In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Eos (; Ionic Greek and Homeric Greek Ἠώς Ēṓs, Attic Greek Ἕως Héōs, "dawn", or ; Aeolic Greek Αὔως Aúōs, Doric Greek Ἀώς Āṓs)
In Greek literature, Eos is presented as a daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, the sister of the Solar deity Helios and the moon goddess Selene. In rarer traditions, she is the daughter of the Titans Pallas. Each day she drives her two-horse chariot, heralding the breaking of the new day and her brother's arrival. Thus, her most common epithet of the goddess in the is Rhododactylos, or "rosy-fingered", a reference to the sky's colours at dawn, and Erigeneia, "early-born". Although primarily associated with the dawn and early morning, sometimes Eos would accompany Helios for the entire duration of his journey, and thus she is even seen during dusk.
Eos fell in love with mortal men several times, and would abduct them in similar manner to how male gods did mortal women. Her most notable mortal lover is the Troy prince Tithonus, for whom she ensured the gift of immortality, but not eternal youth, leading to him aging without dying for an eternity. In another story, she carried off the Athenian Cephalus against his will, but eventually let him go for he ardently wished to be returned to his Procris, though not before she denigrated her to him, leading to the couple parting ways. Several other lovers and romances with both mortal men and gods were attributed to the goddess by various poets throughout the centuries.
Eos figures in many works of ancient literature and poetry, but despite her Proto-Indo-European origins, there is little evidence of Eos having received any cult or being the centre of worship during classical times.
Etymology
The Proto-Greek form of
Ἠώς /
Ēṓs has been reconstructed as
*ἀυhώς / auhṓs.
It is
cognate to the
Vedic goddess
Ushas, Lithuanian goddess
Aušrinė, and Roman goddess
Aurora (
Old Latin Ausosa), all three of whom are also goddesses of the dawn.
Meissner (2006) suggested an
áwwɔ̄s > /aṷwɔ̄s/ > αὔως lengthening for Aeolic and */aṷwɔ̄s/ >
*āwɔ̄s >
*ǣwɔ̄s > /ǣɔ̄s/ for Attic-Ionic Greek.
In Greek dialects
In
Mycenaean Greek her name is also attested in the form in
Linear B,
a-wo-i-jo (
Āw(ʰ)oʰios; Ἀϝohιος),
[Luján, Eugénio R. "Los temas en -s en micénico". In: Donum Mycenologicum: Mycenaean Studies in Honour of Francisco Aura Jorro. Edited by Alberto Bernabé and Eugenio R. Luján. Bibliothèque des cahiers de L'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain Vol. 131. Louvain-la-Neuve; Walpole, MA: Peeters. 2014. p. 68.] found in a tablet from
Pylos; it has been interpreted as a shepherd's personal name related to "dawn",
[Lejeune, Michel. "Une présentation du Mycénien". In: Revue des Études Anciennes. Tome 69, 1967, n° 3–4. p. 281. DOI:; www.persee.fr/doc/rea_0035-2004_1967_num_69_3_3800][Nakassis, Dimitri. "Labor and Individuals in Late Bronze Age Pylos". In: Labor in the Ancient World. Edited by Piotr Steinkeller and Michael Hudson. Dresden: ISLET-Verlag. 2015 2005. p. 605. .][Davies, Anna Morpurgo (1972). "Greek and Indo-European semiconsonants: Mycenaean u and w". In: Acta Mycenaea, vol. 2 (M.S. Ruipérez, ed.). Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca. p. 93.][Jorro, Francisco Aura. "Reflexiones sobre el léxico micénico" In: Conuentus Classicorum: temas y formas del Mundo Clásico. Coord. por Jesús de la Villa, Emma Falque Rey, José Francisco González Castro, María José Muñoz Jiménez, Vol. 1, 2017, pp. 307. .] or
dative case form
Āwōiōi.
[Chadwick, John, and Lydia Baumbach. "The Mycenaean Greek Vocabulary". In: Glotta 41, no. 3/4 (1963): 198. Accessed March 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40265918.]
Former proposals
Heinrich Wilhelm Stoll offered a different (now rejected) etymology for
ἠὼς, linking it to the verb αὔω, meaning "to blow", "to breathe."
