While most extant material about Thetis concerns her role as mother of Achilles and, as such, she is largely a creature of poetic fancy rather than cult worship in the historical period, there is one notable exception (see Thetis in Laconia below); a few fragmentary hints and references suggest an older layer of the tradition, in which the sea-goddess Thetis played a far more central role in the religious beliefs, practices, and imagination of some of the archaic Greeks
@paparotzie The pre-modern etymology of her name, from tithemi (τίθημι), "to set up, establish," suggests the perception among Classical Greeks of an early political role. Walter Burkert [1] considers her name a transformed doublet of Tethys.
In Iliad I, Achilles recalls to his mother her role in defending, and thus legitimizing, the reign of Zeus against an incipient rebellion by three Olympians, each of whom has pre-Olympian roots:
@paparotzie "You alone of all the gods saved Zeus the Darkener of the Skies from an inglorious fate, when some of the other Olympians—Hera, Poseidon, and Pallas Athene—had plotted to throw him into chains... You, goddess, went and saved him from that indignity. You quickly summoned to high Olympus the monster of the hundred arms whom the gods call Briareus, but mankind Aegaeon, [2] a giant more powerful even than his father.
@paparotzie Quintus of Smyrna, recalling this passage, does write that Thetis once released Zeus from chains;[3] but there is no other reference to this rebellion among the Olympians, and some readers, such as M. M. Willcock,[4] have understood the episode as an ad hoc invention of Homer's to support Achilles' request that his mother intervene with Zeus.
@paparotzie According to classical mythology, the wedding of Thetis and Peleus was celebrated on Mount Pelion outside the cave of Chiron and attended by the deities: there they celebrated the marriage with feasting. Apollo played the lyre and the Muses sang, Pindar claimed. At the wedding Chiron gave Peleus an ashen spear that had been polished by Athene and had a blade forged by Hephaestus, and Poseidon gave him the immortal horses, Balius and Xanthus.
While most extant material about Thetis concerns her role as mother of Achilles and, as such, she is largely a creature of poetic fancy rather than cult worship in the historical period, there is one notable exception (see Thetis in Laconia below); a few fragmentary hints and references suggest an older layer of the tradition, in which the sea-goddess Thetis played a far more central role in the religious beliefs, practices, and imagination of some of the archaic Greeks
paparotzie 1 year ago
@paparotzie The pre-modern etymology of her name, from tithemi (τίθημι), "to set up, establish," suggests the perception among Classical Greeks of an early political role. Walter Burkert [1] considers her name a transformed doublet of Tethys.
In Iliad I, Achilles recalls to his mother her role in defending, and thus legitimizing, the reign of Zeus against an incipient rebellion by three Olympians, each of whom has pre-Olympian roots:
paparotzie 1 year ago
@paparotzie "You alone of all the gods saved Zeus the Darkener of the Skies from an inglorious fate, when some of the other Olympians—Hera, Poseidon, and Pallas Athene—had plotted to throw him into chains... You, goddess, went and saved him from that indignity. You quickly summoned to high Olympus the monster of the hundred arms whom the gods call Briareus, but mankind Aegaeon, [2] a giant more powerful even than his father.
paparotzie 1 year ago
@paparotzie Quintus of Smyrna, recalling this passage, does write that Thetis once released Zeus from chains;[3] but there is no other reference to this rebellion among the Olympians, and some readers, such as M. M. Willcock,[4] have understood the episode as an ad hoc invention of Homer's to support Achilles' request that his mother intervene with Zeus.
paparotzie 1 year ago
@paparotzie According to classical mythology, the wedding of Thetis and Peleus was celebrated on Mount Pelion outside the cave of Chiron and attended by the deities: there they celebrated the marriage with feasting. Apollo played the lyre and the Muses sang, Pindar claimed. At the wedding Chiron gave Peleus an ashen spear that had been polished by Athene and had a blade forged by Hephaestus, and Poseidon gave him the immortal horses, Balius and Xanthus.
paparotzie 1 year ago