those resident in harbor towns (often Aphrodite or Poseidon). The Dioscuri, who
appeared in ships’ rigging during storms in the form of St Elmo’s fire, were popularly
viewed as saviors who warded off disaster at sea (Alcaeus fr. 34 Campbell).
Homer was also instrumental in shaping the image of the sea nymphs called
Nereids, who were closely associated with the story of Achilles. Thetis, the Nereid
mother of the hero, seems to have played an important role in early Greek cosmology;
theIliadalludes to her rescue and/or sheltering of Zeus, Dionysus, and Hephaestus
in their times of need, while she figures in a fragment of Alcman as ‘‘the origin of all,’’
a primal creative force (Calame 1983 fr. 81). Thetis was destined to bear a son more
powerful than his father and thus posed a threat to any god, including Zeus, who
pursued her. Like Ge, she was imagined as a powerful primordial figure, who first
threatened, then helped to bring about, the cosmic order, allowing herself to be
subordinated in the process. Slatkin (1991:79) relates Thetis’ humble status in
Homeric epic to the fact that her cult, unlike those of the Olympian gods, remained
geographically limited. One of the few cults of Thetis belonged to Cape Sepias in
Thessaly, where the Persians, having suffered heavy damage in a storm, sacrificed to
her and the Nereids as local deities (Herodotus 7.191). A venerable Spartan cult of
Thetis (Pausanias 3.14.4) may have inspired Alcman’s cosmological verses. Altars and
thank offerings to the Nereids as a group, on the other hand, are relatively common.
Like other marine deities, they could prevent disasters at sea. An early example is
Sappho’s prayer to Cypris (Aphrodite) and the Nereids (fr. 5 Campbell) for the safe
sea journey of her brother Charaxus.
Ino/Leucothea, who was transformed into a Nereid after leaping from a cliff
into the sea, saved Odysseus from drowning by giving him her magical veil (Odyssey
5.33–8). With her son Palaemon, also a sea-god and guardian of ships, Ino was
honored at Poseidon’s sanctuary of Isthmia and elsewhere. Leucothea and Palaemon
possessed a dual identity as drowned mortals (hence the chthonic and funerary
elements in their cults) and as reborn gods who offered salvation to sailors in peril
and the hope of an afterlife to those who drowned. Far more than the terrestrial
nymphs, the Nereids were associated with death and rebirth. In epic, they play an
important role as mourners of Patroclus and Achilles (Iliad18.282–313;Odyssey
24.45–89), while post-Homeric literature and art focused on their ability to confer a
blessed afterlife on the deceased, just as Thetis brought Achilles to the White Island in
the Euxine where he was immortalized (Barringer 1995:49).
The Winds, like the Earth and Sun, were among the elemental forces considered
animate, yet only partially endowed with the anthropomorphic forms and divine
personalities so characteristic of the Greek gods. Depending on the degree to
which particular winds were viewed as personal deities, methods ranging from
standard sacrificial appeasement to outright ‘‘magical’’ manipulation were used.
The winds could be invoked on an ad hoc basis, as they were when the Greeks
faced the Persian fleets in 480 BC. The Delphic oracle advised prayer to the winds
on the eve of the battle at Artemisium, and the Athenians prayed to the north
wind Boreas to smite the Persians as they sailed south (Herodotus 7.178, 189).
When successful, such efforts often led to the founding of altars and sanctuaries,
like that of Boreas on the Ilissus river in Athens. Other cities, like Methana near
Troezen (Pausanias 2.34.3), provided for annual offerings to the winds because of
their effects on crops and their association with seasonal weather patterns. Such
Nature Deities 69