[Stoll, p. 62]
Lycophron calls her by an archaic name, Tito, meaning "day" and perhaps etymologically linked to "Titan".[See "τιτώ" on A Greek-English Lexicon.] Karl Kerenyi observes that Tito shares a linguistic origin with Eos's lover Tithonus, which belonged to an older, pre-Greek language.
Origins
Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess
All four of the aforementioned goddesses sharing a linguistic connection with Eos are considered derivatives of the Proto-Indo-European stem
*h₂ewsṓs (later
*Ausṓs), "dawn". The root also gave rise to
Proto-Germanic *Austrō, Old High German
*Ōstara and
Old English Ēostre / Ēastre. These and other
led to the reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess,
*h₂éwsōs.
[R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 492.]
In the Greek pantheon, Eos, Helios and Zeus are the three gods that are of impeccable Indo-European lineage in both etymology and status, although the former two were sidelined in the pantheon by non-PIE newcomers.[Burkert, p. 17] A common epithet associated with this dawn goddess is * Diwós Dhuǵh2tḗr, the 'Daughter of Dyeus', the sky god.[; ] In Homer however, Eos is never stated to be the daughter of Zeus (Διὸς θυγάτηρ, ), as she is instead the daughter of the Titan Hyperion, who plays little role in mythology or religion. Rather, a commonly occurring epithet of hers is δῖα, dîa, meaning "divine", from earlier *díw-ya, which would have translated into "belonging to Zeus" or "heavenly".[West, p. 186]
Eos's characterization as a lovestruck, sexual being who took many lovers is directly inherited from her PIE precursor. A common and widespread theme among Hausos's descendants is their reluctance to bring the light of the new day.
This Indo-European goddess of the dawn was often conflated and equated with Hemera, the goddess of the day and daylight.
Connection to Aphrodite
Eos also shares some characteristics with the love goddess
Aphrodite connoting perhaps a semi-shared origin or influence of Eos/
*Haéusōs on Aphrodite, who otherwise has a Near Eastern origin;
[Dumézil, 1934.] both goddesses were known for their erotic beauty and aggressive sexuality, both had relationships with mortal lovers, and both were associated with the colors red, white, and gold.
[Cyrino, p. 24] Michael Janda etymologizes Aphrodite's name as an epithet of Eos meaning "she who rises from the foam of" and points to
Hesiod's
Theogony account of Aphrodite's birth as an archaic reflex of Indo-European myth. On the other hand, however, it is generally accepted that Aphrodite's name etymology is Semitic in origin, and its exact meaning and derivation cannot be determined. Evidence is also provided by an
Italy red-figure
krater in which Aphrodite is shown holding a mirror beneath a solar disc while the Theban hero
Cadmus slays the dragon, with a female figure nearly identical to Aphrodite being depicted on another krater labelled "ΑΩΣ", or
Aṓs, the dawn; this shows that although Aphrodite is assimilated to
Astarte/
Inanna, in Greek artistic tradition she is sometimes presented in a similar matter to Eos.
Like Eos, no tales of men assaulting Aphrodite exist, but there are many where she abducts mortal men reversing the traditional theme of gods and men pursuing maidens, in the same fashion as Eos.[Ferrari, p. 54] Not only does Aphrodite abduct or seduce mortal men as Eos does, but even cites Eos' own adventures with Tithonus when she seduces Anchises.[Nagy, p. 248] The two goddesses are presented as both maleficent and beneficent abductors, as they confer both death (maleficent) and preservation (beneficent) to their mortal lovers.[Greene and Paxton, pp 47- 52] The two goddesses exist almost side by side in the myth of Phaethon of Syria, with Eos as his mother and Aphrodite as his lover and abductor. Moreover, another telling point is how the name “Aoos” is recorded as both a name for Adonis, Aphrodite's East-originating lover, and a son of Eos by Cephalus (like Phaethon) who became king of Cyprus, an island that was regarded as Aphrodite's birthplace. This suggest a mixture of Mycenaean and Phoenician religions on the island; it is possible that Aoos was originally a generic name used for Eos’ son or lover, which was then attached to Aphrodite in the form of a consort of the same name as she developed from Eos.
