Pandia

In Greek mythology, the goddess Pandia (Greek: Πανδία) or Pandeia (Πανδεία), meaning "all brightness",^[1] was a daughter of Zeus and the goddess Selene, the Greek personification of the moon.^[2] From the Homeric Hymn to Selene, we have: "Once the Son of Cronos [Zeus] was joined with her [Selene] in love; and she conceived and bare a daughter Pandia, exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods."^[3] An Athenian tradition made Pandia the wife of Antiochus, the eponymous hero of Antiochis, one of the ten Athenian tribes (phylai).^[4]

Originally Pandia may have been an epithet of Selene,^[5] but by at least the time of the late Homeric Hymn, Pandia had become a daughter of Zeus and Selene. Pandia (or Pandia Selene) may have personified the full moon,^[6] and an Athenian festival, called the Pandia, probably held for Zeus,^[7] was perhaps celebrated on the full-moon and may have been connected to her.^[8]

See also

• Dravidian Pandi (god)

Notes

1. Fairbanks, p. 162. Regarding the meaning of "Pandia", Kerenyi, p. 197, says: '"the entirely shining" or the "entirely bright"— doubtless the brightness of nights of full moon.'
2. Hymn to Selene (32) 15–16; Allen, [15] "ΠανδείηΝ", says that Pandia was "elsewhere unknown as a daughter of Selene", but see Hyginus, Fabulae Preface, Philodemus, De pietate P.Herc. 243 Fragment 6 (Obbink, p. 353).
3. Hymn to Selene (32) 15–16.
4. See West, p. 19, which describes Pandia as an "obscure figure".
5. Willetts, p. 178; Cook, p. 732; Roscher, p. 100; Scholiast on Demosthenes, 21.39a.
6. Cox, p. 138; Casford p. 174.
7. Parker 2005, p. 447.
8. Robertson, p. 75 note 109; Willets, pp. 178–179; Cook, 732; Harpers, "Selene"; Smith, "Pandia"; Lexica Segueriana s.v. Πάνδια (Bekker, p. 292); Photius, Lexicon s.v. Πάνδια.

References

• Allen, Thomas W., E. E. Sikes. The Homeric Hymns, edited, with preface, apparatus criticus, notes, and appendices. London. Macmillan. 1904.
• Bekker, Immanuel, Anecdota Graeca: Lexica Segueriana, Apud G.C. Nauckium, 1814.
• Cashford, Jules, The Homeric Hymns, Penguin UK, 2003. ISBN 9780141911175.
• Cook, Arthur Bernard, Zeus: Zeus, God of the Bright Sky, Volume 1 of Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Biblo and Tannen, 1914.
• Cox, George W. The Mythology of the Aryan Nations Part Two, Kessinger Publishing, 2004. ISBN 9780766189409.
• Evelyn-White, Hugh, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
• Fairbanks, Arthur, The Mythology of Greece and Rome. D. Appleton–Century Company, New York, 1907.
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, The Myths of Hyginus. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
• Kerenyi, Karl (1951). The Gods of the Greeks. Thames & Hudson.
• Müller, Karl Otfried, History of the literature of ancient Greece, Volume 1, Baldwin and Cradock, 1840.
• Obbink, Dirk, "56. Orphism, Cosmogony, and Gealogy (Mus. fr. 14)" in Tracing Orpheus: Studies of Orphic Fragments, edited by Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, Walter de Gruyter, 2011. ISBN 9783110260533.
• Parker, Robert, Polytheism and Society at Athens, Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-927483-3.
• Robertson, Noel, "Athena's Shrines and Festivals" in Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. ISBN 9780299151140.
• Roscher, Wilhelm Heinrich, Über Selene und Verwandtes, B. G. Teubner, Leizig 1890.
• Smith, William; A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. William Smith, LLD. William Wayte. G. E. Marindin. Albemarle Street, London. John Murray. 1890. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• West, Martin L. (2003), Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer, Loeb Classical Library, no. 496, Cambridge, MA, ISBN 978-0-674-99606-9
• Willetts, R. F., Cretan Cults and Festivals, Greenwood Press, 1980. ISBN 9780313220500.

External links

• Theoi Project - Pandia