Orithyia of Athens

In Greek mythology, Orithyia or Oreithyia (/ɒrɪˈθaɪ.ə/; Ancient Greek: Ὠρείθυια Ōreithuia; Latin: Ōrīthyia) was an Athenian princess who was raped by Boreas, the north wind, and gave birth to the twin Boreads, Zetes and Calaïs.

For other uses, see Orithyia (mythology).
Boreas & Oreithyia Louvre

Family

Orithyia was the fifth daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens and his wife, Praxithea, daughter of Phrasimus and Diogeneia.[1] She was sister to Cecrops, Pandorus, Metion, Protogeneia, Pandora, Procris, Creusa, and Chthonia.[2] Her other possible siblings were Merope,[3] Orneus,[4] Thespius,[5] Eupalamus[6] and Sicyon.[7]

Orithyia gave Boreas two daughters, Chione and Cleopatra (the wife of Phineus) and two sons, Calais and Zetes, both known as the Boreads.[8] These sons grew wings like their father and joined the Argonauts in the quest for the golden fleece.[9]

Legends
Folding mirror depicting the abduction of Orithyia by Boreas at the cover. Post 300 BC, found in Eretria at Euboea. National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Boreas, the north wind, fell in love with Orithyia. At first he attempted to woo her, but after failing at that he decided to take her by force, as violence felt more natural to him.[10] While she was playing by the Ilissos River,[11] Orithyia was carried off to Sarpedon's Rock, near the Erginos River in Thrace. There she was wrapped in a cloud and attacked.[12] Aeschylus wrote a satyr play about the abduction called Orithyia which has been lost.

Plato wrote somewhat mockingly that there may have been a rational explanation for her story. She may have been killed on the rocks of the river when a gust of northern wind came, and so she was said to have been 'taken by Boreas'. He also mentioned in another account that she was taken by Boreas not along the Ilissos, but from the Areopagus, a rock outcropping near the Acropolis where murderers were tried.[13] However, many scholars regard this as a later gloss.[14]

Plato also recounted that Orithyia was playing with a companion nymph Pharmacea.[15]

Because she was in Thrace with Boreas, she did not die when her sisters who either committed suicide or were sacrificed so that Athens could win a war against Eleusis.

In the Posthomerica of Quintus Smyrnaeus, she gave Penthesileia a very swift horse when she visited Thrace. [16]

Orithyia was later made into the goddess of cold mountain winds. It is said that prior to the destruction of a large number of barbarian ships due to weather during the Persian War, the Athenians offered sacrifices to Boreas and Oreithyia, praying for their assistance.[17]

In art

Notes
  1. Apollodorus, 3.15.1
  2. Apollodorus, 3.15.1; Suida, s.v. Maidens, Virgins (Παρθένοι)
  3. Plutarch, Theseus 19.5
  4. Pausanias, 2.25.6; Plutarch, Theseus 32.1; Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Orneiai
  5. Diodorus Siculus, 4.29.2
  6. Diodorus Siculus, 4.76.1
  7. Pausanias, 2.6.5, citing Hesiod (Ehoiai fr. 224) for Erechtheus
  8. Scholiast on Homer, Odyssey 14.533
  9. Pindar, Pythian Odes 4.8
  10. Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.683
  11. Apollodorus, 3.15.2
  12. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 1.212
  13. Plato, Phaedrus 229
  14. See Fowler's translation of Plato, Phaedrus 229d
  15. Plato, Phaedrus 229c
  16. Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica 1.165-169
  17. Herodotus, 7.189
  18. artothek.de
  19. nationalmuseum.az
  20. Walters Art Museum
  21. Art Gallery of Ontario
  22. "The Rape of Orithyia by Boreas".

References
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