Eos - Greek Literature

Greek Literature

Greek deities series
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Titans
The Twelve Titans: Oceanus and Tethys, Hyperion and Theia, Coeus and Phoebe, Cronus and Rhea, Mnemosyne, Themis, Crius, Iapetus Children of Oceanus: Oceanids, Potamoi, Calypso Children of Hyperion: Helios, Selene, Eos Daughters of Coeus: Leto and Asteria Sons of Iapetus: Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Menoetius Sons of Crius: Astraeus, Pallas, Perses Sons and daughters of Cronus and Rhea: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hades, Hestia

The dawn goddess Eos was almost always described with rosy fingers (ῥοδοδάκτυλος, rhododáktylos) or rosy forearms (ῥοδόπηχυς, rhodópēkhys) as she opened the gates of heaven for the Sun to rise. In Homer, her saffron-coloured robe is embroidered or woven with flowers; rosy-fingered and with golden arms, she is pictured on Attic vases as a beautiful woman, crowned with a tiara or diadem and with the large white-feathered wings of a bird.

From The Iliad:

Now when Dawn in robe of saffron was hastening from the streams of Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the ships with the armor that the god had given her. —Iliad xix.1 But soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered, then gathered the folk about the pyre of glorious Hector. —Iliad xxiv.776

Quintus Smyrnaeus pictured her exulting in her heart over the radiant horses (Lampos and Phaithon) that drew her chariot, amidst the bright-haired Horae, the feminine Hours, climbing the arc of heaven and scattering sparks of fire.

She is most often associated with her Homeric epithet "rosy-fingered" (rhododactylos), but Homer also calls her Eos Erigeneia:

That brightest of stars appeared, Eosphoros, that most often heralds the light of early-rising Dawn (Eos Erigeneia). —Odyssey xiii.93

Hesiod wrote:

And after these Erigeneia bore the star Eosphoros ("Dawn-bringer"), and the gleaming stars with which heaven is crowned. —Theogony 378-382

Thus Eos, preceded by the Morning Star, is seen as the genetrix of all the stars and planets; her tears are considered to have created the morning dew, personified as Ersa or Herse. Eos is the daughter of Hyperion, a bringer of light, the One Above, Who Travels High Above the Earth and of Theia, The Divine. Her brother was the Sun god Helios and her sister was Selene, the Moon goddess. Her team of horses pull her chariot across the sky and are named in the Odyssey as Firebright and Daybright.

She was the Mother of several notable offspring, including the Winds, Zephyrus, Boreas, and Notus, and the Morning Star, Eosphoros, all of whom she bore to the Titan Astraeus ("of the Stars"), and Memnon, her son by Tithonus.

This rosy-fingered, saffron-robed and golden-throned goddess, who goes up to Olympus to announce the light to the immortals, fell in love several times, and some say it was Aphrodite who cursed her to be perpetually in love, because once had Eos lain with Aphrodite's sweetheart Ares, god of war.