Asteria (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Asteria (/əˈstɪəriə/; Ancient Greek: Ἀστερία, "of the stars, starry one") was a name attributed to the following eleven individuals:

• Asteria, a Titaness.[1]
• Asteria or Astris, daughter of Helios and Clymene[2] or Ceto,[3] one of the Heliades.[4] She married the river god Hydaspes (the modern Jhelum River) and became mother of Deriades, king in India.
• Asteria, one of the Danaïdes, daughters of Danaus who, with one exception, murdered their husbands on their wedding nights. She was, briefly, the bride of Chaetus.[5]
• Asteria, one of the Alkyonides. Along with her sisters, she flung herself into the sea and was transformed into a kingfisher.[6]
• Asteria, daughter of Hydeus, was the mother of Hydissos by Bellerophon. Her son is known for having founded a city in Caria which was named after him.[7]
• Asteria, daughter of Coronus, and Apollo were possible parents of the seer Idmon.[8]
• Asteria[9] or Asterodia,[10] mother of Crisus and Panopeus by Phocus.
• Asteria, daughter of Teucer and Eune of Cyprus.[11]
• Asteria, the ninth Amazon killed by Heracles when he came for Hippolyte's girdle.[12]
• Asteria, an Athenian maiden who was one of the would-be sacrificial victims of Minotaur, portrayed in a vase painting.[13]

Christoph Willibald Gluck gave the name Asteria to one of the characters in his 1765 opera Telemaco, though the name did not appear in Homer's Odyssey on which the opera was based.

Notes

1. Hesiod, Theogony 404 ff
2. Nonnus, Dionysiaca 17.282
3. Nonnus, Dionysiaca 26.351–355
4. Nonnus, Dionysiaca 17.282, 23.236, 26.355, 27.199–203, 33.151–152.
5. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.1.5
6. Suida, Suda Encyclopedia s.v. Alkyonides
7. Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica s.v. Hydissos
8. Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 1. 139, citing Pherecydes
9. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 53
10. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 939
11. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 450
12. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 4.16.3
13. Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum 4. 8185 (painting on François Vase)

References

• Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Vol. 3. Books 4.59–8. Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site
• Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1-2. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888–1890. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
• 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.
• Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library 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. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
• Stephanus of Byzantium, Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
• Suida, Suda Encyclopedia translated by Ross Scaife, David Whitehead, William Hutton, Catharine Roth, Jennifer Benedict, Gregory Hays, Malcolm Heath Sean M. Redmond, Nicholas Fincher, Patrick Rourke, Elizabeth Vandiver, Raphael Finkel, Frederick Williams, Carl Widstrand, Robert Dyer, Joseph L. Rife, Oliver Phillips and many others. Online version at the Topos Text Project.