Melia (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Melia or Melie (Ancient Greek Μελία, Μελίη) was the name of several figures.[1] The name Melia comes from μελία, the ancient Greek word for ash-tree.[2] In the plural, the Meliae were a class of nymphs associated with trees, particularly ash-trees. There were several other nymphs (or possible nymphs) named Melia, not necessarily associated with trees, these include:[3]

Two other personages named Melia, are known from scholia citing the fifth-century BC mythographer Pherecydes:

Notes

  1. Smith, s.v. Melia.
  2. LSJ s.v. μελία; Frazer's note 2 to Apollodorus, 2.5.4
  3. Joseph Fontenrose, p. 318, referring to these Melian nymphs, grandly speculates that "there appear to be one and the same original behind all these nymphs; the chaos demoness who was the first mother of all creatures."
  4. Fowler 2013, p. 219; Alexander Aetolus fr. 9 Powell = Strabo, 12.4.8, 14.5.29; cf. Apollodorus, 2.5.4 where an unnamed Melian nymph is the mother by Silenus of the centaur Pholus.
  5. Fowler 2013, pp. 511, 512; Callimachus, Aetia fr. 75.62 (Trypanis, Gelzer, and Whitman, pp, 60, 61).
  6. Gantz, p. 208; Pherecydes fr. 21 Fowler 2000, p. 289 = FGrHist 3 F 21 = Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, 3.1177-87f.
  7. Fowler 2013, p. 367; Pherecydes fr. 126 Fowler 2000, p. 342 = FGrHist 3 F 126 = Scholia on Euripides, Phoenician Women 159.

References

  • Callimachus: Aetia, Iambi, Hecale and Other Fragments; Musaeus: Hero and Leander. Edited and translated by C. A. Trypanis, T. Gelzer, Cedric H. Whitman. Loeb Classical Library No. 421. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. ISBN 978-0-674-99463-8. Online version at Harvard University Press.
  • Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, University of California Press, 1959. ISBN 9780520040915.
  • Fowler, R. L. (2000), Early Greek Mythography: Volume 1: Text and Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0198147404.
  • Fowler, R. L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0198147411.
  • Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
  • Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1867). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
  • Strabo, Geography, translated by Horace Leonard Jones; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. (1924). LacusCurtis, Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, Books 614.


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