Melia (Oceanid)

In Greek mythology, Melia is the name of one (or two) of the Oceanid daughters of Oceanus and Tethys.

Mythology

The late 6th–early 5th century BC Greek poet Pindar tells us that Melia, a daughter of Oceanus, was, by Apollo, the mother of the seer Tenerus.[1] The 2nd century AD Greek geographer Pausanias provides a more complete account.[2] According to Pausanias, Melia was abducted; Melia's father Oceanus ordered his son Caanthus to find her. Caanthus found her at Thebes being held by Apollo. Unable to get Melia away from Apollo, Caanthus set fire to Apollo's sanctuary, and Apollo shot and killed him. In addition to Tenerus, to whom Apollo gave the "art of divination", Melia had another son by Apollo, Ismenus, after whom the river was named. However, the 3rd century BC poet Callimachus appears to make this Melia, rather than a daughter of Oceanus, one of the "earth-born" Meliae, the ash tree nymphs, who, according to Hesiod, were the daughters of Gaia [Earth] and Uranus's blood, which dripped on Gaia when Uranus was castrated by Cronus.[3]

According to the mythographer Apollodorus, another Melia, also an Oceanid, (or possibly the same as the above Melia) was the wife of her brother Inachus, the son of Oceanus and Tethys, and the god of the Inacos River, by whom Melia had two sons, Phoroneus, and Aegialeus.[4] However, according to the Latin mythographer Hyginus, Inachus fathered Phoroneus by an Oceanid nymph named Argia. This Melia was also said to have been the mother, by Inachus, of Mycene, the wife of Arestor, and eponym of Mycenae.[5]

References

  1. Pindar, Paean 9 fr. 52k 38–46; Larson, pp. 4041, 142.
  2. Pausanias, 9.10.5, 6, 9.26.1; Larson, p. 142.
  3. Callimachus, Hymn 4—To Delos 79–85; Hesiod, Theogony 187; Larson, p. 142.
  4. Apollodorus, 2.1.1; Larson, p. 149; Hard, p. 276.
  5. Scholiast on the Odyssey 2.120 (West, pp. 160, 161 8*); compare with Pausanias, 2.16.4, which, citing the Great Ehoiai, says that Mycene was the daughter of Inachus and the wife of Arestor, without naming the mother.

Sources

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