In Greek mythology, Spio (Ancient Greek: Σπειώ means 'the dweller in the caves'[Apollodorus, 1.2.7; Hyginus, Fabulae Preface] Variations of her name were Speio[Homer, Iliad 18.40] and Speo.[Hesiod, Theogony 245]
Mythology
Speio and her other sisters appear to
Thetis when she cries out in sympathy for the grief of
Achilles at the slaying of his friend
Patroclus.
[Homer, Iliad 18.39-51]
In some accounts, Spio, together with her sisters Cymodoce, Nesaea and Thalia, was one of the nymphs in the train of Cyrene.[Virgil, Georgics 4.338 "But his mother heard the cry from her bower beneath the river's depths. About her the Nymphs were spinning fleeces of Miletus, dyed with rich glassy hue – Drymo and Xantho, Ligea and Phyllodoce, their shining tresses floating over snowy necks; Nesaea and Spio, Thalia and Cymodoce four;"] Later on, these four together with their other sisters Thetis, Melite and Panopea, were able to help the hero Aeneas and his crew during a storm.[Virgil, Aeneid 5.826]
Notes
-
Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
-
Hesiod, Theogony from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
-
Homer, Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Homer, Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Kerényi, Carl, The Gods of the Greeks, Thames and Hudson, London, 1951.
-
Virgil, Aeneid. Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Publius Vergilius Maro, Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
-
Virgil, Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics of Vergil. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
