Boreas

Boreas (Ancient Greek: Βορέας, Boreus - “North Wind”) is the Greek god of winter, loneliness, solitude, absence, lack, sadness, depression, calmness, serenity, the north wind, and storms in ancient Greek religion and mythology. He is known for bringing the cold season of winter into the world. His most famous story is about him abducting Oreithyia and making her his wife. He is also known for helping the Athenians against the Persians by sinking 400 Persian ships with his strong icy breath.

Boreas
God of the North Wind, Storms, Winter, Loneliness, Solitude, Absence, Lack, Sadness, Depression, Calmness and Serenity
Statue of Boreas abducting Oreithyia in the Louvre, France
Abode	Sky
Symbol	Conch shell, billowing cloak
Personal information
Consort	Oreithyia
Children	Calaes, Zetes,
Parents	Astraeus and Eos
Siblings	Eurus, Notus, Zephyrus
Roman equivalent	Aquillo

Descirption

Boreas, like the rest of the wind gods, was said to be the son of Eos, the goddess of the dawn, by her husband Astraeus , a minor star-god. He is thus brother to the rest of the Anemoi (the wind gods), the five star-gods and the justice goddess Astraea.

Boreas was closely associated with horses, storms, loneliness, solitude, absence, lack, sadness, depression, calmness, serenity and winter. He was said to have fathered twelve colts, after taking the form of a stallion, to the mares of Erichthonius, king of Dardania. These were said to be able to run across a field of grain without trampling the plants. Pliny the Elder thought that mares might stand with their hindquarters to the North Wind and bear foals without a stallion. The Greeks believed that his home was in Thrace, and Herodotus and Pliny both describe a northern land known as Hyperborea "Beyond the North Wind" where people lived in complete happiness and had extraordinarily long lifespans.

He is said to have fathered three giant Hyperborean priests of Apollo by Chione. Pausanias wrote that Boreas had snakes instead of feet, though in art he was usually depicted with winged human feet. In ancient art, he is usually depicted as a bearded older man.

Mythology

Boreas was said to have kidnapped Orithyia, an Athenian princess, from the Ilisos. Boreas had taken a fancy to Orithyia and had initially pleaded for her favours, hoping to persuade her. When this failed, he reverted to his usual temper and abducted her as she danced on the banks of the Ilisos. Boreas wrapped Orithyia up in a cloud, raped her, and with her, Boreas fathered two sons—the Boreads, Zethes and Calais, who were part of the crew of the Argo as Argonauts and two daughters Chione, goddess of snow, and Cleopatra.

From then on, the Athenians saw Boreas as a relative by marriage. When Athens was threatened by Xerxes, the people prayed to Boreas, who was said to have then caused winds to sink 400 Persian ships. A cult was established in Athens in 480 B. C. E. in gratitude to the Boreas for destroying the approaching Persian fleet. A similar event had occurred twelve years earlier, and Herodotus writes:

Now I cannot say if this was really why the Persians were caught at anchor by the stormwind, but the Athenians are quite positive that, just as Boreas helped them before, so Boreas was responsible for what happened on this occasion also. And when they went home they built the god a shrine by the River Ilissus. Two other cases of Boreas being honored by Greek states for similar assistance have been described, in Megalopolis (against Laconia) and in Thurii (against Syracuse). The latter case had Boreas being granted citizenship and a land plot

The abduction of Orithyia was popular in Athens before and after the Persian War, and was frequently depicted on vase paintings. In these paintings, Boreas was portrayed as a bearded man in a tunic, with shaggy hair that is sometimes frosted and spiked. The abduction was also dramatized in Aeschylus's lost play Oreithyia. some versions of Hyacinthus's story, Boreas supplants his brother Zephyrus as the wind-god that bore a one-sided love for the beautiful Spartan prince, who preferred Apollo over him.[10]

In other accounts, Boreas was the father of Butes (by another woman) and the lover of the nymph Pitys. In one story, both Pan and Boreas vied for Pitys's affections, and tried to make her choose between them. To impress her, Boreas uprooted all the trees with his might. Pan only laughed, and Pitys chose him instead of Boreas. Angry, Boreas chased Pitys down and threw her off a cliff, killing her. Gaia, pitying the girl, changed her dead body into a pine tree.[11]

During the journey of the Argo, Argonauts Zetes and Calais, Boreas's sons, describe Apollo as "beloved of our sire", perhaps implying a romantic connection between the two gods.[12]