Adrasteia
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| Greek deities series |
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| Primordial deities | |
| Titans and Olympians | |
| Aquatic deities | |
| Chthonic deities | |
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In Greek mythology, Adrasteia ("inescapable"; also spelled Adrastia, Adrastea, Adrestea, Adastreia) was a nymph who was charged by Rhea to raise Zeus in secret to protect him from his father Cronus (Krónos). Adrasteia and her sister Ida, the nymph of Mount Ida, who also cared for the infant Zeus, were the daughters of Melisseus. The sisters fed the infant milk from the goat Amaltheia. The Korybantes, also known as the Curetes, who also watched over the child, kept Cronus from hearing him crying by beating their swords on their shields, drowning out the sound of the cries.
"Adrasteia"—"she whom none escapes"— is also an epithet applied to Rhea herself and toCybele, Nemesis and Ananke. As with Adrasteia, these four were especially associated with the dispensation of rewards and punishments.
The ball that Adrasteia gave to the infant Zeus, which Aphrodite promises to Eros in Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica (Book III), is described as if it were the Cosmos: "its zones are golden, and two circular joins[1]curve around each of them; the seams are concealed, as a twisting dark blue pattern plays over them. If you throw it up with your hands, it sends a flaming furrow through the sky like a star."[2]
[edit] Notes
- ^ The celestial equator and the ecliptic
- ^ The furrow is a meteor. Translation by Richard Hunter, Jason and the Golden Fleece, 1993 (Oxford:Clarendon Press), p 69.
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