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