Aetna

A Sicilian nymph, and according to Alcimus,1 a daughter of Uranus and Gaea, or of Briareus. Simonides said that she had acted as arbitrator between Hephaestus and Demeter respecting the possession of Sicily. By Zeus or Hephaestus she became the mother of the Palici.2

Mount Aetna in Sicily was believed to have derived its name from her, and under it Zeus buried Typhon, Enceladus, or Briareus. The mountain itself was believed to be the place in which Hephaestus and the Cyclopes made the thunderbolts for Zeus.3

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References

Notes

  1. ap. the Scholiast on Theocritus, i, 65.
  2. Servius on Virgil's Aeneid ix, 584.
  3. Euripides. Cyclops, 296; Propertius, iii, 15. 21; Cicero. De Divinatione ii, 19.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.