Βορεας
The god of the North Wind. He lived in Thrace which to the Greeks represented the ultimate in a cold climate. He is depicted as a winged demon, physically extremely strong, bearded and normally clad in a short pleated tunic. In one image he is shown, like the Roman Janus, with two faces looking in opposite directions, no doubt representing the two winds, Boreas and Antiboreas, which blew across the Euripus. Boreas was the son of Eos (the Dawn) and Astraeus, son of Crisus and Eurybia and the brother of Zephyrus and Notus (Table 14). He thus belonged to the race of the Titans, who personified the elemental forces of Nature.
Among other deeds of violence, he was said to have abducted Orithyia, daughter of Erectheus, the king of Athens, while she was playing with her companions on the banks of the Ilissus. He took her to Thrace where she gave birth to two sons, Calais and Zetes (see Boreades). Another version of the legend says that the abduction took place during a procession which was making its way up the Acropolis to the temple of Athena Polias.
Sometimes the punishment of Phineus is ascribed to Boreas.
Boreas, in the shape of a horse, is said to have sired by the mares of Erichthonius twelve colts so light of foot that when they galloped over a field of wheat, they did not even bend the heads of the wheat, and when they galloped over the sea they did not cause a ripple on the water. Boreas also sired swift horses by one of the Furies as well as by a Harpy.
For the background to Boreas as king of the Celts, see Cyparissa.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Hesiod, Theog. 378ff.; 869ff.
- Hdt. 7, 189
- Ovid, Met. 6, 682ff.; Trist. 3, 10, 45
- Hom. Il. 20, 221ff.
- Quint. Smyrn. Posthom. 8, 241ff.
- Nonnus, Dion. 37, 155ff.
- Plato, Phdr. 229b ff.
- Paus. 5, 19, 1
- Apollod. Bibl. 3, 15, 1f.
- schol. on Hom. Od. 14, 533
- See K. Neuser, Anemoi (1982)