In many mythologies throughout the ages, the coming of dawn has always held some significance.
Dawn represented not just the beginning of a new day, but also the symbolic victory of good over
evil, or light over dark. In more superstitious times, the darkness - or the night time,
spelled mystery and foreboding and with it came a collective cautiousness - perhaps, something we as
a society and people still maintain to this day in some regard. For ancient cultures, the coming of
dawn also brought the promise of sunlight - that which was necessary for the production of crops.
With this, the sun universally across all mythologies would come to be a benign element,
one that was not only likened to a sense of safety and comfort, but also something of a lifeline.
So when we think about a deity who was quite literally responsible for bringing the light
to the earth each day, one might begin to comprehend the importance of the goddess Eos
and how, even as a Titan long forgotten by even the ancient Greeks themselves,
was still revered for her contribution. We can certainly see where the Titan Eos
received her powers from and how she was likely shaped and influenced by her immediate family.
Her father Hyperion, the Titan of Heavenly Light is a clear cut example of where her
association to sunlight came from, for where he as a first generation Titan who represented
the light from the heavens and took on a more cosmic and divine responsibility,
Eos adopted a more earthly responsibility in her conduction of sunlight and ushering in the dawn.
Her mother Theia, the Titaness of Sight is also seen as an obvious inspiration
given the simple fact that with sunlight, the world was made clearer for the mortals
and man would not find himself stumbling about in the darkness.
Furthermore, her siblings also appear to be analogous with her powers
given that her brother Helios was thought of as the sun itself and her sister Selene, the moon.
As mentioned, Eos' role within the mythology was to banish the darkness of night
and to herald the arrival of her brother Helios - the Sun. Going by some beliefs, Eos would rise
from the eastern realm of Oceanus, he who was the ocean personified, and would traverse across the
sky in a golden chariot that was pulled by two horses, those who were named Lampus and Phaethon.
In the Odyssey however, these two horses are stated as ‘Firebright’ and Daybright’.
This is not an uncommon trope in mythology, for we’ve seen as early as the Akkadian period that
the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash, or Utu, was also seen riding a chariot across the sky and heralding
the sun. With Eos, the goddess took a very similar motion as she soared across the sky,
paving the way for her brother Helios to arrive. Then, by the end of the day, she would descend
once more into the realm of Oceanus in the west and thus, would begin nightfall.
In some variations, it was both Eos and Helios who would descend into the realm of Oceanus,
with Helios following shortly after his sister. Eos was usually described as having rosy fingers
or rosy forearms. She was described by Homer in particular as wearing a saffron-coloured
robe that was embroidered with flowers and that she was crowned with a tiara.
Homer frequently describes her in the Odyssey as “Eos (Dawn) comes early, with rosy fingers”
and it is with these sentiments that we also gather that she was a beautiful
goddess - a feature that would serve her well in her later conquests over men.
As far the etymology goes, the name Eos may have been a linguistic derivation of the Vedic goddess
Ushas, the Lithuanian goddess Aušrinė, and or the Roman goddess Aurora - all of whom were goddesses
of the dawn in their own respective pantheons. It is further believed these goddesses found
their names from an Proto-Indo European stem in the name ‘Ausṓs’, that which meant ‘dawn’
With the mythology, like many of the Titans, Eos did not factor into many narratives.
In fact, she, like her father Hyperion, despite being the brother of Cronus who waged war against
Zeus in the battle for supremacy, did not appear to take part in the conflict known as
the Titanomachy, which eventually saw the Titans overthrown by the Olympians. What we do understand
is that Eos and her siblings Helios and Selene did indeed maintain their roles within the cosmos,
showing us that despite being Titans, Zeus had allowed them to continue their work, whereas
with others, most notable those who had actively warred against him, were cast into the void known
as Tartarus, or given tremendous punishments. Instead, writers sought to heap more importance
on the love affairs of Eos and focus more on her romantic endeavours, those which she was
seen to have many of. Firstly, it is known that she was married to the Titan Astraeus,
he who was of the Stars and something of an astrological deity and the god of dusk. Through
Astraeus, she gave birth to the Anemoi, those who were several wind deities including Zephyros
(the west wind), Boreas (the north wind), Notus (the south wind) and Eurus (the east wind). She
would also give birth to the five Astra planets. These were Stilbon, who represented Mercury,
Hesperors, who represented Venus, Pyroeis, who represented Mars,
Phaethon, who represented Jupiter and Phainon, who represented Saturn.
