she is the daughter of Atlas, the upholder of the heavens, who in fulfilment of his office is variously placed by
mythologists in the extreme East and the remotest West[1].
Where the (
Greek characters) was situated, of which Apollodorus
speaks, in the fragment preserved by Strabo I. 432. Oxf., we
are not informed; but as it is mentioned along with the land
of the Gorgons and Hesperides and the Rhipæan mountains,
it was probably an imaginary chain of mountains on the
western boundary of the world, which hid the sun and caused
the darkness, as the Rhipæan mountains did on the North[2].
The name (Greek characters), given to the king of Lydia, whose
wealth and power of darkening himself, so as to become invisible, remind us so strongly of the Nibelunghort and the
Tarnkappe of the Northern poem, is probably derived from
the same root. The story of what passed between him and
Candaules (Her. I. 8. 12) seems to have had a mythological
origin, although Herodotus, or those who had told the tale
before him, have contrived to give it so much the air of a
court anecdote. (Greek characters) is also the name of one of the three
children of (Greek characters) and (Greek characters), Hes. Theog. 149.
The ideas of darkness and antiquity are closely connected:
ambagibus ævi
Obtegitur densa caligine mersa vetustas. Sil. Il. VIII. 44.
and hence (Greek characters) might easily come to signify (Greek characters) and be applied to an ancient king, of whom nothing more was known than that he was ancient. But I believe the origin of the king (Greek characters) to be different. Pausanias says (Attic. I. 38) that the people of Eleusis alleged their city to have been founded by a hero Eleusis, whom some made the son
- ↑ (
Greek characters) ((Greek characters) circus circulus) seems to be originally a representative of the "circle bounding earth and skies," the horizon; her abode therefore is variously placed in Hesperia or Colchis.
- ↑ The epithet (Greek characters) is applied by Æschylus Eumen. 1039 to the earth; (Greek characters), with which the sense of "dark" suits as well with the water of Styx Hes. Theog. 806. of which the source is thus described, (Greek characters). The last words explain the use of (Greek characters) of the water of Styx (Parthenius ap Steph. Byz. (Greek characters)) without implying any connexion between (Greek characters) and (Greek characters). The confusion of Ogyges with the Jupiter Ogoa of the Carians, produced the genealogy mentioned by Steph. Byz. (Greek characters) by which he was made the son of Termera. (Greek characters) was the old name of the Lycians, Herod. 7. 91.
