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Mythographia

    Boreas

    Boreas is the personification of the North Wind, son of the Titan Astraeus and the dawn goddess Eos, brother to the West Wind Zephyrus and the South Wind Notus. After failing to win the Athenian princess Oreithyia as a suitor, he simply seizes her while she is playing by the Ilissus river and carries her off to Thrace, where she bears him two winged sons, Zetes and Calais, who later sail with Jason and the Argonauts. Because of that marriage, Athens considered Boreas a son-in-law of the city, and during the Persian Wars the Athenians credited him with destroying part of the Persian fleet with a storm, founding a shrine to him in gratitude.

    Bronze engraved medallion illustration of Boreas with windswept hair and a curling wind-blown cloak
    Illustration, not a source

    Boreas, God of the North Wind

    Generated by AI from this page's own facts, not an ancient image or evidence of anything. How this site uses generated images

    By Reviewed by Mythographia Editorial Team

    Core Myth

    Hesiod's Theogony names Boreas among the "strong-hearted winds" born to the dawn goddess Eos and the Titan Astraeus, alongside his brothers Zephyrus, the West Wind, and Notus, the South Wind. Apollodorus's Library tells the fuller story of his most famous myth: Boreas courted Oreithyia, daughter of Erechtheus, the legendary king of Athens, but when persuasion failed, he simply carried her off by force while she was playing beside the Ilissus river and took her to Thrace. There she bore him two daughters, Cleopatra and Chione, and two winged sons, Zetes and Calais, who grew up to sail with Jason aboard the Argo - during the voyage, the brothers drove off the Harpies that had been tormenting the blind seer Phineus, chasing them across the sky until the messenger goddess Iris made them swear an oath to stop.

    Who were Boreas's parents?

    The dawn goddess Eos and the Titan Astraeus. Hesiod's Theogony names their three sons together as "the strong-hearted winds": Boreas, Zephyrus the West Wind, and Notus the South Wind.

    Hesiod, Theogony 378-380

    How did Boreas get Oreithyia?

    By force, after courtship failed. Apollodorus's Library says Boreas wanted to marry Oreithyia, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, but when asking for her went nowhere, he simply seized her while she was playing by the Ilissus river and carried her to Thrace.

    Apollodorus, Library 3.15.1-3.15.3

    Who were Boreas's children, and what did his sons do?

    With Oreithyia, Boreas had two daughters, Cleopatra and Chione, and two winged sons, Zetes and Calais. The sons later sailed with Jason on the Argo and drove the Harpies away from the tormented seer Phineus during the voyage.

    Apollodorus, Library 3.15.1-3.15.3

    Why did the Athenians consider Boreas their son-in-law?

    Because he had married Oreithyia, an Athenian princess, the daughter of their own legendary king Erechtheus. Herodotus records that this marriage was the exact reason the Athenians prayed to Boreas by name for help during the Persian invasion.

    Herodotus, Histories 7.189

    Did Boreas actually help the Athenians against the Persians?

    Herodotus reports that the Athenians believed so: when a storm damaged the Persian fleet after their prayer, they credited Boreas directly and founded a sacred precinct to him beside the Ilissus river in thanks - the same river where he had once seized Oreithyia.

    Herodotus, Histories 7.189

    Later Traditions

    The marriage to Oreithyia gave Boreas a lasting, literal place in Athenian religion: because he had married an Athenian princess, the city considered him a son-in-law, and Herodotus records that during the Persian invasion the Athenians prayed to Boreas by name, asking him to come to their aid as kin. When a storm went on to batter the Persian fleet, the Athenians credited Boreas directly and founded a sacred precinct to him beside the very Ilissus river where he had seized Oreithyia generations before. Homer's epics give Boreas a more ordinary role as one of the four cardinal winds Poseidon can call on: after Poseidon vents his anger at Odysseus, he stirs up all the winds together, driving the North Wind in among them to wreck Odysseus's raft.

    Lineage

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    2 recorded relations, each with the ancient line behind it.

    Parents

    Siblings

    Also Connected

    4 recorded connections, each with the ancient line behind it.

    Connected

    Where Accounts Differ

    • whether Oreithyia's abduction was a real event rationalized rather than a myth
    • Later, more rationalist Greek writers offered a demythologized reading of the Oreithyia story: Plato has Socrates mention, half-jokingly, a version where she was simply blown off a nearby cliff by a gust of wind while playing and only afterward said to have been carried off by the god Boreas. This page follows Apollodorus's straightforwardly mythological account rather than the rationalized one.

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    Mythology

    Related Terms

    Sources

    Primary sources
    • Hesiod, Theogony 378-380
    • Apollodorus, Library 3.15.1-3.15.3
    • Herodotus, Histories 7.189
    • Homer, Iliad 23.192-230
    • Homer, Odyssey 5.282-296
    • Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica
    Further reading
    • Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)