Eurynome

  Eurynome

Eurynome (Εὐρυνόμη) was a deity of ancient Greek religion worshipped at a sanctuary near the confluence of rivers called the Neda and the Lymax in classical Peloponnesus. She was represented by a statue of what we would call a mermaid. Tradition, as reported by the Greek traveller, Pausanias, identified her with the Oceanid, or “daughter of Ocean”, of Greek poetry.

In the epic tradition, Eurynome was one of the elder Oceanides, that is, a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. Eurynome was the third bride of Zeus and mother of the Charites, goddesses of grace and beauty.

When Hephaestus was cast from Olympus by the goddess Hera, who was disgusted at having borne a crippled child, he was caught by Eurynome and Thetis (possibly a doubling for Tethys, her mother). Eurynome and Thetis nursed the god Hephaestus on the banks of the earth-encircling river Oceanus, after his fall from heaven. Aglaea, Eurynome's daughter, later became Hephaestus' bride.

Eurynome is closely identified with another Eurynome, Queen of the Titans. This Eurynome was an early Titan queen who ruled Olympus beside her husband Ophion. The pair were wrestled for their thrones by Kronos and Rhea who cast them down into the earth-encircling river Oceanus. She may have been the same as the Titan Tethys whose river-god sons nurtured the pastures and whose daughter Eurynome was goddess of pasturelands. Eurynome's husband Ophion "the Serpent" was similar to Tethys' husband Oceanus, who in classical art was represented with a serpentine-fish tail in place of legs and holding a snake (ophis). It is also possible that Ophion and Eurynome (daughter of Oceanus) were equated with Ouranos (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). In the Orphic Theogonies Gaia was the daughter of Hydrus (Water), a primordial being similar to Oceanus. It was Ouranos who Kronos wrestles for the throne of Olympus in Hesiod's Theogony.

 