There was also Astraea who was the virgin goddess of justice.
Now given that she had this many children with Astraeus, it’s easy to think that she’d had her
fill of love and was pretty content, if not dedicated to remain with Astraeus and not
stray. Yet, we know of several other love affairs that Eos is keen to cultivate - perhaps the most
significant being with Ares, the god of war. Whilst the nature of the relationship is often
ambiguous on the account that they did not have any children together, it is believed that the
goddess Aprhodite who was known to be Ares’ lover became extremely jealous over Eos, and feeling
threatened by her closeness to Ares, she cursed Eos so that she only fell in love with mortal men.
Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca tells us, “Eos, whom Aphrodite tormented with constant passion
as punishment for sleeping with Ares” It is with this curse that would see her engage
in several affairs with many mortals and even find herself pregnant with them, such as is the case
with Trojan prince Tithonus, whom she bore the warrior Memnon and the king of Arabia Emathion.
There was also the prince Cephalus, who sired three children with Eos including the evening
star Hesperus, the night watchman for Aprohdite’s shrines Phaethon and yet another Tithonus.
You might’ve noticed that the men that Eos went for were specifically men of power
and it was believed that those with significant influence,
or even just a considerably handsome face, were candidates for her romantic abduction.
In fact, Eos was seen to have very little regard for whether her target was consetting or not,
nor did she take into consideration whether her desired man was already taken.
Amongst these relationships however, it would appear that Eos had become hyper-aware of the
pitfalls of love and understood that despite being a goddess, she could not force her prey
to love her, nor could she stop them from wanting to return to their wives…
nor from dying. This dilemma presented itself when Eos seduced the Trojan prince Tithonus,
of whom she was said to have fallen deeply in love with. Afraid of losing him, Eos asked Zeus
to make Tithonus immortal which the supreme god actually agreed to. However, Zeus being Zeus,
he did not reveal to Eos that whilst he had made Tithonus immortal, he had not stopped him from
aging. As the decades went by, Tithonus grew older and older and as his body began to tire
and grow frail, he fell into an eternal state of agony. Eos returned to Zeus and begged him
to either remove Tithonus’ immortality, or make him young again, but Zeus decided that this was
not possible - or more like, he didn’t want to. Instead, Zeus transformed Tithonus into a cicada
which was perhaps the condition which Eos had to compromise on.
The legend of the story conveys an idea that in certain parts around the world,
the same cicada can be heard whenever Eos soars across the sky and signifies the coming of dawn.
As she falls so in love with Tithonus, to the point that she wishes to be with him forever, we
see she also falls for the maliciousness of Zeus and ends up paying a greater price for her desire;
that is, to watch her lover succumb to agony as he ages and ages.
With this, we begin to feel sorry for Eos and see her much less as this man-hungry homewrecker that
Aphrodite had likely deemed her as, but instead a much sweeter and wholesome character who wants
only to be with the man she loves. Some might highlight the dichotomy of Eos’ character here
given that she demonstrates two very different behaviours in each of her affairs, but another
idea might be that Eos demonstrates bitterness. It could be said that after having been burned
by love here, she becomes both possessive and aggressive in trying to lock someone down in the
future, which is why she appears so intensely when taking her next lover Cephalus against his will.
Furthermore, it is understood that Eos was never actually faithful with any of these men
and that she had even scoped out Cephalus whilst Tithonos was still in his aging state.
Ovid tells us in the Heroides "Renowned in the forest was Cephalus, and many were the wild beasts
that had fallen on the sod at the piercing of his stroke; yet he did not ill in yielding himself to
Aurora's [Eos'] love. Oft did the goddess sagely go to him, leaving her aged spouse [Tithonos].
We then see her abduct the prince Cephalus from Athens, despite the fact that he was already
married to the princess Procris. For eight years, Cephalus was essentially held hostage
as Eos’ lover and despite being a goddess, Cephalus longed to return to his wife.
After many years appeasing to the goddess to send him back, Eos eventually relented,
but not before she planted a seed of doubt in his head, suggesting that his wife could easily be
swayed to have an affair and that it was unlikely that she had remained faithful for all this time.
Whether or not this was Eos being spiteful after having been rejected by Cephalus, or whether this
was just a manipulation to get him to stay with her instead, Cephalus begins to doubt his wife.
When he returns to Procris , he does so in disguise and presents before her as a stranger.
