Side (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Side (Ancient Greek: Σίδη 'pomegranate[1]) or Sida was the name of the following figures:

• Side, eponym of the city of Sidon in Phoenicia. She was the wife of Belus, king of Egypt and the possible mother of his children. Otherwise, the wife of Belus was called Achiroe, daughter of the river-god Nilus.[2]
• Side, one of the Danaïdes, condemned to Tartarus for murdering her husband. From her, a town in Laconia was believed to derived its name from.[3]
• Side, the first wife of Orion and mother of his daughters Metioche and Menippe.[4] She was cast by Hera into Hades because she rivaled herself to be more beautiful than the goddess.[5] Modern scholars interpreted that the supposed marriage of Orion to Side ('pomegranate') is a mythical expression for the ripening of the fruit at the season when the constellation Orion is visible in the nightly sky.[1]

References

1. Cited from Footnote 4 of Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, 1.4.3; See Wilhelm Pape, Worterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen (Brunswick, 1884), ii.1383.
2. Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, 2.1.4 with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921
3. Pausanias. Description of Greece, 3.22.11
4. Antoninus Liberalis. Metamorphoses, 25
5. Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, 1.4.3