Dione (mythology)

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Dione is the name of a mother goddess in Greek religion. Her importance is clearly attested at several cult sites of great antiquity. Dione's appearances in Greek mythology are few, but important. From its Indo-European derivation, 'Dione' appears to be less a name than a title: the "Goddess", etymologically a female form of Zeus. Roman "Diana" has a similar etymology but is not otherwise connected with Dione.

At the very ancient oracle of Zeus at Dodona, Dione rather than Hera, was the consort of Zeus, as many surviving votive inscriptions show.

The most concrete mythological appearance of Dione comes in Book V of Homer's Iliad, where she is the mother of Aphrodite: Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle while protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of Rhea the Earth Mother, whom Homer also placed in Olympus. After the Iliad, Aphrodite herself was sometimes referred to as "Dionaea" and even "Dione", just "the goddess" (Peck 1898).

Apollodorus includes Dione among the Titans (1.1.3 and 1.3.1). Likewise, she is the daughter of the Titan Atlas in the Fabulae of Gaius Julius Hyginus. Dione is not a Titan in Hesiod, but appears instead in his Theogony among the long list of Oceanids.

The archaic king Tantalus in Lydia had Dione as a consort: the Roman mythographer, Hyginus, (Fabulae 82, 83) says that Dione is, by Tantalus, the mother of Pelops, Niobe and Broteas. See also Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.172 and Pausanias 3.22.4. This appears to reflect an archaic model of sacred kingship in which the mortal king was depicted as the consort of a mother goddess.

References

• Peck, Harry Thurston, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers, 1898.

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