Ourea
In Greek mythology, the Ourea (Ancient Greek: Oὔρεα "mountains," plural of Oὖρος) were progeny of Gaia, members of the Greek primordial deities, who were the first-born elemental gods and goddesses. According to Hesiod:
The ten ourea, Aitna, Athos, Helikon, Kithairon, Nysos, Olympus I, Olympus II (Mount Uludağ) Oreios, Parnes, and Tmolus, like Uranus and Pontus, were parthenogenetic offspring of Gaia alone. The Greeks rarely personified an individual mountain; an exception might be Tmolus, both a king and a mountain in Lydia. Each mountain was said to have its own local nymph, an oread.
Peak sanctuaries, a feature of Minoan civilization on Crete, are also identified in some archaic sites in mainland Greece.[2] They are not thought to be dedicated to the mountain itself.
Notes
- Hesiod, Theogony, 129–131; cf. Argonautica, 1.498.
- Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, 1985:26–28.
References
- Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica translated by Robert Cooper Seaton (1853-1915), R. C. Loeb Classical Library Volume 001. London, William Heinemann Ltd, 1912. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
- Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica. George W. Mooney. London. Longmans, Green. 1912. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Fitz Simon, James A., Vincent Alphonso Fitz Simon, The Gods of Old: and The Story That They Tell, T. Fisher Unwin, 1899. p. 27
- Hard, Robin, Herbert Jennings Rose, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek mythology", Routledge, 2004. ISBN 978-0-415-18636-0. p. 24
- Hesiod, Theogony from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
- Littleton, Scott and the Marshall Cavendish Corporation Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology, Volume 1. Marshall Cavendish, 2005. ISBN 978-0-7614-7559-0. pp. 1020, 1134