DIONE (MYTHOLOGY)

'Dione' in Greek mythology is a vague goddess presence who has her most concrete form in Book V of Homer's ''Iliad'' as the mother of Aphrodite: Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle while protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of Rhea the Earth Mother, whom Homer also placed in Olympus. Dione's Indo-European name is really less a name than simply a title: the "Goddess", etymologically a female form of Zeus. Roman "Diana" has a similar etymology but is not otherwise connected with Dione.
After the ''Iliad'', Aphrodite herself was sometimes referred to as "Dionaea" and even "Dione", just "the goddess" (Peck 1898). At the very ancient oracle of Zeus at Dodona, Dione rather than Hera, was the goddess resorted to in the company of Zeus, as many surviving votive inscriptions show.
Although Dione is not a Titan in Hesiod, but appears instead in his ''Theogony'' among the long list of Oceanids, Apollodorus includes her among the Titans (1.1.3 and 1.3.1).
The archaic king Tantalus in Lydia had Dione as a consort: the Roman mythographer, Hyginus, (''Fabulae'' 82, 83) says that Dione is a daughter of Atlas and the mother, by Tantalus, of Pelops, Niobe and Broteas. See also Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 6.172 and Pausanias 3.22.4. If a king's consort is "Dione", the logical implication is that he justifies his authority as the earthly, visible consort of "The Goddess".

Contents

Reference

Reference

★ Peck, Harry Thurston, ''Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities''. New York. Harper and Brothers, 1898.