In Greek mythology, Tethys (; ) was one of the Titans, the children of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), the sister and wife of the Titan Oceanus, and the mother of the river gods and the Oceanids. Although Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults,Burkert, p. 92. she was depicted in mosaics decorating baths, pools, and triclinia in the Greek East, particularly in Antioch and its suburbs, either alone or with Oceanus.
Genealogy Tethys was one of the Titan offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth).Hesiod, Theogony 126 ff.; Caldwell, p. 35 line 126-128. Compare with Diodorus Siculus, 5.66.1–3, which says that the Titans (including Tethys) "were born, as certain writers of myths relate, of Uranus and Gê, but according to others, of one of the Curetes and Titaea, from whom as their mother they derive the name". Hesiod lists her Titan siblings as Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Cronus.Apollodorus adds Dione to this list, while Diodorus Siculus leaves out Theia. Tethys married her brother Oceanus, an enormous river encircling the world, and was by him the mother of numerous sons (the river gods) and numerous daughters (the Oceanids).Hesiod, Theogony 337–370; Homer, Iliad 200–210, 14.300–304, 21.195–197; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 137–138 (Sommerstein, pp. 458, 459), Seven Against Thebes 310–311 (Sommerstein, pp. 184, 185); Hyginus, Fabulae Preface (Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 95). For Tethys as mother of the river gods, see also: Diodorus Siculus, 4.69.1, 72.1. For Tethys as mother of the Oceanids, see also: Apollodorus, 1.2.2; Callimachus, Hymn 3.40–45 (Mair, pp. 62, 63); Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, 242–244 (Seaton, pp. 210, 211). For a discussion of these offspring of Oceanus and Tethys, see Hard, pp. 40–43.
According to Hesiod, there were three thousand (i.e. innumerable) river gods.Hard, p. 40; Hesiod, Theogony 364–368, which says there are "as many" rivers as the "three thousand neat-ankled daughters of Ocean", and at 330–345, names 25 of these river gods: Nilus, Alpheus, Eridanos, Strymon, Maiandros, Istros, Phasis, Rhesus, Achelous, Nessos, Rhodius, Haliacmon, Heptaporus, Granicus, Aesepus, Simoeis, Peneus, Hermus, Caicus, Sangarius, Ladon, Parthenius, Evenus, Aldeskos, and Scamander. Compare with Acusilaus fr. 1 Fowler [= FGrHist 2 1 = Vorsokr. 9 B 21 = Macrobius, Saturnalia 5.18.9–10], which says that from Oceanus and Tethys, "spring three thousand rivers". These included Achelous, the god of the Achelous River, the largest river in Greece, who gave his daughter in marriage to AlcmaeonApollodorus, 3.7.5. and was defeated by Heracles in a wrestling contest for the right to marry Deianira;Apollodorus, 1.8.1, 2.7.5. Alpheus, who fell in love with the nymph Arethusa and pursued her to Syracuse, where she was transformed into a spring by Artemis;Smith, s.v. "Alpheius". and Scamander who fought on the side of the Trojans during the Trojan War and, offended when Achilles polluted his waters with a large number of Trojan corpses, overflowed his banks nearly drowning Achilles.Homer, Iliad 20.74, 21.211 ff..
According to Hesiod, there were also three thousand Oceanids.Hesiod, Theogony 346–366, which names 41 Oceanids: Peitho, Admete, Ianthe, Electra, Doris, Prymno, Urania, Hippo, Clymene, Rhodea, Callirhoe, Zeuxo, Clytie, Idyia, Pasithoe, Plexaura, Galaxaura, Dione, Melobosis, Thoe, Polydora, Cerceis, Plouto, Perseis, Ianeira, Acaste, Xanthe, Petraea, Menestho, Europa, Metis, Eurynome, Telesto, Chryseis, Asia, Calypso, Eudora, Tyche, Amphirho, Ocyrhoe, and Styx. These included Metis, Zeus's first wife, whom Zeus impregnated with Athena and then swallowed;Hesiod, Theogony 886–900; Apollodorus, 1.3.6 Eurynome, Zeus's third wife, and mother of the Charites;Hesiod, Theogony 907–909; Apollodorus, 1.3.1. Other sources give the Charites other parents, see Smith, s.v. "Charis". Doris, the wife of Nereus and mother of the Nereids;Hesiod, Theogony 240–264; Apollodorus, 1.2.7. Callirhoe, the wife of Chrysaor and mother of Geryon;Hesiod, Theogony 286–288; Apollodorus, 2.5.10. Clymene, the wife of Iapetus, and mother of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus;Hesiod, Theogony 351, however according to Apollodorus, 1.2.3, another Oceanid, Asia was their mother by Iapetus; Perseis, wife of Helios and mother of Circe and Aeetes;Hesiod, Theogony 956–957; Apollodorus, 1.9.1. Idyia, wife of Aeetes and mother of Medea;Hesiod, Theogony 958–962; Apollodorus, 1.9.23. and Styx, goddess of the river Styx, and the wife of Pallas and mother of Zelus, Nike, Kratos, and Bia.Hesiod, Theogony 383–385; Apollodorus, 1.2.4.