Description
Eos is usually described with rosy fingers or rosy forearms as she opened the gates of heaven for the
Helios to rise:
[Nonnus: "Eos had just shaken off the wing of carefree sleep (Hypnos) and opened the gates of sunrise, leaving the lightbringing couch of Cephalus." ( Dionysiaca 27. 1f, in A.L. Rouse's translation).] the singer in the
Homeric Hymn to Helios calls her ῥοδόπηχυν (), "rosy-armed", as does
Sappho,
[ Homeric Hymn 31 to the Sun 5-6; Sappho P.Köln Inv. Nr. 21351.17. Sappho uses the Aeolic form βροδόπαχυς, brodópakhus.] who also describes her as having golden arms
[Sappho, fragment 6 (trans. David A. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric I) =Oxy..] and golden sandals;
[Sappho fragment 103 =.] vases depict her rosy-fingered, with golden arms.
She is pictured on Attic vases as a beautiful woman, crowned with a tiara or diadem and with the large white-feathered wings of a bird. In Homer,[Homer, Iliad viii.1 & xxiv.695] her saffron-colored robe is embroidered or woven with flowers.[Homer, Odyssey vi:48 etc] Mesomedes of Crete used χιονοβλέφαρος for her, "she who has snow-white eyelids",[Mesomedes, Hymn to the Sun 1] while Ovid described her as "golden".[Ovid; Metamorphoses 7.700 ff, Fasti 4.713 ff] The delicate and fragile beauty of her appearance seems to be in total contrast with the carnal nature that was often attributed to her in myth and literature.[Bell, s.v. Eos]
Family
Parents
According to Greek cosmogony, Eos is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and
Theia: Hyperion, a bringer of light, the
One Above, Who Travels High Above the Earth and Theia,
The Divine,[Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.2.2] also called Euryphaessa, "wide-shining"
[ Homeric Hymns 31 to Helios, 4–7.] and Aethra, "bright sky".
[Fabulae, Fabulae Preface] Eos is the sister of Helios, the god of the sun, and
Selene, the
Lunar deity,
"who shine upon all that are on earth and upon the deathless gods who live in the wide heaven".
[Hesiod, Theogony 371–374] Out of the four authors that give her and her siblings a birth order, two make her the oldest child, the other two the youngest. In some accounts, Eos's father was called Pallas,
[Ovid, Fasti 4.373 ff.][Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2.72 ff.] who is also confirmed to be the father of Eos's sister Selene in some rare traditions.
[ Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes 99–100] Even though the two goddesses are still connected as sisters in the traditions going with lineage from Pallas, their brother Helios is never included with them in those versions, being consistently the son of Hyperion.
Mesomedes made her the daughter of Helios, who is usually her brother, by an unnamed mother.
Some authors made her the child of
Nyx, the personification of the night,
[Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica 2.625–26; cf. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 265] who is the mother of Hemera in the
Theogony.
Offspring
Eos married the Titan
Astraeus ("of the stars") and became the mother of the
Anemoi ("winds") namely
Zephyrus, Boreas,
Notus and
Eurus;
[Fabulae, Fabulae Preface; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 6.18; 37.70, 47.340] of the Morning Star, Eosphoros (
Venus);
[Cicero wrote: Stella Veneris, quae Φωσφόρος Graece, Latine dicitur Lucifer, cum antegreditur solem, cum subsequitur autem Hesperos; The star of Venus, called Φωσφόρος in Greek language and Lucifer in Latin when it precedes, Hesperos when it follows the sun – De Natura Deorum 2, 20, 53.]
Pliny the Elder: Sidus appellatum Veneris … ante matutinum exoriens Luciferi nomen accipit … contra ab occasu refulgens nuncupatur Vesper (The star called Venus … when it rises in the morning is given the name Lucifer … but when it shines at sunset it is called Vesper) Natural History 2, 36 of the stars;
[Hesiod, Theogony 378–82; Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.2.4] and of the virgin goddess of justice,
Astraea ("starry one").
[Aratus, Phaenomena 97–128; De astronomia, Astronomica 2.25.1] Her other notable offspring were Memnon
[Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica 2.549; Pindar, Nemean Odes 6.54; Diodorus Siculus, Historic Library 4.75.4; Callistratus, Statuaram Descriptiones 9; Ovid, Fasti 4.713] and
Emathion[Hesiod, Theogony 985; Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.12.4] by the
Troy prince, Tithonus. Sometimes,
Hesperus,
[Hyginus, Astronomica 2.42.4] Phaethon
[Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.3.1; Hesiod, Theogony 986] and Tithonus (different from her lover),
[Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.14.3] were said to be the children of Eos by Prince Cephalus of Athens.
