Teti

Teti (in greco antico: Τηθύς, Tēthýs) o Tetide è un personaggio della mitologia greca, una titanide figlia di Urano (il cielo) e di Gea (la terra).

Genealogia

Teti fu sia sorella che moglie di Oceano e da lui ebbe le Oceanine, ed i Potamoi ed anche i Nefelai ovvero le ninfe delle nuvole e della pioggia ed era considerata la madre dei principali fiumi del mondo allora conosciuto dai Greci, come il Nilo, l'Alfeo e il Meandro, oltre che di tremila figlie dette Oceanine, fra le quali si ricorda Stige.

Mitologia

Anche se ha un ruolo centrale nei miti riguardanti la creazione ed alcuni inni sono a lei dedicati, Teti non ha praticamente nessun ruolo nei testi letterari greci o nella religione greca e nemmeno nei suoi culti. A tal proposito Walter Burkert afferma che Teti non è in alcun modo una figura attiva nella mitologia greca..
Alcuni dei pochi miti in cui si fa menzione di Teti, sono quelli relativi alla grande dea Era. Questa divinità infatti, mentre era ancora una fanciulla ed infuriava la guerra tra i Titani e gli Olimpi, si rifugiò all'estremo del mondo, presso Oceano e Teti e venne da loro amorevolmente allevata come una figlia adottiva. In seguito, come rileva anche il capitolo XIV dell'Iliade, Teti è presente nel mito in cui Era, per ingannare Zeus e renderlo geloso, afferma di volersene andare lontano da lui, per i suoi continui tradimenti e tornare da Oceano (l'"origine degli dei") e da Teti "la madre".
In un'altra occasione Teti aiutò la dea Era a prendersi una rivincita sul marito Zeus, che aveva partorito Atena dalla testa; Teti fornì ad Era un'alga, che una volta inghiottita, le permise di partorire Efesto per partenogenesi.
Indicativo del potere di Tetide è ciò che compie nel mito relativo ad Era, che le chieda di fare qualcosa, perché dispiaciuta del fatto che Zeus abbia posto Callisto ed Arcade in cielo come costellazioni (come Orsa Maggiore e Orsa Minore). Perciò, per fare un favore alla sua amata figlioccia, Tetide proibisce a queste costellazioni di riuscire mai a tramontare (infatti sono costellazioni circumpolari, cioè ruotano perennemente attorno al Polo Nord, senza mai trovare riposto sotto l'orizzonte).

Etimologia

Bürkert vede nel nome Teti una trasformazione dell'accadico tiamtu o tâmtu, "il mare", che è riconoscibile in Tiāmat, la dea babilonese delle acque salate. Robert Graves invece interpreta come origine del nome il termine in greco antico "tîtthe" (ἡ τίτθη) "prendersi cura"
Una delle poche rappresentazioni di Teti, identificata in modo sicuro grazie a un'iscrizione, è il Tardo Antico (IV secolo) mosaico dal pavimento di un edificio termale ad Antiochia, ora conservato a Dumbarton Oaks (Washington D.C.).
Teti viene talvolta confusa con un'altra dea marina, la nereide Teti, moglie di Peleo e madre di Achille. In greco, tuttavia, i due nomi non sono affatto omofoni: il nome della titanide è Τηθύς, mentre quello della Nereide Θέτις, che nella traslitterazione italiana vengono a confondersi.

Genealogia (Esiodo)

Urano

Gaia

Ponto

Oceano

TETI

Iperione

Teia

Crio

Euribia

Potamoi

Oceanine

Helios

Selene

Eos

Astreo

Pallante

Perse

Crono

Rea

Ceo

Febe

Estia

Era

Ade

Zeus

Latona

Asteria

Demetra

Poseidone

Giapeto

Asia (Clymene)

Temi

(Zeus)

Mnemosine

Atlante

Menezio

Prometeo

Epimeteo

Ore

Muse

Uso moderno del nome

Teti, il satellite del pianeta Saturno e Tetide, l'oceano preistorico omonimo, sono stati così denominati ispirandosi a questa divinità.