Primeval mother Passages in book 14 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 primeval parents of the gods.Fowler 2013, pp. 8, 11; Hard, pp. 36–37, p. 40; West 1997, p. 147; Gantz, p. 11; Burkert 1995, pp. 91–92; West 1983, pp. 119–120. Twice Homer has Hera describe the pair as "Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys".Homer, Iliad 14.201, 302 [= 201]. According to M. L. West, these lines suggests a myth in which Oceanus and Tethys are the "first parents of the whole race of gods."West 1997, p. 147. However, as Timothy Gantz points out, "mother" could 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).Gantz, p. 11. But, in a later Iliad passage, Hypnos also describes Oceanus as "genesis for all", which, according to Gantz, is hard to understand as meaning other than that, for Homer, Oceanus was the father of the Titans.Gantz, p. 11; Homer, Iliad 14.245.
Plato, in his Timaeus, provides a genealogy (probably Orphic) which perhaps reflected an attempt to reconcile this apparent divergence between Homer and Hesiod, in which Uranus and Gaia are the parents of Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys are the parents of Cronus and Rhea and the other Titans, as well as Phorcys.Gantz, pp. 11–12; West 1983, pp. 117–118; Fowler 2013, p. 11; Plato, Timaeus 40d–e. In his Cratylus, Plato quotes Orpheus as saying that Oceanus and Tethys were "the first to marry", possibly also reflecting an Orphic theogony in which Oceanus and Tethys—rather than Uranus and Gaia—were the primeval parents.West 1983, pp. 118–120; Fowler 2013, p. 11; Plato, Cratylus 402b [= Orphic fr. 15 Kern]. Plato's apparent inclusion of Phorcys as a Titan (being the brother of Cronus and Rhea), and the mythographer Apollodorus's inclusion of Dione, the mother of Aphrodite by Zeus, as a thirteenth Titan,Apollodorus, 1.1.3, 1.3.1. suggests an Orphic tradition in which Hesiod's twelve Titans were the offspring of Oceanus and Tethys, with Phorcys and Dione taking the place of Oceanus and Tethys.Gantz, p. 743.
According to Epimenides, the first two beings, Night and Aer, produced Tartarus, who in turn produced two Titans (possibly Oceanus and Tethys) from whom came the world egg.Fowler 2013, pp. 7–8.
Mythology Tethys played no active part in Greek mythology. The only early story concerning Tethys is what Homer has Hera briefly relate in the Iliads Deception of Zeus passage.Gantz, p. 28: "For Tethys, there are no myths at all, save for Hera's comment in the Iliad that she was given by Rhea to Tethys to raise when Zeus was deposing Kronos"; Burkert, p. 92: "Tethys is in no way an active figure in Greek mythology"; West 1997, p. 147: "In early poetry she is merely an inactive mythological figure who lives with Oceanus and has borne his children." 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".Homer, Iliad 14.201–204. Hera relates this while dissembling that she is on her way to visit Oceanus and Tethys in the hopes of reconciling her foster parents, who are angry with each other and are no longer having sexual relations.
Originally Oceanus's consort, at a later time Tethys came to be identified with the sea, and in Hellenistic and Roman poetry Tethys's name came to be used as a poetic term for the sea.West 1966, p. 204 136. Τῃθύν; West 1997, p. 147; Hard, p. 40; Matthews, p. 199. According to Matthews the "metonymy 'Tethys' = 'sea' seems to occur first in Hellenistic poetry", see for example Lycophron, Alexandria 1069 1069 (Mair, pp. 582–583)), becoming a frequent occurrence in Latin poetry, for example appearing nine times in Lucan.
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.Hard, p. 40; Hyginus, Fabulae 177; Astronomica 2.1; Ovid, Fasti 2.191–192 (Frazer, pp. 70, 71); Metamorphoses 2.508–530.
Claudian wrote that Tethys nursed two of her nephlings in her breast, Helios and Selene, the children of her siblings Hyperion and Theia, during their infancy, when their light was weak and had not yet grown into their older, more luminous selves.Claudian, Rape of Persephone Book II
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Tethys turns Aesacus into a diving bird.Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.784–795.
Tethys was sometimes confused with another sea goddess, the sea-nymph Thetis, wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles.This happened "even in antiquity", according to Burkert, p. 92.
Tethys as Tiamat M. L. West detects in the Iliads 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."West 1966, p. 204; see also West 1983, pp. 120–121. This possible correspondence between Oceanus and Tethys, and Apsū and Tiamat has been noticed by several authors, with Tethys's name possibly having been derived from that of Tiamat.West 1997, pp. 147–148; Burkert, pp. 91–93. For a discussion of the possibility of oriental sources for the Illiad's Deception of Zeus passage, see Budelmann and Haubold, pp. 20–22.
Iconography
Representations of Tethys before the Roman period are rare.For a discussion of Tethy's iconography see Jentel, pp. 1193–1195.