Mythology
Goddess of the dawn
Each morning, the dawn goddess Eos gets up and opens the gates for her brother, Helios, to pass through and rise, ushering in the new day. Although often her job seems to be done once she announces Helios' coming, in the
she accompanies him throughout the whole day, and does not leave him until the sunset; hence "Eos" might be used in texts where one would have expected to see "Helios" instead.
In Musaeus's rendition of the story of Hero and Leander in the sixth century AD, Eos is mentioned during both sunrise and sunset.
[Musaeus, Hero and Leander 4; 110]
Homer and Hesiod
From the
Iliad:
Now when Dawn in robe of saffron was hastening from the streams of Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the ships with the armor that the god had given her.[Homer, Iliad xix.1]
...
But soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered, then gathered the folk about the pyre of glorious Hector.[Homer, Iliad xxiv.776]
She is most often associated with her Homeric epithet "rosy-fingered" Eos Rhododactylos (), but Homer also calls her Eos Erigeneia:
That brightest of stars appeared, Eosphorus, that most often heralds the light of early-rising Dawn (Eos Erigeneia).[Homer, Odyssey xiii.93]
Near the end of the Odyssey, Athena, wanting to buy Odysseus some time with his wife Penelope after they have reunited with each other, orders Eos not to yoke her two horses, thus delaying the coming of the new day:
And rose-fingered Dawn would have shone for the weepers had not bright-eyed goddess Athena thought of other things. She checked the long night in its passage, and further, held golden-throned Dawn over Ocean and didn't let her yoke her swift-footed horses, that bring daylight to men, Lampus and Phaethon, the colts that carry Dawn.[Homer, Odyssey 13.241–246]
In the Theogony, Hesiod wrote "and after these Erigeneia "Early-born" bore the star Eosphoros ("Dawn-bringer"), and the gleaming stars with which heaven is crowned".[Hesiod, Theogony 378–382] Thus Eos is preceded by the Morning Star, and is thus seen as the genetrix of all the stars and planets; her tears are considered to have created the morning dew, Personification as Ersa or Herse,[Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.621–2] who is otherwise the daughter of her sister Selene by Zeus.[Hard, p. 46; Keightley, p. 55; Alcman fr. 57 Campbell.]
Orphic literature
Eos is addressed by the singer in one of the
Orphic Hymns, as the bringer of the new day:
The position of the hymn in the collection at number 78 is odd, far from the Hymns to the Night (3), the Sun (8) and the Moon (9), where it would be expected to be grouped.[Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 181] While many of the Orphic Hymns describe the divinities in terms on light, the hymn to Eos is the only one that calls upon the divinity to provide light to the initiates.
Divine horses
Eos's team of horses pull her chariot across the sky and are named in the
Odyssey as "Firebright" and "Daybright". Quintus described her exulting in her heart over the radiant horses (
Lampus and Phaëton) that drew her chariot, amidst the bright-haired
Horae, the feminine Hours, the daughters of
Zeus and
Themis who are responsible for the changing of the seasons, climbing the arc of heaven and scattering sparks of fire.
[Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica 1.48]
Lovers
In spite of the goddess already having a husband in the face of her first cousin Astraeus, Eos is presented as a goddess who fell in love several times. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus, it was the jealous
Aphrodite who cursed her to be perpetually in love and have an insatiable sexual desire because Eos had once lain with Aphrodite's sweetheart
Ares, the god of war.
[Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.4.4] The curse caused her to abduct a number of handsome young men. This explanatory myth was the reason offered for Eos' ravenous sexual desires, as this pattern of behavior of hers was noticed by the ancient Greeks.
