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In Greek mythology, Asia (Ancient Greek: Ἀσία) was one of the 3,000 Oceanids, daughters of the Titans Oceanus and his sister-spouse Tethys. In some accounts, her mother was called Pompholyge and sister of Libye.

Family

According to Apollodorus, Asia was the wife of the Titan Iapetus, and mother of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius although Hesiod gave the name of another Oceanid, Clymene, as their mother.

It is possible that the name Asia became preferred over Hesiod's Clymene to avoid confusion with the Clymene who was mother of Phaethon by Helios in some accounts and must have been perceived as a distinct figure. Herodotus recorded the tradition that the continent Asia was named after Asia whom he called wife of Prometheus rather than mother of Prometheus, perhaps here a simple error rather than genuine variant tradition. Both Acusilaus and Aeschylus in his Prometheus Bound called Prometheus' wife Hesione.

Herodotus also related a Lydian tradition "that Asia was not named after Prometheus' wife Asia, but after Asies, the son of Cotys, who was the son of Manes, and that from him the Asiad clan at Sardis also takes its name".

Genealogy

See also

• Asia's name etymology
• 67 Asia

Notes

1. Apollodorus, 1.2.2
2. Bell, Robert E. (1991). Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-CLIO. p. 74. ISBN 9780874365818.
3. Bane, Theresa (2013). Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. p. 36. ISBN 9780786471119.
4. Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 894 (Gk text); Andron of Halicarnassus fr. 7 Fowler = FGrHist 10 F 7 (Fowler 2000, p. 42; Fowler 2013, p. 13; Bouzek and Graninger, p. 12. Fowler 2013, p. 15, calls Pompholyge, a name found nowhere else, an ad hoc invention.)
5. Varro, De lingua latina libri 5.31
6. Apollodorus, 1.2.3
7. Hesiod, Theogony 507–511.
8. Herodotus, 4.45.3
9. Hesiod, Theogony 132–138, 337–411, 453–520, 901–906, 915–920; Caldwell, pp. 8–11, tables 11–14.
10. Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as in Hesiod, Theogony 371–374, in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), 99–100, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
11. According to Hesiod, Theogony 507–511, Clymene, one of the Oceanids, the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, at Hesiod, Theogony 351, was the mother by Iapetus of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, while according to Apollodorus, 1.2.3, another Oceanid, Asia was their mother by Iapetus.
12. According to Plato, Critias, 113d–114a, Atlas was the son of Poseidon and the mortal Cleito.
13. In Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 18, 211, 873 (Sommerstein, pp. 444–445 n. 2, 446–447 n. 24, 538–539 n. 113) Prometheus is made to be the son of Themis.

References

• Apollodorus, Gods & Heroes of the Greeks: The Library of Apollodorus, Michael Simpson (translator), The University of Massachusetts Press, (1976). ISBN 0870232053.
• Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
• Bell, Robert E., Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-Clio. 1991. ISBN 9780874365818, 0874365813.
• Herodotus; Histories, A. D. Godley (translator), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920; ISBN 0674991338. 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, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

External links

• CLYMENE-ASIA from The Theoi Project

• Oceanids
• Greek goddesses
• Asia in Greek mythology
• Lydia
• Sea and river goddesses