#okeanides

[deathlessathanasia]

What do the Oceanids represent? Despite their name, they aren't nymphs from the sea, but from the mythical, earth-circling river Oceanus, which has confused me a bit. They seem to symbolize freshwater, but aren't river nymphs, the naiads, said in literature to be daughters of the river-gods?

Hesiod at least describes their functions like this in the Theogony:

„Also she [Tethys] brought forth a holy company of daughters who with the lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping -- to this charge Zeus appointed them -- … For there are three thousand neat-ankled daughters of Ocean who are dispersed far and wide, and in every place alike serve the earth and the deep waters, children who are glorious among goddesses.” So functions typical of nymphs.

I wouldn't necessarily say they have a specific or straightforward symbolism, though. As individuals they mostly serve as mothers, nurses and sexual partners to various figures, without being associated with any water source except for the Okeanos itself (Styx is a notable exception)As a group they appear as companions of more important deities (Persephone, Artemis), whereas their most active role as a collective is in the Prometheus Bound where they visit and converse with him. None of these instances have much to do with water of any sort. Their names are also quite diverse and don't primarily follow an aquatic theme.

Since Okeanids simply means daughters of Okeanos rather than being the name of a distinct species maybe it wouldn't be inaccurate to consider at least some of them Naiads, which is a more general term that includes female freshwater spirits of various parentages. It is confusing, I agree. Trying to classify and categorize beings from Greek mythology in a coherent way is frequently close to impossible.

[poseidons-trident]

Στυξ

Styx was the goddess of the underworld River Styx and the eldest of the Okeanides, a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. She was also the personification of hatred. Styx was a firm ally of Zeus in the Titan Wars, who brought her children Nike (Victory), Zelos (Rivalry), Bia (Force) and Kratos (Strength) to stand beside the god in battle. Zeus rewarded her by making her stream the agent of oaths which bound the gods.

[marianas-art-world]

NYMPHS

Oceanids | the nymphs of fresh-water

[deathlessathanasia]

I bet Tethys and Okeanos only have a limited list of baby names and they keep reusing them, particularly for the girls.

[deathlessathanasia]

Styx is often referred to as Oceanus and Tethys’ eldest daughter, but do you know a source stating she is his eldest child? Narrative-wise it makes sense she is his favorite by seniority, but I think some of the Potamoi are older than her, since we have Asterion, a river god, whose children became Hera’s nurses

Also a bonus question if you know: Do River-goddesses and Oceanids have a distinction? Theoi.com does a thing of placing Lethe at the Potamoi section and not at the Oceanid section, since she is technically a river, but the Potamoi are notably called “sons” (unless Lethe was actually trans, which isn’t possible at all by old accounts but fun to think about)

I only know of her being oldest of all the daughters of Okeanos, as Hesiod calls her: "terrible Styx, eldest daughter of backflowing Ocean." (δεινὴ Στύξ, θυγάτηρ ἀψορρόου Ὠκεανοῖο πρεσβυτάτη), πρεσβυτάτη being a world that can mean both eldest in age or most revered, most honoured.

Personally I think that the best contenders for the title of eldest child of Okeanos are Styx herself and Acheloos. She because Hesiod says that Okeanos gave her a whole tenth of his waters and it makes sense for me (and feels less awkward) if he would have done so out of enthusiasm for the birth of his first child and since he did not yet have other offspring to consider; him because Acheloos seems to have been considered an especially important river, greatest/mightiest after Okeanos himself, as in this passage from Iliad 21: "And as Zeus is a greater god than the gods of the sea-bound rivers, so is his offspring greater than a river’s child. Now a great river washes your feet, but cannot save you, for none can fight a scion of Zeus. Not even Achelous vies with him or the mighty and deep-flowing Ocean, source of the rivers and the sea, the springs and the deep wells: even he fears Zeus’ lightning, when dread thunder crashes from the sky." His name is sometimes used to refer to water in general, in the Derveni Papyrus Zeus recreates Okeanos and after him Acheloos, and it seems that the historian Ephoros of Kyme and the mythographer Akousilaos of Argos referred to this river as most ancient and honoured among the 3000 sons of Okeanos. I guess Acheloos and Styx could be twins, why not?

As I discuss at more length elsewhere, I believe Okeanos and Tethys to be the eldest Titans and to have started having children long before any of their other siblings did, but even without that interpretation I find it quite likely that many of their river sons and Okeanid daughters are actually closer in age to their aunts and uncles than to their cousins. So Asterion (assuming that he is a son of Okeanos) being younger than Styx and nevertheless being the father of Hera's nurses would still make sense to me.

River goddesses seem exceedingly rare. I can't even think of any others besides Styx and Lethe. Female water divinities usually seem to be springs, wells and the like, or to have their dwelling in the sea in the rarer instances when they aren't deities of fresh water. So the major difference between river goddesses and Okeanids is that the latter are in their vast majority not rivers, with the notable exception of Styx (since Lethe is never as far as I know called a daughter of Okeanos).

[deathlessathanasia]

The Development of the Chorus in Prometheus Bound

[deathlessathanasia]

Chorus of Okeanids: Never, oh never, immortal Fates, may you see me the partner of the bed of Zeus, and may I be wedded to no bridegroom who descends to me from heaven. … When marriage is on equal terms, in my opinion it is no cause for dread; so never may the love of the mightier gods cast on me its irresistible glance. That would indeed be a war that cannot be fought, a source of resourceless misery; and I do not know what would be my fate, for I do not see how I could escape the designs of Zeus. - Aischylos, Prometheus Bound 895-906

[deathlessathanasia]

For whatever reason, Persephone has a lot of connections with the Okeanids, more than any other goddess.

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, they appear as her companions with whom she is picking flowers before her abduction (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 5), and after she is reunited with her mother Persephone even lists each of them by name (418–423); in the Library of Pseudo-Apollodoros 1.3.1, Styx is mentioned as Persephone's mother by Zeus; in Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae, the Okeanid Electra is Proserpina's nurse: "Electra, loving nurse of Proserpine, best known among the old Nymphs of Ocean; she who loved Proserpine as did Ceres. ‘Twas she who, when Proserpine had left her cradle, would bear her in her loving bosom and bring the little girl to mighty Jove and set her to play on her father’s knee. She was her companion, her guardian, and could be deemed her second mother." And then there is Daeira, a very elusive figure connected with the Eleusinian Mysteries. According to Pausanias (Description of Greece 1.38.7) she was a daughter of Okeanos and mother of Eleusis, and Pherekydes calls her the sister of Styx. Her identity is far from fixed though and she can be identified with a whole lot of goddesses, but most frequently she is associated with Persephone in one way or another.