In the Odyssey, Calypso complains to Hermes about the male gods taking many mortal women as lovers, but not allowing goddesses to do the same. She brings up as example Eos's love for the hunter Orion, who was killed by Artemis on the island of Ortygia.[Homer, Odyssey 5.121–124] Apollodorus also mentions Eos's love for Orion, and adds that she brought him to Delos, where he met Artemis and was subsequently slain by her.[Homer, Odyssey 15.250–251]
Eos fell in love and abducted Cephalus, a son of Hermes, who is sometimes the same as or distinct from the Cephalus that was the husband of Procris, whom she also abducted.[Smith, s.v. Cephalus 1, Cephalus 2; Hard, p. 47; see also Frazer's note on Apollodorus 1.9.4]
Tithonus
The myth about the love of Eos and
Tithonus is very old, known as early as Homer, who in the
Odyssey described the coming of the new morning as Eos rising from the bed she shares with Tithonus to bring her light to the world.
[Homer, Odyssey 5.1: "And now, as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonos - harbinger of light alike to mortals and immortals." Trans. Samuel Butler.] The earliest (and fullest) account survives in the
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where Aphrodite herself narrates the story to her own lover Anchises. Additionally, the myth is also the subject of one of the very few substantially complete works of Sappho, pieced together from different fragments discovered over a period of more than a hundred years, known as the
Tithonus poem or the Old Age poem:
[Sappho, fragment 58 =.]
The myth goes that Eos fell in love with and abducted Tithonus, a handsome prince from Troy, either the brother or the son of King Laomedon (the father of Priam).[Hansen, p. 48] She went with a request to Zeus, asking him to make Tithonus immortal for her sake. Zeus agreed and granted her wish, but Eos foolishly forgot to ask for eternal youth as well for her beloved. So for a while the two lived happily in her palace, but their happiness eventually came to an end when Tithonus’ hair started turning grey as he aged, and Eos ceased to visit him in their bed. Despite that, the goddess kept him around and nourished him with food and ambrosia; Tithonus never died as he had gained immortality as Zeus promised, but he kept aging and shrivelling, and was soon unable to even move. In the end, Eos locked him up in a chamber, where he withered away alone, forever a helpless old man.[ Homeric Hymns 5 to Aphrodite, lines 220–318; cf. Sappho, fr. 58 Campbell; Mimnermus, fr. 4 Gerber.][Clearchus of Soli fragment 20 =.]] Out of pity, she turned him into a small bug, a cicada (Greek τέττιξ, tettix).[Keightley, p. 63; Suda, s.v "Old Man Tithonus".][Hellanicus fragment 142 (FGrH) =; scholia on the Odyssey 5.1 .]
In the account of Hieronymus of Rhodes from the third century BC, the blame is shifted from Eos and onto Tithonus, who asked for immortality but not agelessness from his lover, who was then unable to help him otherwise and turned him into a cicada.[Tsagalis and Markantonatos, p. 297] Propertius wrote that Eos did not forsake Tithonus, old and aged as he was, and would still embrace him and hold him in her arms rather than leaving him deserted in his cold chamber, while cursing the gods for his cruel fate.[Propertius, Elegies 2.18b]
This myth might have been used to explain why cicadas were particularly noisy during the early hours of the morning, when the dawn appears in the sky.[Loeb Classical Library, Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer, 2003, p. 177, note 48] Sir James George Frazer notes that there was a widespread notion among the ancient Greeks and other ancient peoples that the creatures that shed their skin renew their youth and get to live forever.[See Frazer's note on Apollodorus 3.12.4] It could also be a reference to the fact that the high-pitched talk of old men was compared to a cicada's singing, as evidenced in a passage from the Iliad.[Hard, p. 47] The ancient Greeks would use a cicada, the most musical of insects, sitting on a harp as an emblem of music.
Cephalus
The abduction of Cephalus had special appeal for an Athenian audience because Cephalus was a local boy,
[Mary R. Lefkowitz, "'Predatory' Goddesses" Hesperia 71.4 (October 2002, pp. 325-344) p. 326.] and so this myth element appeared frequently in Attic vase-paintings and was exported with them. In the literary myths, Eos snatched Cephalus against his will when he was hunting and took him to Syria.
[Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.14.3; Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.3.1; Hyginus, Fabulae 189; Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.703; Antoninus Liberalis, Collection of Transformations 41] Although Cephalus was already married to
Procris, Eos bore him three sons, including Phaethon and
Hesperus, and in some versions the little-attested Aoos who went on to become king of Cyprus, but he then began pining for Procris, causing a disgruntled Eos to return him to
Procris, but not before sowing the seeds of doubt in his mind, telling him that it was highly unlikely that Procris had stayed faithful to him this entire time.
