#alpheios

[deathlessathanasia]

A standardized set of twelve gods could be thought of as a ‘representation of the pantheon’, which is common to all cities. Thus, it is an integrative feature, almost a Panhellenic one. If so, you might think that the members of Dodekatheon would always be the same, but in fact the members varied like everything else in Greek religion. The most often cited group is: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Athena, Hephaistos and Hestia. Some are more secure in their position than others. Hestia and Ares tend to be the first to be jettisoned and we may find Dionysos, Herakles or Hades sneaking in. But the variations are often even greater. One strikingly aberrant list is the Olympic one, known from Herodorus, where the deities were arranged in six pairs: Zeus and Poseidon, Hera and Athena, Hermes and Apollo, the Charites and Dionysos, Artemis and the river Alpheios, Kronos and Rhea. ... The Olympian Dodekatheon is the best attested variant pantheon, but there may have been others. At Chalkedon, the twelve established by the Argonauts are reported by Herodorus (again) to have included Hades, apparently replacing Ares. Hades–Plouton was also included in Plato’s Laws. There may be another variant Dodekatheon at Pherai in Thessaly, where Stephan Miller reconstructed an altar with the heads of six named goddesses, which are plausibly taken as the female side of a Dodekatheon, and which include Einodia (a form of Artemis?) and also Themis. - Ian Rutherford, Canonizing the Pantheon: The Dodekatheon in Greek Religion and its Origins

Discussions and works based on Greek myth are often so rigid about which gods should or shouldn't belong to the dodekatheon, given the variations that existed in Antiquity. It looks as if the only debatable place is that of Hestia or Dionysos, but the idea of the six altars at Olympia and the altar of the six goddesses at Pherai indicate that Aphrodite, Demeter, Artemis or Hera could also be absent from the Twelve, not just Hestia. Dionysos could be excluded, but so could Ares and Hephaistos. It is also misleading when people speak of the gods as the "twelve Olympians" with the implication that "Olympians" are necessarily a select group of only 12 gods (when for instance Herakles also could be worshipped as one of the Olympians as attested in Herodotos, Histories 2.44 and the Muses are called Olympian by Hesiod), or that the twelve must necessarily live on Olympos. It's the 12 gods, not the 12 Olympians.

[mask131]

"Alpheus and Arethusa" by René-Antoine Houasse (painted in 1689 for Louis 14's Versailles). The myth of Alpheus (or Alpheios as he should be called) and Arethusa is a minor love story/transformation story of Greek mythology, which has two different versions. In the first version (the Greek version, told by Pausanias), Alpheus was a hunter who fell in love with Arethusa, a huntress. But she fled from his love - she went to the far-away island of Ortygia, and there turned into a well (or fountain). But Alpheus' love was so great that in turn he turned into a river, and its waters flowed underground just to join those of Ortygia from the mainland: thus the river Alpheios flows into the well of Arethusa. In the second version, much more well-known (and of Roman origin, told by Ovid) Alpheus was a river-god, and Arethusa a nymph : he appeared to her in human form when she took her bath in his waters, and he told her his love. But Arethusa, afraid, fled away from the lustful god who hunted her down so that she would become his lover. Arethusa in despair called upon Diana (Roman Artemis) the virgin goddess and protectress of the nymphs. Artemis took pity on Arethusa and hid her from Alpheus' view with a thick cloud. She then took her to her holy island of Ortygia, and there turned her into a sacred spring. But Alpheus' love never ceased, and so he took back his river-shape and he had his water flow underground, so as to cross the sea, and reappear on the island of Ortygia, to mix his own flow in Arethusa's.

Overall the story itself is not part of a great mythology or religious cycle (through Ovid used it in his “Metamorphosis” to illustrate the transformations of legends. The Greeks knew and brought up this story only to explain the geographical bizareness they had noticed - how the river Alpheios flew underground from the mainland to reappear on the island of Ortygia. It is one of those “geographical myths” explaining landmarks of the Greek country. As you can see, Houasse painted the Roman version of the myth - more precisely the moment where Diana rescues Arethusa from Alpheios with a cloud.

[somepoorsod]

Andromakhe still we hear lamenting; All Troy to ruins still we see falling; And Aias warring; and under the city walls Hektor bound and from the horses trailing, Through Homer's song: the bard whom not one country honours, but every land in all the world.

Alpheios in the Greek Anthology (9.97); my translation Ἀνδρομάχης ἔτι θρῆνον ἀκούομεν, εἰσέτι Τροίην δερκόμεθ᾽ ἐκ βάθρων πᾶσαν ἐρειπομένην, καὶ μόθον Αἰάντειον, ὑπὸ στεφάνῃ τε πόληος ἔκδετον ἐξ ἵππων Ἕκτορα συρόμενον, Μαιονίδεω διὰ μ οῦσαν, ὃν οὐ μία πατρὶς ἀοιδὸν κοσμεῖται, γαίης δ᾽ ἀμφοτέρης κλίματα.