowers. The name Favonius, which meant "favorable", was also a common Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 name.

Minor winds

Four lesser wind deities appear in a few ancient sources, such as at the Tower of the Winds
Tower of the Winds
The Tower of the Winds, also called horologion , is an octagonal Pentelic marble clocktower on the Roman agora in Athens. The structure features a combination of sundials, a water clock and a wind vane...

 in Athens. Originally, as attested in Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

 and Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, these four minor Anemoi were the Anemoi Thuellai (Άνεμοι θύελλαι; Greek: "Tempest-Winds"), wicked and violent daemons
Daemon (mythology)
The words dæmon and daimôn are Latinized spellings of the Greek "δαίμων", a reference to the daemons of Ancient Greek religion and mythology, as well as later Hellenistic religion and philosophy...

 (spirits) created by the monster Typhon
Typhon
Typhon , also Typhoeus , Typhaon or Typhos was the last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, and the most deadly monster of Greek mythology. He was known as the "Father of all monsters"; his wife Echidna was likewise the "Mother of All Monsters."Typhon was described in pseudo-Apollodorus,...

, and male counterparts to the harpies
Harpy
In Greek mythology, a harpy was one of the winged spirits best known for constantly stealing all food from Phineas...

, who were also called thuellai. These were the winds held in Aeolus
Aeolus
Aeolus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which...

's stables; the other four, "heavenly" Anemoi were not kept locked up. However, later writers confused and conflated the two groups of Anemoi, and the distinction was largely forgotten.

Kaikias was the Greek deity of the northeast wind. He is shown as a bearded man with a shield full of hail-stones, and his name is cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...

 to the Latin word caecus "blind", that is, he was seen as a "dark" wind. The Roman spelling of Kaikias was Caecius.

Apeliotes, sometimes known to the Romans as Apeliotus, was the Greek deity of the southeast wind. As this wind was thought to cause a refreshing rain particularly beneficial to farmers, he is often depicted wearing gumboots and carrying fruit, draped in a light cloth concealing some flowers or grain. He is cleanshaven, with curly hair and a friendly expression. Because Apeliotes was a minor god, he was often synthesized with Eurus, the east wind. Subsolanus, Apeliotes' Roman counterpart, was also sometimes considered the east wind, in Vulturnus' place.

Skiron, or Skeiron, was the Greek god of the northwest wind. His name is related to Skirophorion, the last of the three months of spring in the Attic festival calendar
Attic calendar
The Attic calendar is a hellenic calendar that was in use in ancient Attica, the ancestral territory of the Athenian polis. This article focuses on the 5th and 4th centuries BC, the classical period that produced some of the most significant works of ancient Greek literature. Because of the...

. He is depicted as a bearded man tilting a cauldron, representing the onset of winter. His Roman counterpart is Caurus, or Corus. Corus was also one of the oldest Roman wind-deities, and numbered among the di indigetes
Di indigetes
In Georg Wissowa's terminology the di indigetes or indigites were Roman deities and spirits not adopted from other mythologies, as distinguished from the di novensides...

("indigenous gods"), a group of abstract and largely minor numinous
Numen
Numen is a Latin term for a potential, guiding the course of events in a particular place or in the whole world, used in Roman philosophical and religious thought...

 entities.

Lips was the Greek deity of the southwest wind, often depicted holding the stern
Stern
The stern is the rear or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite of the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Originally, the term only referred to the aft port section...

 of a ship. His Roman equivalent was Afer ventus ("African wind"), or Africus, due to Africa being to the southwest of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. This name is thought to be derived from the name of a North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

n tribe, the Afri.

Other minor wind deities included:
  • Argestes "clearing", a wind blowing from about the same direction as Skiron (Caurus), and probably another name for it
  • Aparctias, sometimes called the north wind instead of Boreas (Septentrionarius)
  • Circius or Thrascius, the north-north-west wind
  • Euronotus, the wind blowing from the direction, as its very name suggests, between Euros and Notos, that is, a south-south-east wind (Euroauster to the Romans)
  • Iapyx, the north-west wind about the same as Caurus
  • Libonotus, the south-south-west wind, known as Austro-Africus to the Romans
  • Meses, another name for the north-west wind
  • Olympias, apparently identified with Skiron/Argestes
  • Phoenicias, another name for the south-east wind ("the one blowing from Phoenicia
    Phoenicia
    Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...

    ", due to this land lying to the south-east of Greece)
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