Oreithyia
Greek · mortal · heroic age · mortal
Athenian Erechtheid princess, daughter of Erechtheus and Praxithea; carried off by the north wind Boreas from the banks of the Ilissus; mother of the Boread twins Calais and Zetes by Boreas in Thrace. The abduction was a historically-active myth in classical Athens — Herodotus 7.189 records Athenian invocations of Boreas as son-in-law (gambros) before the Battle of Artemisium (480 BCE) on the basis of the marriage. The Plato Phaedrus passage (229b-d) has Socrates rationalize the myth as a fall from a wind-blown cliff while gathering flowers — the philosophical critique preserved alongside the mythographic version.
Parentage
Children
Domains
- wind
Relations
- sibling: Procris
- sibling: Cecrops II
- sibling: Pandorus
- sibling: Metion
- mother of: Cleopatra
- lover: Boreas
- mother of: Calais
- mother of: Zetes