Potamoi

The Potamoi (Greek: Ποταμοί, "Rivers") are the gods of rivers and streams of the earth in Greek mythology.

Mythology[]

The river gods were the 3000 sons of the great earth-encircling river Oceanus and his wife Tethys and the brothers of the Oceanids.^[1] They were also the fathers of the Naiads.^{[citation needed]} The river gods were depicted in one of three forms: a man-headed bull, a bull-headed man with the body of a serpent-like fish from the waist down, or as a reclining man with an arm resting upon an amphora jug pouring water.^{[citation needed]}

Notable river gods include:

• Achelous, the god of the Achelous River, the largest river in Greece, who gave his daughter in marriage to Alcmaeon,^[2] and was defeated by Heracles in a wrestling contest for the right to marry Deianira.^[3]
• Alpheus, who fell in love with the nymph Arethusa, pursuing her to Syracuse, where she was transformed into a spring by Artemis.^[4]
• Inachus, the first king of Argos and progenitor of Argive line through his son grandson Argus.
• Nilus, Egyptian river god and the father of numerous daughters that mingled with the descendants of Inachus, forming a dynasty of kings in Egypt, Libya, Arabia and Ethiopia.
• Peneus, river god of Thessaly flowing from the foot of Pindus. He was the father of Daphne and Stilbe, love interests of the god Apollo.
• Scamander, who fought on the side of the Trojans during the Trojan War, and, offended when Achilles polluted his waters with the a large number of Trojan corpses, overflowed his banks nearly drowning Achilles.^[5]

List of Potamoi[]

The following are the sons of Oceanus and Tethys:^[6]

See also[]

• List of Oceanids
• Potamides (river nymphs)

Notes[]

References[]

• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Astronomica, in The Myths of Hyginus, edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873).

External links[]

• "Potamoi" at Theoi.com