Oceanus

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Oceanus

Oceanus (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ??ea???, lit. "ocean") was believed to be the world-ocean

World Ocean

The World Ocean, world ocean, or global ocean is the interconnected system of the Earth's oceanic waters, and comprises the bulk of the hydrosphere....
in classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
, which the ancient Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
and Greeks

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
considered to be an enormous river

River

A river is a natural stream of water, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, or another stream. In some cases a river flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water....
encircling the world. Strictly speaking, Okeanos was the ocean

Ocean

An ocean is a major body of Seawater, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a World Ocean that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas....
-stream at the Equator

Equator

The equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the Plane perpendicular to the Earth's rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass....
in which floated the habitable hemisphere

Hemisphere

Hemisphere may refer to:*half of a sphereAs half of the Earth:*Any half of the Earth or other planetary or stellar body*New World*Old World...
(oikoumene ?????µ???). 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....
, this world-ocean was personified as 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....
, a son of Uranus

Uranus (mythology)

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....
. In Hellenistic and Roman mosaics, this Titan was often depicted as having the upper body of a muscular man with a long beard and horns (often represented as the claws of a crab), and the lower torso of a serpent

Serpent (symbolism)

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Oceanus'

Start a new discussion about 'Oceanus'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Oceanus (Greek

Greek language

World Ocean

The World Ocean, world ocean, or global ocean is the interconnected system of the Earth's oceanic waters, and comprises the bulk of the hydrosphere....
in classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
and Greeks

Ancient Greece

River

Ocean

Equator

The equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the Plane perpendicular to the Earth's rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass....
in which floated the habitable hemisphere

Hemisphere

Hemisphere may refer to:*half of a sphereAs half of the Earth:*Any half of the Earth or other planetary or stellar body*New World*Old World...
(oikoumene ?????µ???). In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Titan (mythology)

Uranus (mythology)

Gaia (mythology)

Serpent (symbolism)

Serpent is a word of Latin origin that is commonly used in a specifically mythology or religion context, signifying a snake that is to be regarded not as a mundane natural phenomenon nor as an object of scientific zoology, but as the bearer of some symbolic value....
(cf. Typhon
Typhon

In Greek mythology, Typhon , also Typheus/Typhoeus , Typhaon or Typhos is the final son of Gaia , fathered by Tartarus, and is the god of wind....
). On a fragmentary archaic vessel (British Museum 1971.11-1.1) of ca 580 BC, among the gods arriving at the wedding of Peleus

Peleus

In Greek mythology, Pele?s was a Greek hero cult who was already known to Homer. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Ende?s, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he became the father of Achilles....
and the sea-nymph Thetis

Thetis

Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths as Proteus ....
, is a fish-tailed Oceanus, with a fish in one hand and a serpent in the other, gifts of bounty and prophecy. In Roman mosaics he might carry a steering-oar and cradle a ship.

Some scholars believe that Oceanus originally represented all bodies of salt water, including the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea or Ocean off the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia....
and the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
, the two largest bodies known to the ancient Greeks. However, as geography became more accurate, Oceanus came to represent the stranger, more unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean (also called the "Ocean Sea"), while the newcomer of a later generation, Poseidon

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
, ruled over the Mediterranean.

Oceanus' consort is his sister Tethys

Tethys (mythology)

File:Tethys mosaic 83d40m Phillopolis mid4th century -p2fx.2.jpgIn Greek mythology, Tethys , daughter of Uranus and Gaia was an archaic Titan ess and Greek sea gods sea goddess, invoked in classical Greek poetry but no longer venerated in cult....
, and from their union came the ocean nymph

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
s, also known as the three-thousand 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, and all the rivers of the world, fountains, and lakes. From Cronus

Cronus

Cronus or Kronos, , was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titan , divine descendants of Gaia , the earth, and Uranus , the sky....
, of the race of Titans, the Olympian gods

Twelve Olympians

The Twelve Olympians or younger gods, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal Greek Godss of the Greek pantheon , residing atop Mount Olympus, having supplanted the Titan or older gods in the greek mythogical narrative....
have their birth, and 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....
mentions twice in 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....
book xiv her intended journey "to the ends of the generous earth on a visit to Okeanos, whence the gods have risen, and Tethys our mother who brought me up kindly in their own house."

In most variations of the war between the Titans and the Olympians

Twelve Olympians

Titanomachy

In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy, or War of the Titans , was the ten-year series of battles fought between the two races of deities long before the existence of mankind: the Titan , fighting from Mount Othrys, or Mount Etna and the Twelve Olympians, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus ....
, Oceanus, along with Prometheus

Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to human beings for their use....
and Themis

Themis

Themis is an Greek mythology. She is described as "of good counsel", and was the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom. Themis means "law of nature" rather than human ordinance, literally "that which is put in place", from the verb t?????, t?themi, to put....
, did not take the side of his fellow Titans against the Olympians, but instead withdrew from the conflict. In most variations of this myth, Oceanus also refused to side with Cronus

Cronus

Cronus or Kronos, , was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titan , divine descendants of Gaia , the earth, and Uranus , the sky....
in the latter's revolt against their father, Uranus

Uranus (mythology)

Uranus is the Latinized form of Ouranos , the Greek language word for sky. In Greek mythology Uranus , or Father Sky, is personified as the son and husband of Gaia , Mother Earth ....
.