Cephalus, troubled by her words, asked Eos to change his form into that of a stranger's, in order to secretly put Procris's love for him to the test. Cephalus, now disguised, propositioned Procris, who at first declined but eventually gave in when he offered her money. He was hurt by her betrayal, and she left him in shame, but eventually they got back together. This time however it was Procris's turn to doubt her husband's fidelity; while hunting, he would often call upon the breeze ('Aura' in Latin language, sounding similar to Eos's Roman equivalent Aurora) to refresh his body. Upon hearing that, Procris followed and spied on him. Cephalus, mistaking her for some wild animal, threw his spear at her, killing his wife.[Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.700- 722] The second-century CE traveller Pausanias knew of the story of Cephalus's abduction too, though he calls Eos by the name of Hemera, goddess of day.[Pausanias remarking on the subjects shown in the Royal Stoa, Classical Athens ( 1.3.1) and on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae ( 3.18.12).]
Hyginus omits the kidnapping from the story, and has Cephalus reject Eos out of fidelity to Procris when she begs him to have sex with her. Eos then says to Cephalus that she would not want him to break his vows if Procris herself has not either, and alters his appearance and gives him gifts to trick Procris. Cephalus then goes to Procris as a stranger, and she agrees to lay with him, thereupon Eos removes the enchantment from Cephalus, revealing his identity. Procris, knowing she has been deceived by Eos, flees; she is eventually reunited with Cephalus, but still fearful of Eos, follows him when he goes out hunting, and ends up being accidentally killed by him.[Hyginus, Fabulae 189]
Antoninus Liberalis also largely follows the same tradition in his rendition of the myth, though his text contains a lacuna, jumping from Eos' abduction of Cephalus to him having doubts over Procris.[Antoninus Liberalis, Collection of Transformations 41] The oldest extant account of the myth is attributed to Pherecydes, and the elements it contains were all kept by later poets; in his account however Eos plays no role in the myth.[Pherecydes of Athens FGrHist 3F 34 =.]] That being said, artistic evidence of Eos abducting a man that can be identified as Cephalus go as back as the early fifth century BC.
Role in wars
Gigantomachy
Eos played a small role in the battle of the earthborn Giants against the gods, known as the Gigantomachy, who rose in rebellion. When their mother, the earth goddess
Gaia learned of a prophecy that the giants would perish at the hand of a mortal, Gaia sought to find a herb that would protect them from all harm; thus Zeus ordered Eos, as well as her siblings Selene (
Moon) and Helios (
Sun) not to shine so that she would not be able to seek for it, and harvested all of the plant for himself, denying Gaia the chance to make the Giants indestructible.
[Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.6.2] Moreover, Eos is seen fighting against the Giants in the south frieze of the
Pergamon Altar,
[Picón and Hemingway, p. 47; LIMC 617 Eos 45 ] which depicts the Gigantomachy, where she rides hither on either a horse or a mule
right ahead of Helios, swinging herself on the back of her mount while a Giant already lies on the ground underneath her; a robe wound around her hips serves as her saddle-cloth.
[Schmidt, p. 22] She is joined in fight against the Giants by her siblings, her mother Theia, and possibly, conjectured due to the disembodied wing to the right of Eos's shoulder, the goddess Hemera.
Trojan War
According to Hesiod, by her lover Tithonus, Eos had two sons, Memnon and Emathion.
Memnon, king of
Aethiopia, joined the Trojans in the
Trojan War and fought against
Achilles in battle. Much like
Thetis, the mother of Achilles, did before her, Eos asked the smithing god
Hephaestus with tears in her eyes to forge an armor for Memnon, and he, moved, did as told.
[Virgil, Aeneid 8.384] Pausanias mentions images of Thetis and Eos both begging Zeus on behalf of their sons.
[Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.22.2] In the end, it was Achilles who triumphed and slew Memnon in battle. Mourning greatly over the death of her son, Eos made the light of her brother, Helios the god of the sun, to fade, and begged Nyx, the goddess of the night, to come out earlier, so she could be able to freely steal her son's body undetected by the armies.