A mosaic of Tethys from the Antakya Museum in Turkey - she was a Greek deity who oversaw the fresh water rivers of the world and the mother and grandmother of thousands of other deities.

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In Greek mythology, Tethys (/ˈtiːθɪs, ˈtɛθɪs/; Greek: Τηθύς), was a Titan daughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Titan Oceanus, mother of the Potamoi and the Oceanids. Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults.

Genealogy

Tethys was one of the Titan offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Hesiod lists her Titan siblings as Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Cronus. Tethys married her brother Oceanus, an enormous river encircling the world and was by him the mother of numerous sons, the Potamoi and numerous daughters, the Oceanids.
According to Hesiod, there were three thousand river-gods. These included: Achelous, the god of the Achelous River and the largest river in Greece who gave his daughter in marriage to Alcmaeon and was defeated by Heracles in a wrestling contest for the right to marry Deianira; Alpheus, who fell in love with the nymph Arethusa and pursued her to Syracuse where she was transformed into a spring by Artemis; and Scamander who fought on the side of the Trojans during the Trojan War and got offended when Achilles polluted his waters with a large number of Trojan corpses, overflowed his banks nearly drowning Achilles.
According to Hesiod, there were also three thousand Oceanids. These included: Metis, Zeus' first wife, whom Zeus impregnated with Athena and then swallowed; Eurynome, Zeus' third wife, and mother of the Charites; Doris, the wife of Nereus and mother of the Nereids; Callirhoe, the wife of Chrysaor and mother of Geryon; Clymene, the wife of Iapetus, and mother of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus; Perseis, wife of Helios and mother of Circe and Aeetes; Idyia, wife of Aeetes and mother of Medea; and Styx, goddess of the river Styx, and the wife of Pallas and mother of Zelus, Nike, Kratos and Bia.
Passages in a section of the Iliad called the Deception of Zeus, suggest the possibility that Homer knew a tradition in which Oceanus and Tethys (rather than Uranus and Gaia, as in Hesiod) were the parents of the Titans. Twice Homer has Hera describe the pair as "Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys", while in the same passage Hypnos describes Oceanus as "from whom they all are sprung". Timothy Gantz points out that "mother" may simply refer to the fact that Tethys was Hera's foster mother for a time, as Hera tells us in the lines immediately following, while the reference to Oceanus as the genesis of the gods "might be simply a formulaic epithet indicating the numberless rivers and springs descended from Okeanos" (compare with Iliad 21.195–197).However, for M. L. West, these lines suggests a myth in which Oceanus and Tethys are the "first parents of the whole race of gods.^" Perhaps as an attempt to reconcile this possible conflict between Homer and Hesiod, Plato, in his Timaeus, has Uranus and Gaia as the parents of Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys as the parents of Cronus and Rhea and the other Titans, as well as Phorcys.

Genealogical chart

Tethys' family tree

Uranus

Gaia

Pontus

Oceanus

TETHYS

Hyperion

Theia

Crius

Eurybia

The Rivers

The Oceanids

Helios

Selene

Eos

Astraeus

Pallas

Perses

Cronus

Rhea

Coeus

Phoebe

Hestia

Hera

Hades

Zeus

Leto

Asteria

Demeter

Poseidon

Iapetus

Clymene (or Asia)

Themis

(Zeus)

