In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Phoebe ( ; , ) was one of the Titans, the children of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth).Hesiod, Theogony 116-138. She is a goddess of intellect and prophecy. With her brother and husband Coeus she had two daughters, Leto and Asteria. She is thus the grandmother of Apollo, Artemis and Hecate.

According to the myth, she was the original owner of the site of the Oracle of Delphi before she gave it to her grandson Apollo. Her name, meaning 'bright', was also given to a number of lunar goddesses like Artemis and later the Roman goddesses Luna and Diana. Phoebe herself was not actively seen as a moon goddess in her own right in ancient religion or mythology.

Etymology The Greek name Phoíbē is the feminine form of Phoîbos meaning "pure, bright, radiant", an epithet given to Apollo as a sun-god.A Greek-English Lexicon s.v. φοῖβοςEtymology of φοῖβος in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette. Phoebe was also an epithet of Artemis as a moon-goddess.A Greek-English Lexicon s.v. φοίβη Due to Apollo's role in myth, the name additionally came to mean "prophet", giving words like phoibázō "to prophesy". As an adjective, it was also used to refer to "clear, pure" water.Beekes, R. S. P., Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 1:1582.

Family Phoebe is a Titaness, one of the twelve (or thirteen) divine children born to Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Phoebe's consort was her brother Coeus, with whom she had two daughters, first Leto, who bore Apollo and Artemis, and then Asteria, a star goddess who bore an only daughter, Hecate.Hesiod, Theogony 404–452.

Attributes Through Leto, Phoebe was the grandmother of Apollo and Artemis. The names Phoebe and Phoebus (masculine) came to be applied as synonyms for Artemis/Diana and Apollo respectively,Compare the relation of the comparatively obscure archaic figure of Pallas and Pallas Athena. as well as for Luna and Sol, the lunar goddess and the solar god, by the Roman poets; the late-antiquity grammarian Servius writes that "Phoebe is Luna, like Phoebus is Sol."Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 10.216

Phoebe was, like Artemis, identified by Roman poets with the Roman moon goddess Diana.Boyle, p. 147 Phoebe means "bright" but is functionally only a name; in mythology, the role of moon goddess is fulfilled by other deities as her grandchildren inherit her name. Because of this Apollo is sometimes known as "Phoebus Apollo".

Hesiod in the Theogony describes Phoebe as "" (khrysostéphanos, meaning "golden-crowned").

Mythology

According to a speech that Aeschylus puts into the mouth of the Delphic priestess herself in the play The Eumenides, Phoebe received control of the Oracle at Delphi from her sister Themis, who herself had received it from their mother Gaia, and then passed it along with her name on to Apollo, her grandson, as a gift for his birthday.Aeschylus, The Eumenides 1–8; Orphic Hymn 79 to Themis (Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 62).

D. S. Robertson noted "Phoebe in this succession seems to be his private invention," reasoning that in the three great allotments of oracular powers at Delphi, corresponding to the three generations of the gods, "Ouranos, as was fitting, gave the oracle to his wife Gaia and Kronos appropriately allotted it to his sister Themis."Robertson, p. 70. Robertson also speculates that in Zeus' turn to make the gift, Aeschylus could not report that the oracle was given directly to Apollo, who had not yet been born, and thus Phoebe was interposed. These supposed male delegations of the powers at Delphi as expressed by Aeschylus are not borne out by the usual modern reconstruction of the sacred site's pre-Olympian history.

Iconography

Due to her minimal presence in both mythology and religion, Phoebe was traditionally not depicted in ancient Greek or Roman art, so she has no distinct iconography. Nevertheless, Phoebe appears on the southeast corner of the Pergamon Altar which depicts the Gigantomachy,Picón and Hemingway, p. 47 fighting against a Giant with animal features, similar to the one her daughter Leto is fighting.Ridgway, p. 57 Phoebe, wearing a diadem and a very creased dress, is seen wielding a flaming torch and fighting next to her other daughter Asteria.LIMC 617 (Phoebe 1); Honan, p. 21

Legacy Phoebe, one of the moons of Saturn is named after this goddess, as the sister of Cronus, Saturn's Greek equivalent. Phoebe (also spelled Phebe) is also a popular feminine given name in the English-speaking world.

Genealogy

See also

Dione Cassandra Crius Dodona

Notes

References

Aeschylus, Eumenides in Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph.D. in two volumes. 2. Eumenides. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1926. Aeschylus, Persians. Seven against Thebes. Suppliants. Prometheus Bound. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Loeb Classical Library No. 145. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2009. . Online version at Harvard University Press. Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, The Orphic Hymns, Johns Hopkins University Press; owlerirst Printing edition (May 29, 2013). . Google Books. Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Boyle, A. J. (editor), Seneca: Medea: Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, OUP Oxford, 2014. . Caldwell, Richard, Hesiod's Theogony, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987). . Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Honan, Mary McMahon, Guide to the Pergamon Museum, De Gruyter, 1904. . Online version at De Gruyter.

Maurus Servius Honoratus, In Vergilii carmina comentarii. Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii; recensuerunt Georgius Thilo et Hermannus Hagen. Georgius Thilo. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1881. Online version at the Topos Text. Picón, Carlos A.; Hemingway, Seán, Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World, Yale University Press, 2016, . Ridgway, Brunilde Sismondo, Hellenistic Sculpture II: The Styles of ca. 200–100 B.C., The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000. Robertson, D.S., "The Delphian Succession in the Opening of the Eumenides" The Classical Review 55.2 (September 1941, pp. 69–70). .

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