[Philostratus of Lemnos, Imagines 1.7.2] After his death, Eos, perhaps with the help of
Hypnos (Sleep) and
Thanatos (Death), transported Memnon's dead body back to Aethiopia;
[Currie, p. 51] she also asked Zeus to make her son immortal, and he granted her wish.
[Arctinus of Miletus, Aethiopis summary] Eos' role in the Trojan War saga mirrors that of Thetis herself; both are goddesses married to aging old men, both see their mortal sons die on the battlefield, and both arrange an afterlife/immortality of sorts for said sons.
[Price and Zelnick-Abramovitz, p. 94, "The two mothers, Thetis and Eos, are alike as well."]
Iconography
Eos was imagined as a woman wearing a saffron mantle as she spread dew from an upturned urn, or with a torch in hand, riding a chariot.
[Roberts, p. 567] Greek and Italian vases show Eos/Aurora on a chariot preceding Helios, as the morning star
Eosphorus flies with her; she is winged, wearing a fine pleated tunic and mantle.
[Collignon, p. 176] Eos is not an uncommon figure, especially on red-figure vases; as a single figure she appears rising from the sea in, or driving, a four-horse chariot like her brother Helios, sometimes carrying two
from which she pours morning dew.
[Walters, p. 79] Because
Hermes'
Caduceus had the power to both induce sleep to mortals and wake them up, some times he is seen preceding the chariot of Eos (and that of Helios) as the new day breaks.
[Savignoni, p. 272]
Although the romantic adventures of Eos is a common subject in pottery, so far as it is known, no vase depicts her with Orion or Cleitus, known lovers of hers, instead those vases fall into groups; those that depict Eos with a young hunter identified as Cephalus, and those that depict Eos with a youth holding a lyre, identified as Tithonus.[Pache, p. 131] Sometimes those vases bear inscriptions, and on a few the hunter is identified as Tithonus, while the lyre-player is Cephalus.[Reitzammer, p. 41] The image of Zeus, the active erastes, pursuing Ganymede, the passive eromenos, was also common, but in the case of Eos, the female figure was put in the dominant position.[Reitzammer, p. 122]
Other depictions of mythological scenes that include Eos are Memnon's battle with Achilles and Eos' pleading of Zeus for his safety, her seizing of Memnon's dead body, and the apotheosis of Alcmene (the mother of Heracles).[Walters, p. 80] Among Theia and Hyperion's children, she is the only one depicted with wings, as neither her brother nor her sister ever sport some in art.
Cult and temples
Eos, along with her brother and sister, is an Indo-European deity, side-lined by the non-IE newcomers to the pantheon;
James Davidson argues that apparently persisting on the sidelines was a primary function for them, to be the minor gods that the major gods were juxtaposed to, thus helping to keep the Greek religion Greek.
[Davidson in Ogden, p. 205] However, whereas her brother and sister did receive minor cults, and in Helios' case even major ones, Eos does not seem to have been the focus of any worship at all.
Thus there are no known temples, shrines, or altars to Eos. That being said, Ovid seems to allude to the existence of at least two shrines of Eos, as he describes them in plural, albeit few, in the lines:
Although this could simply be an understated way for Eos to say that she has no temples or shrines whatsoever, nevertheless Ovid may therefore have known of at least two such shrines.
The only traces of the goddess's worship can be found at Classical Athens, where wineless offerings (or nephalia) were made to Eos, along with other celestial gods and goddesses, including Eos's siblings Helios and Selene, as well as Aphrodite Urania, Mnemosyne, the Muses, and the nymphs.[Meagher, p. 142 n. 137; scholia on Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 91.] It is possible that the goddess addressed as Orthria and Aotis in a fragment by Alcman is Eos; this is highly debated, but if true, it could mean that Eos was worshipped in some capacity in Sparta during the Archaic period.[Alcman, PMGF 1.]
Identifications
Etruscan
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.
[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.] 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, 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.
[Goldberg 1987:605-614 casts doubt on the boy's identification, in the context of Etruscan and Greek abduction motifs.] On an Etruscan mirror Thesan is shown carrying off a young man, whose name is inscribed as Tinthu.
[Noted by Goldberg 1987: in I. Mayer-Prokop, Die gravierten etruskischen Griffspiegel archaischen Stils (Heidelberg) 1966, fig. 61.]
