Meganeira
Meganeira or Meganira (Ancient Greek: Μεγάνειρα, romanized: Megáneira, lit. 'great lady', 'woman of high status' or 'woman of great men'[1]) is a name that may refer to one of the following figures in Greek mythology:
- Meganeira, daughter of Crocon and Saesara,[2] and mother of Apheidas and Elatus by Arcas, son of Zeus and Callisto.[3]
- Meganeira, mother by Diomus of Alcyoneus. Together with her family, they lived in the city of Crisa at the foot of the Parnassus. This Alcyoneus was destined by lot to be sacrificed to the monster Sybaris on the basis of an oracle. However, the boy was saved by Eurybarus, who fell in love with the handsome lad and killed the monster.[4]
- Meganeira, same as Metanira, wife of King Celeus of Eleusis.[5]
Notes
[edit]- ↑ It is a classical dithematic name made of two distinct Ancient Greek components — Mega (μέγας / μέγα) meaning 'great', 'mighty' or 'large' and Neira (νέειρα) which an ancient poetic variation used to mean 'woman', 'lady' or 'wife' (related to anēr, meaning man/husband, or neaira, meaning younger woman or daughter).
- ↑ Pausanias, 1.38.2
- ↑ Apollodorus, 3.9.1
- ↑ Antoninus Liberalis, 8 as cited in Boeus' Ornithogonia
- ↑ William Smith. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. (1873). Meganeira
References
[edit]- Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992). Online version at the Topos Text Project.
- Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.
- Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. ISBN 0-674-99328-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
- Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
This article includes a list of Greek mythological figures with the same or similar names. If an internal link for a specific Greek mythology article referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended Greek mythology article, if one exists.