Hyas (, ; ), in Greek mythology, was a Boeotian who was regarded as the ancestor of the ancient Hyantes (Ὕαντες), who were the aboriginal inhabitants of Boeotia.Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 4.12; compare Müiller, Orchomenos und die Minyer p. 124
Family Hyas was the son of the Titan Atlas and either of the Oceanids, PleioneHyginus, Fabulae 192 or Aethra,Hyginus, De astronomia 2.21.4; Ovid, Fasti 5.164 thus brother to the Pleiades and Hyades.Hesiod, Astronomy fr. 2 from Scholiast on Aratus, 254; Hyginus, Fabulae 192; De astronomia 2.21.4 In one account, Hyas instead was called the father of the Hyades by Boeotia.Hyginus, De astronomia 2.21.4 with Alexander as the authority; Eustathius ad Homer, Odyssey p. 1155
Mythology
Death Hyas was a notable archer who was killed by his intended prey. Some stories have him dying after attempting to rob a lion of its cubs. ''While his [i.e. Hyas] beard was fresh, stags trembled in terror before him, and the hare was welcome prey. But when years matured his manhood, he breavely closed with the shaggy lioness and the boar. He sought the lair and brood of the whelped lioness and was bloody prey to the Libyan beast.''Ovid, Fasti 5.173–178Some have Hyas killed by a serpent, but most commonly he is said to have been gored by a wild boar.Hyginus, Fabulae 248 His sisters, the Hyades, mourned his death with so much vehemence and dedication that they died of grief. Zeus, in recognition of their familial love, took pity upon them and changed them into stars—the constellation Hyades—and placed them in the head of Taurus, where their annual rising and setting are accompanied by plentiful rain.''His {i.e. Hyas]] mother [Aethra] sobbed for Hyas, his sad sisters sobbed and Atlas, whose neck would haul the world. The sisters surpassed both parents in pious love and won heaven. Their name is from Hyas."Ovid, Fasti 5.179–182
Interpretation The mythological use for a Hyas, apparently a back formation from Hyades, may simply have been to provide a male figure to consort with the archaic rain-nymphs, the Hyades, a chaperone responsible for their behavior, as all the archaic sisterhoods— even the Muses— needed to be controlled under the Olympian world-picture.Ruck and Staples, p. In fact among the poets it is immaterial whether Hyas is described as their father or their brother. And his death gave these weepy rain-nymphs a cause for their weeping, mourning for a male being an acceptably passive female role in the patriarchal culture of the Hellenes.This commonplace about the mourning role for Greek women, who were normally kept in seclusion, is explored in Gail Holst-Warhaft, Dangerous Voices: Women's Laments and Greek Literature. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. See also the Bryn Mawr Classical Review of Holst-Warhaft. Hyas had no separate existence except as progenitor/guardian of the Hyantes, neither in mythic narrative nor in rite, even the alternative accounts of his demise being somewhat conventional and interchangeable: compare the death of Meleager or Actaeon.
Hyantes The Hyantes, descendants of Hyas, was the former name of the Boeoitians,Peck; Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 4.12 who were expelled from Boeotia by the Phoenicians led by Cadmus. Into late Classical times (as by Pausanias, for example), Cadmus was remembered as having been a Phoenician, or at least backed by a Phoenician army.
Some of the Hyantes are said to have emigrated to isolated and pastoral Phocis, where they founded Hyampolis. Others supposedly fled to Aetolia, another region that retained a primitive character into Classical times.
Notes
References
Carl A.P. Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth, 1994. Part III: The Liminal Hero Hyginus, Astronomica from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898. "Hyantes" Ovid, Fasti translated by James G. Frazer. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Ovid, Fasti. Sir James George Frazer. London; Cambridge, MA. William Heinemann Ltd.; Harvard University Press. 1933. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library. William Smith, editor. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythography: "Hyantes"
External links
Pereus Lookup Tool: Hyantes"