Dione (mythology)

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Dione (mythology)

Dione in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
is a vague goddess presence who has her most concrete form in Book V of Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
's Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
as the mother of Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the classical Greek mythology goddess of love, sex, and beauty. According to Greek oral poet Hesiod, she was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus....
who lived among the mortals was known for her kindness. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle while protecting her favorite son Aeneas

Aeneas

This article is about the Roman hero. For other uses, see Aeneas .In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas was a Troy hero, the son of prince Anchises and the goddess Venus_....
. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of Gaia

Gaia (mythology)

Gaia Gaia is a Greek primordial gods and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek Pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess....
the Earth Mother, whom Homer also placed in Olympus

Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece at 2,919 metres high . Since its base is located at sea level, it is one of the highest mountains in Europe in terms of topographic prominence, the relative altitude from base to top....
, and to that extent might be classed as a "mother goddess

Mother goddess

A mother goddess is a term used to refer to any goddess associated with motherhood, fertility, creation or the bountiful embodiment of the Earth....
".

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Dione in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Homer

Aphrodite

Aeneas

Gaia (mythology)

Gaia Gaia is a Greek primordial gods and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek Pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess....
the Earth Mother, whom Homer also placed in Olympus

Mount Olympus

Mother goddess

A mother goddess is a term used to refer to any goddess associated with motherhood, fertility, creation or the bountiful embodiment of the Earth....
". Dione's Indo-European

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a Language family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau , Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ....
name is really less a name than simply a title: the "Goddess

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. Often deities are part of a polytheism system that includes several deities in a pantheon .Common associations of goddesses are the Earth goddess, the Mother Goddess, Love goddess, and the hearth goddess, reflecting historical gender roles....
", etymologically a female form of Zeus

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
. Roman "Diana" has a similar etymology but is not otherwise connected with Dione.

After the Iliad, Aphrodite herself was sometimes referred to as "Dionaea" and even "Dione", just "the goddess" (Peck 1898). At the very ancient oracle of Zeus

Zeus

Dodona

Dodona in Epirus in northwestern Greece, was a prehistoric oracle devoted to the Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia , but here called Dione and later, in historical times also to the Greek mythology God Zeus....
, Dione rather than Hera

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
, was the goddess resorted to in the company of Zeus, as many surviving votive inscriptions show. The birds associated with her at Dodona are dove

Dove

Pigeons and doves constitute the family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerine Aves....
s, and her priestesses at Dodona were "doves", peliades
Peliades

In Greek mythology, the Peliades were the daughters of Pelias and should not be confused with the Pleiades. Euripides entitled his earliest known tragedy Peliades; he entered it into the Dionysia of 455 BC but did not win....
.

Although Dione is not a Titan

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans ; were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary golden age. Their role as Elder Gods was overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Twelve Olympians, effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks borrowed from the Ancient Near East....
in Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
, but appears instead in his Theogony among the long list of Oceanid

Oceanid

In Greek Mythology and Roman mythology, the Oceanids were the three thousand daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys . One of these many daughters was also said to have been the consort of the god Poseidon, typically named as Amphitrite....
s, Apollodorus

Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greeks scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace....
includes her among the Titans (1.1.3 and 1.3.1) and the Roman mythographer Gaius Julius Hyginus

Gaius Julius Hyginus

Gaius Julius Hyginus was a Latin author, though whether a native of Spain or of Alexandria it is not clear, a pupil of the famous Alexander Cornelius, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus, by whom he was made superintendent of the Palatine library, according to Suetonius' minor works, De Grammaticis, 20....
makes her the daughter of the Titan Atlas.

The archaic king Tantalus

Tantalus

In Greek mythology Tantalus was a son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto. Thus he was a king in the primordial world, the father of a son Broteas whose very name signifies "mortals" ....
in Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkey provinces of Manisa Province and inland Izmir Province....
had Dione as a consort: Hyginus says that Dione, daughter of Atlas, was the mother, by Tantalus, of Pelops

Pelops

In Greek mythology, Pelops , king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus, was venerated at Olympia, Greece, where his cult developed into the founding myth of the Ancient Olympic Games, the most important expression of unity, not only for the Peloponnesus, "land of Pelops", but for all Hellenes....
, Niobe

Niobe

Niobe was the daughter of the semi-legendary ruler Tantalus, called the "Phrygian" and sometimes even as "King of Phrygia" . Although Tantalus ruled in Sipylus, a city located in the western extremity of Anatolia where Lydia was to emerge as a state as of the 8th century BC, and not in the traditional heartland of Phrygia, situated more in...
, and Broteas

Broteas

In Greek mythology, Broteas was the ugly son of Tantalus, whose other offspring were Niobe and Pelops. He carved the most ancient image of the Great Mother of the Gods , an image that in Pausanias ' day was still held sacred by the Magnesia ad Sipylum....
. See also Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
, Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)

The Metamorphoses by the Ancient Rome poet Ovid is a Narrative poetry in fifteen books that describes the Creation myth and history of the world....
6.172 If a king's consort is "Dione", the logical implication is that he justifies his authority as the earthly, visible consort of "The Goddess" in an archaic model of sacred king

Sacred king

For the office under ancient Rome, see Rex Sacrorum. In many historical societies, the office of monarch carries a sacral meaning, that is, it is identical with that of a high priest and of judge....
ship.