Crius or Krios (Ancient Greek: Κρεῖος[1] or Κριός, romanized: Kreios/Krios) was the god of heavenly constellations. He was one of the Titans, children of Ouranós and Gaia.[2]
Etymology[]
His name means "Ram" and he was associated with the start of the season, because of the constellation Aries which, in Greek mythology, was associated with ram or the golden ram. Aries is known for the start of the spring in the northern hemisphere.
Family[]
According to Hesiod, he married his half-sister Eurybia, daughter of Gaia and Pontus. His children with Eurybia were Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses.[3] Perses is the husband of Asteria and father of Hekate. Astraeus married Eos and fathered Astraea, the Winds, and the Planets. Pallas, was the husband of Styx and fathered Nike, Bia, Zelos, and Cratus.
In the Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes 100, Selene is called the daughter of Pallas who was, Megamedes' son and therefore Selene's grandfather.[4] Megamedes is presumably Crius in this instance.
According to Pausanias, one of the lesser known parentage of Python was that he was Crius' violent son, whom Pausanias called an authority of Euboea.[5]
Mythology[]
Crius was also known as the Pillar of the South pole. During the Titanomachy, he and his brothers; Iapetus, Hyperion and Coeus, represented the pillars of cardinal points where they held down Ouranós as Cronus castrated him (the heavens) and Gaea (the earth) apart.
Joined to fill out lists of Titans to form a total matching the Twelve Olympians, Crius was inexorably involved in the ten-year-long[6] war between the Olympian gods and Titans, the Titanomachy, though without any specific part to play. When the war was lost, Crius was banished along with the others to the lower level of Hades called Tartarus. Eventually Zeus freed the Titans, presumably including Crius.[7]
The geographer Pausanias reports that the rivers coming down from the mountains above Pellene, one of which is named Crius which, he is said, to be named after the Titan.[8] He also mentions another river with the same name of Crius, which rises in Mount Sipylus and is a tributary of the river Hermus.[9]
In the Placita Philosopharum (Doctrines of the Philosophers), which is attributed (though falsely) to Plutarch, stated that Hyperion, Coeus, Iapetus, and Crius were inventions made by the poet Hesiod "willing to find out a father for those Gods that acknowledge an original", invented them.[10]
As the least individualized among the Titans, he was overthrown in the Titanomachy. M. L. West has suggested how Hesiod filled out the complement of Titans from the core group—adding three figures from the archaic tradition of Delphi, Coeus, and Phoebe, whose name Apollo assumed with the oracle, and Themis.[11] Among possible further interpolations among the Titans was Crius, whose interest for Hesiod was as the father of Perses and grandfather of Hecate, for whom Hesiod was, according to West, an "enthusiastic evangelist".
Crius was almost never worshipped in cult, but there is one inscription suggesting that he received some sort of religious honors on the island of Imbros.[12]
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References[]
- ↑ Etymology uncertain: traditionally considered a variation of κρῑός "ram"; the word κρεῖος was also extant in Ancient Greek but only in the sense of "type of mussel"
- ↑ Hesiod. Theogony, 133; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.1.3; Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica 5.66.3
- ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 375–377; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.2.2
- ↑ Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes 100
- ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.6.6
- ↑ Hesiod, Theogony, 617-643: "So they, with bitter wrath, were fighting continually with one another at that time for ten full years, and the hard strife had no close or end for either side..."
- ↑ Pindar, Pythian Odes 4.289-291; additionally, Aeschylus' lost play Prometheus Unbound features a chorus of freed Titans.
- ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.27.11
- ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.27.12
- ↑ Pseudo-Plutarch, Placita Philosopharum 1.6
- ↑ M.L. West, "Hesiod's Titans," The Journal of Hellenic Studies 105 (1985), pp. 174–175.
- ↑ Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) 12.8.74
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| Titans | |
|---|---|
| Parents | Ouranós • Gaîa |
| Elder Titans | Coeus • Crius • Cronus • Hyperion • Iapetus • Oceanus |
| Elder Titanesses | Phoebe • Mnemosyne • Rhea • Theia • Themis • Tethys |
| Coeonides | Asteria • Leto |
| Crionides | Astraeus • Pallas • Perses |
| Hyperionides | Eos • Hḗlios • Selene |
| Iapetonides | Atlas • Epimetheus • Menoetius • Prometheus |
| Oceanides | Oceanids (Clymene • Metis • Styx • Rhode) • Potamoi |
| Third Generation | Hecate • Astraea • Anemoi • Astra Planeta • Kratos • Nike • Bia • Zelus |
| Miscellaneous Titans | Dione • Anytos • Ophion • Eurynome (wife of Ophion) • Lelantos • Melisseus • Titan (brother of Helios) • Olymbros • Syceus • Titanic Muses |
| Topics | Overthrowing of Ouranós • Titanomachy |