Roman
The
Roman mythology equivalent of Eos is Aurora, also a cognate showing the characteristic
Latin rhotacism. Dawn became associated in Roman cult with Matuta, later known as
Mater Matuta. She was also associated with the sea harbors and ports, and 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 during their first marriage.
Hemera
Although distinct deities in early works such as
Hesiod's
Theogony, later the tragic poets completely identified Eos with Hemera, the primordial goddess of the
day;
[Smith, s.v. Eos][Hard, p. 46] each of the three great Athenian tragedians,
Euripides,
Aeschylus and
Sophocles, used "Hemera" for the goddess who abducts Tithonus or drives a chariot drawn by white horses at daybreak in some work.
[Oakley and Palagia, p. 47]
Both goddesses were said to be daughters of Nyx (Night), albeit Eos was much more commonly the daughter of Hyperion by his wife. Pausanias, when describing depictions of Eos's myths at Classical Athens and Amyclae, he calls Eos by the name of Hemera.[Euphorion fr. 66 Lightfoot =.][Hard, p. 562] Eos, in contrast to Helios and Selene and more similarly to Hemera and Hemera's mother Nyx, embodies a part of the day and night cycle, instead of a celestial body.
Likewise, Eos was often referred to as Tito, another archaic word meaning day, and feminine equivalent to Titan, which is a common epithet of her brother Helios denoting his role as the creator of the day. Unlike Eos however, Hemera is little more than a name in Greek literature, with few and far between references about her and with no unique mythology outside of her parentage and the few stories appropriated from Eos.
Gallery
File:Aurora_and_Cephalus_-_Agostino_Carracci_-_1597_-_Farnese_Gallery,_Rome.jpg| Aurora and Cephalus from The Loves of the Gods fresco.
File:Eos körande fyrspann, Nordisk familjebok.png|Eos driving a four-horse chariot, from an antique vase.
File:Sarcophagus Selene Endymion Glyptothek Munich 328.jpg|Eos in the sarcophagus of Selene and Endymion.
File:Akroterion, fragments, Eos carries Cephalus, 425-417 BC, Delos, A04281, A04282, 143425.jpg|Fragments of Eos carrying off Cephalus, from Delos.
File:Pittore di lewis, skyphos con eos che rapisce tithonos e inseguimento amoroso 02.JPG| Eos abducts Tithonus, Archaeological Museum of Florence.
File:Ricci - Aurora and Tithonus c. 1700 - c. 1710, RCIN 907197.jpg|Eos and Tithonus, by Sebastiano Ricci.
File:Boucher - Céphale et l'Aurore, 1764.jpg|Céphale and Aurore, François Boucher.
File:Eos Kephalos Louvre LP1153.jpg|Eos carrying off a man in a relief from Milos.
File:Clock Aurora (France, middle 19 c.).jpg|A French clock with Eos.
File:Memnon vs Achilles RII1.png|Eos watches the battle between Memnon and Achilles.
File:Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659-Venice 1734) - Aurora and Tithonus - RCIN 404754 - Royal Collection.jpg|Eos and Tithonus by Sebastiano Ricci.
File:Eos adbucting Tithonos-MAHG MF 140-P6130559.JPG|Etruscan vase of Thesan (Eos) abducting Tinthu (Tithonus), circa 525–500 BC.
File:1932 Goddess of Dawn, as sculpted by Jorgen C. Dreyer.jpg|Goddess of Dawn, Jorgen Dreyer (1932)
File:Fickur med boett av silver med mytologisk figurscen, 1700-tal - Hallwylska museet - 110441 cropped detail.tif|Pocket watch with silver case with Eos and Cephalus (detail), 18th cent.
Genealogy
See also
-
Aquarius
-
Cumaean Sibyl, a mortal who was granted an extended lifetime but not eternal youth
-
List of solar deities
Notes
Bibliography
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Further reading
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Hatto, Arthur. T., Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers' Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry, 1965, Mouton & Co., the Hague. Google books.
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Jackson, Peter. "Πότνια Αὔως: The Greek Dawn-Goddess and Her Antecedent." Glotta 81 (2005): 116–23. Accessed May 10, 2020. .
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Lefkowitz, Mary R. ""Predatory" Goddesses." Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 71 (2002): 325–344. Accessed March 31, 2022. .
External links
