The sacred water world of the ancient Greeks

Poseidon, brother of Zeus, god of the seas, earthquakes and horses. Detail, side A from an Attic red-figured calyx-krater, first half of the 5th century BCE. From Agrigento, Magna Graecia. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen. Wikipedia Commons

The Greeks had several water gods that reigned over the oceans, seas, rivers and land, including Amphitrite, Poseidon, Proteus, Nereus, Tethys, Okeanos, Thetis, Phorkys, Triton and Pontos. The most important of these divinities was Okeanos, source of life for both gods and humans.

Athenian, black-figure Dinos by Sophilos, c. 590 BCE (London, British Museum. Detail from a depiction of the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis, attended by several gods in chariots. Behind Athena and Artemis in the last chariot, Thetis’ grandfather, the fish-tailed sea-god Okeanos, his wife Tethys, and Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, follow the procession. Wikipedia Commons

River gods were also important. The most ancient was River Styx, sacred to gods and Greeks. Its realm was in the underworld and groundwater of Arcadia, Peloponnesos. The gods took oaths at River Styx, which was also a goddess. River Styx connected the living and the dead. It was flowing at the entrance to Hades, the underworld for the souls of the dead. The ferryman, Charon, put the souls of the dead in his boat and sailed them to Hades.

Charon by Alexander Lytovchenko, 1861. Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. Public Domain

We know that the water goddess Thetis dipped her baby son Achilles into the sacred waters of the River Styx in order to make her son immortal.

Thetis dips baby Achilles into the waters of goddess / River Styx. Achilles became the Greek superhero in the Trojan War. Alexander the Great imitated him. Museum of Eleutherna, Crete, Greece. Photo: Rigorios. Wikipedia Commons.

Styx (Στύξ, shuddering) was the daughter of the Titans Okeanos and Tethys. Styx married the Titan Pallas and gave birth to Bia / violence, Nike / victory, Kratos / power, and Zelos / glory. Ancient poets and historians like Homer, Hesiod, Herodotos, Plutarch and Pausanias spoke about River Styx.

Homer describes the Styx as the fearful-oath river (Iliad 2.755). Hesiod described the waters of Styx as primeval and immortal. He said the gods who take oaths at those waters will pay a fearful price if they swear false oaths (Theogony 775-806). Several centuries after Homer and Hesiod, the historian Herodotos speaks of the Styx as a stream in the Arcadian polis of Nonakris (Histories 6.74).

It’s possible River Styx, or whatever survived during its millennia life, may be the modern Arcadian River Mavroneri (Blackwater River) flowing into River Krathis near Mt. Chelmos.

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