After offering her money to sleep with him, she agrees - or at least, hesitates long enough,
that Cephalus becomes convinced she is unfaithful. With this, he reveals his identity,
causing Procris to flee to the woods out of shame and guilt. The two do later reconcile,
however, though the tale is far from peaceful. In another version, Gaius Juius Hyginus
tells us that Eos hadn’t kidnapped Cephalus, but instead schemed to destroy his marriage first in
order to obtain him. He tells us in the Fabulae, “When Cephalus, who was fond of hunting, had gone
to the mountain in the early morning, Eos, wife of Tithonus, fell passionately in love with him,
and begged for his embrace. He refused, since he had given his promise to Procris.
Then Eos said : ‘I don't want you to break faith, unless she has done so before you.’ And so
she changed his form into that of a stranger, and gave him beautiful gifts to give to Procris.
When Cephalus had come in his changed form, he gave the gifts to Procris and lay with her. Then
Eos took away his new appearance. When Procris saw Cephalus, she knew she had been deceived
by Eos , and fled to the island of Crete . . . [Procris was eventually reunited with Cephalus]
nevertheless out of fear of Eos she followed him to watch him in the early morning,
and hid among the bushes. When Cephalus saw the bushes stir, he hurled the
unavoidable javelin, and killed his wife." What’s quite interesting is how we see Eos
essentially turn from devoted wife and mother to something more akin to a temptress of men.
Gone is her role as the bringer of dawn and instead appears this far more capricious
and almost devious creature who becomes fixated on her amorous affairs. She is not seen here to be
the goddess responsible for charioteering the sun across the sky, but instead seen to be intense,
passionate, calculating and even scheming. She prioritises Cephalus here for a total of eight
years and despite his pleas to return to his wife, she is seen to be selfish
and puts only her wants and needs first, even if this means holding him against his will.
Yet, another legend of Eos abducting men was when she laid eyes on the legendary hunter Orion. She
would lead Orion to the island of Delos and much like she had incurred the jealousy of Aphrodite,
she also incurred the jealousy of Artemis who had an interest in Orion. In some legends,
Eos becomes responsible for Orion’s death after Artemis, unable to control
her jealousy, shoots him with an arrow. The children born between Eos and Tithonus
however, appear to have been more substantial as far as the mythology goes given that the two sons
Memnon and Emathion become rulers of the land of Aethiopia. Both sons however would meet terrible
fates with Emathion being killed by Heracles and Memnon being killed by Achilles at Troy.
Eos was thought to have mourned the death of both of her sons - most notably Memnon who was
the more famous, and would even go as far as to ask Zeus to make note of her son’s demise
and recognise it as a significant moment. To this, Zeus turned the smoke of Memnon’s funeral pyre
into a new species of birds - the memnonides - those which migrated from Aethiopia to Troy each
year in tribute to Memnon. In another version, Eos mourns so gravely over the death of her son
that she causes the light of her brother Helios to fade and even convinces Nyx, the goddess of night,
to emerge earlier than usual. With the cover of this darkness,
she is able to steal her son’s body from the enemy’s camp and see to his burial. After this,
it is said that Eos begged Zeus to immortalise Memnon, which he is surprisingly seen to agree to.
Whilst not necessarily the most popular deity in Greek Mythology, Eos was imperative to the
ancient Greeks, for as discussed, it was she who was responsible for bringing about the next day.
Furthermore, she might also have been seen as her brother’s keeper in some regard
by leading him across the sky and as the sun, she would also be just as accountable
for the day and night cycle. Indeed, thanks to Aphrodite's jealousy and her cursing of Eos
to fall insatiably in love with mortal men, Eos would earn herself a bit of a reputation as being
a predator upon men, and perhaps this may have contributed to her lack of significant worship
and made for a tainting upon her name. Yet, the Estruscan people would come to view the idea
of the dawn goddess courting a young man as a more wholesome idea and the trope became quite popular
amongst societies in the fifth century where Dawn was seen as a nurturer and not an abductor.
Let me know which Titan you’d like to see appear here next and what you
thought about today’s installment of Greek Mythology Explained. As always,
if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode then don’t forget to give it a thumbs up and don’t forget
to subscribe for more content just like this. Furthermore, if you like Greek Mythology as
much as I do, you might want to check out our book Greek Mythology Explained,
where we retell a couple of a favourite myths and explore the meanings and themes behind them.
With that being said, I hope you all have a good evening and
I’ll see you in the next one. Until next time!