In the 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....
, the rich iconography of Achilles

Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greeks hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme ; the Wrath of Achilles....
' shield, which was fashioned by Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan . He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculpture, metals, metallurgy, Fire and volcanoes....
, is enclosed, as the world itself was believed to be, by Oceanus:

When Odysseus

Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses , in Greek mythology , was a legendary Greeks king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
and Nestor

Nestor (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Nestor of Ger?nia was the son of Neleus and Chloris, and the King of Pylos. He became king after Heracles killed Neleus and all of Nestor's brothers and sisters....
walk together along the shore of the sounding sea (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....
ix.182) their prayers are addressed "to the great Sea-god who girdles the world." It is to Oceanus, not to Poseidon, that their thoughts are directed.

Invoked in passing by poets and figured as the father of rivers and streams, thus the progenitor of river gods, Oceanus appears only once in myth, as a representative of the archaic world that Heracles

Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
constantly threatened and bested. Heracles forced the loan from Helios of his golden bowl, in order to cross the wide expanse of the Ocean on his trip to the Hesperides

Hesperides

In Greek mythology, the Hesperides are nymphs who tend a blissful garden in a far western corner of the world, located near the Atlas mountains in Ancient Libya, or on a distant blessed island at the edge of the encircling Oceanus....
. When Oceanus tossed the bowl, Heracles threatened him and stilled his waves. The journey of Heracles in the sun-bowl upon Oceanus was a favored theme among painters of Attic pottery.

In Cosmography

Oceanus appears in Hellenic cosmography as well as myth. Cartographers continued to represent the encircling equatorial stream much as it had appeared on Achilles' shield.

Though Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
was skeptical about the physical existence of Oceanus, he rejected snowmelt as a cause of the annual flood of the Nile

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the List of rivers by length in the world.The Nile has two major tributary, the White Nile and Blue Nile, the latter being the source of most of the Nile's water and silt, but the former being the longer of the two....
river; according to his translator and interpreter, Livio Catullo Stecchini

Livio Catullo Stecchini

Livio Catullo Stecchini was a historian of science, a scholar of ancient weights and measures, , and of the history of cartography in antiquity....
, he left unsettled the question of an equatorial Nile, since the geography of Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara....
was unknown to him.

Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius of Rhodes, also known as Apollonius Rhodius , early 3rd century BCE - after 246 BCE, was a librarian at the Library of Alexandria....
calls the lower Danube the Keras Okeanoio (Gulf or Horn of Okeanos) in Argonautica (IV. 282).

Accion (Ocean) in 4th Century Gaulish was used to denote great lakes (Rufus Avienus

Avienus

Avienus was a Latin writer of the 4th century. His full name Postumius Rufius Festus Avienius is mentioned on an inscription from Bulla Regia, but "Avienus" has become the usual form of reference....
, Ora maritima / after Mullerus in Cl. Ptolemaei Geographia, Ed. Didot, p.235).

Both 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....
(Odyssey, XII. 1) and 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....
(Theogonia, v.242. 959) refer to Okeanos Potamos, the "Ocean Stream",

Hecateus of Abdera writes that the Okeanos of the Hyperboreans is neither the Arctic Ocean nor Western Ocean, but the sea located to the north of the ancient Greek world, called the most admirable of all seas by Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
(lib. IV 85), called the "immense sea" by Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela, who wrote around 43, was the earliest Roman Empire geographer.His little work is a mere compendium, occupying less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures....
(lib. I. c. 19) and by Dionysius Periegetes

Dionysius Periegetes

Dionysius Periegetes was the author of a description of the habitable world in Greek language hexameter verse written in a terse and elegant style....
(Orbis Descriptio, v. 165), and which is named Mare majus on medieval geographic maps.

At the end of the Okeanos Potamos, is the holy island of Alba (Leuke, Pytho Nisi, Isle of Snakes), sacred to the Pelasgian (and later, Greek) Apollo, greeting the sun rising in the east. Hecateus of Abdera refers to Apollo's island from the region of the Hyperboreans, in the Okeanos. It was on Leuke, in one version of his legend, that the hero Achilles, in a hilly tumulus, was buried (to this day, one of the mouths of the Danube is called Chilia). Leto

Leto

In Greek mythology, Let? is a daughter of the Titan Coeus and Phoebe : Kos claimed her birthplace. In the Olympian scheme of things, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, the Letoides....
, the Hyperborean goddess after nine days and nine nights of labour on the island of Delos (Pelasgian for hill, related to tell

Tell

Tell, tel , meaning "hill" or "mound", is a type of archaeology site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by long human occupation....
) "gave birth to the great god of the antique light" (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, I. 4.1). Old Romanian folk songs sing of a white monastery on a white island with nine priests, nine singers, nine altars, on a part of the Black Sea known as the White Sea.

Oceanus

In Cosmography

Argive genealogy in Greek mythology

See also

Sources

External links