Mnemosyne

Atlas

Menoetius

Prometheus

Epimetheus

The Horae

The Muses

Mythology

Tethys played no active part in Greek mythology, the only early story concerning Tethys, is what Homer has Hera briefly relate in the Iliad's Deception of Zeus passage. There, Hera says that, when Zeus was in the process of deposing Cronus, she was given by her mother Rhea to Tethys and Oceanus, for safekeeping, and that they "lovingly nursed and cherished me in their halls". Hera relates this while dissembling that she is on her way to visit Oceanus and Tethys, in hopes of reconciling her foster parents, who are angry with each other and are no longer having sexual relations.
Originally Oceanus' consort, at a later time Tethys came to be identified with the sea, and in Hellenistic and Roman poetry Tethys' name came to be used as a poetic term for the sea.
The only other story involving Tethys is an apparently late astral myth concerning the polar constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear), which was thought to represent the catasterism of Callisto, who was transformed into a bear, and placed by Zeus among the stars. The myth explains why the constellation never sets below the horizon, saying that since Callisto had been Zeus's lover, she was forbidden by Tethys from "touching Ocean's deep", out of concern for her foster-child Hera, Zeus's jealous wife.
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Tethys turns Aesacus into a diving bird.
Tethys was sometimes confused with another sea goddess, the sea-nymph Thetis, the wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles.

Tethys as Tiamat

M. L. West detects in the Iliad's Deception of Zeus passage an allusion to a possible archaic myth "according to which [Tethys] was the mother of the gods, long estranged from her husband," speculating that the estrangement might refer to a separation of "the upper and lower waters ... corresponding to that of heaven and earth," which parallels the story of "Apsū and Tiamat in the Babylonian cosmology, the male and female waters, which were originally united (En. El. I. 1 ff.)," but that, "By Hesiod's time the myth may have been almost forgotten, and Tethys remembered only as the name of Oceanus' wife." This possible correspondence between Oceanus and Tethys, and Apsū and Tiamat, has been noticed by several authors, with Tethys' name possibly having been derived from that of Tiamat.

Iconography

Representations of Tethys prior to the Roman period are rare. Tethys appears, identified by inscription (ΘΕΘΥΣ), as part of an illustration of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis on the early sixth century BC Attic black-figure "Erskine" dinos by Sophilos (British M 1971.111–1.1). Tethys, accompanied by Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, follows close behind Oceanus, at the end of a procession of gods invited to the wedding. Tethys is also conjectured to be represented in a similar illustration of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis depicted on the early sixth century BC Attic black-figure François Vase (Florence 4209). Tethys probably also appeared as one of the gods fighting the Giants in the Gigantomachy frieze of the second century BC Pergamon Altar. Only fragments of the figure remain, a part of a chiton, below Oceanus' left arm, and a hand clutching a large tree branch visible, behind Oceanus' head.
The above are the only artistic representations of Tethys known prior to the Roman period. However, during the second to fourth centuries AD, Tethys, sometimes with Oceanus, sometimes alone, became a relatively frequent feature of mosaics decorating baths, pools and triclinia, in the Greek East, particularly in Antioch and its suburbs. Her identifying attributes are wings sprouting from her forehead, a rudder/oar, and a ketos, a creature from Greek mythology with the head of a dragon and the body of a snake. The earliest of these mosaics, identified as Tethys, decorated a triclinium overlooking a pool, excavated from the House of the Calendar in Antioch, dated to shortly after AD 115 (Hatay Archaeology Museum 850). Tethys, reclining on the left, with Oceanus reclining on the right, has long hair and a winged forehead, is nude to the waist, with draped legs. A ketos twines around her raised right arm. Other mosaics of Tethys with Oceanus include: Hatay Archaeology Museum 1013 (from the House of Menander, Daphne), Hatay Archaeology Museum 9095, and Baltimore Museum of Art 1937.126 (from the House of the Boat of Psyches: triclinium).
In other mosaics, Tethys appears without Oceanus. One of these is a fourth century AD mosaic from a pool (probably a public bath) found at Antioch, now installed in Boston, Massachusetts at the Harvard Business School's Morgan Hall, and formerly at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. (Dumbarton Oaks 76.43). Besides the Sophilos dinos, this is the only other representation of Tethys identified by inscription. Here Tethys, with a winged forehead, rises from the sea bare shouldered, with long dark hair parted in the middle. A golden rudder rests against her right shoulder. Others include: Hatay Archaeology Museum 9097, Shahba Museum (in situ), Baltimore Museum of Art 1937.118 (from the House of the Boat of Psyches: Room six), and Memorial Art Gallery 42.2.
Toward the end of the period represented by these mosaics, Tethys' iconography appears to merge with that of another sea goddess Thalassa, the Greek personification of the sea (thalassa being the Greek word for the sea). Such a transformation would be consistent with the frequent use of Tethys' name as a poetic reference to the sea in Roman poetry (see above).

Modern use of the name

Tethys, a moon of the planet Saturn, and the prehistoric Tethys Ocean are named after this goddess.

Category:Tethys photograph of a mosaic of Tethys from Phillopolis that dates to the mid-fourth-century; she is a goddess who most probably was a primordial deity in Archaic Greece, but who was seen in Classical myths as the deity responsible for the fresh water rivers of the world and the progenitor of thousands of water deities

83d40m

tethys by lrasan

Mosaic (detail) of Tethys and Oceanus, excavated from the House of Menander, Daphne (modern Harbiye, Turkey), third century AD, Hatay Archaeology Museum 1013.

Nevit Dilmen (talk) - Own work

Photographs from Antakya Archaeological Museum. Oceanos, with crab-claw horns, and his wife Tethys.

tethys by taniaart

Tethys (Řecká mytologie)

tethys thalassa by 666 lucemon 666

Gli dei Oceano e Teti dalla Patera di Parabiago, un piatto in argento sbalzato del 361/363 d.C. È conservato nel Museo archeologico di Milano. Foto di Giovanni Dall'Orto, 13 marzo 2012.

tethys goddess of water by natebaertsch

Franz conrad linck, oceano e teti, frankenthal, 1765 ca

I, Sailko

tethys by darthcrotalus

Mosaic met een voorstelling van de godin Tethys, de godin van de zee en de ondergrondse rivieren in de Griekse mythologie.

Tethys_(mythologie)

Rita Willaert from 9890 Gavere, Belgium - Garni - Armenia

tethys titaness goddess by tffan234

Gabriel Grupello, Fontaine murale aux dieux marins (marbre) : détail (Téthys). Commandée par la gilde des Poissonniers de Bruxelles en 1675. Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique

Michel wal - Opera propria

Tethys sisters by lolita artz

Juno Complaining to Oceanus and Thetis

Holland, published 1590 Book: Metamorphoses by Ovid, book 2, plate 10 Prints; engravings Engraving Graphic Arts Council Curatorial Discretionary Fund (M.71.76.10) Prints and Drawings

Hendrik Goltzius (after) (Holland, Mülbracht, 1558-1617), Hendrik Goltzius (Holland, Mülbracht [now Bracht-am-Niederrhein], 1558-1617) - Gallery: http://collections.lacma.org/node/238095 copia archiviata su Wayback Machine (archiviato il 17 maggio 2014)

tethys by xblondiemomentsx

Athenian, black-figure Dinos by Sophilos, c. 590 BC (London, British Museum, signature 1971.11-1.1): Detail from a depiction of the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis, attended by several gods in chariots. Behind Athena and Artemis in the last chariot, Thetis' grandfather, the fish-tailed sea-god Okeanos, his wife Tethys, and Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, follow the procession.© Trustees of the British Museum - © Trustees of the British Museum

tethys and oceanus by darkwater9.

Tethys reclining in a giant shell chariot pulled by two sea creatures

1588–90

tethys by akuppersmith

The Pantheon, or, Fabulous history of the heathen gods, goddesses, heroes, &c. - explained in a manner entirely new adorned with figures from ancient paintings, medals, and gems with a dissertation on (14771147114).

1792

tethys

Indulgent Tethys

Mosaic on the floor at the bathhouse of Garni with the image of Tethys. Made between the 1st and 3rd centuries A.D. Mosaico en el piso de un baño público de Garni con la imagen de Tetis (nereida). Hecho entre los siglos I y III despues de Cristo