Electra

A daughter of Atlas and Pleione, was one of the seven Pleiades, and became by Zeus the mother of Iasion and Dardanus.1 According to a tradition preserved in Servius2 she was the wife of the Italian king Corythus, by whom she had a son, Iasion; whereas by Zeus she was the mother of Dardanus.3 Diodorus4 calls Harmonia her daughter by Zeus.

She is connected also with the legend about the Palladium. When Electra, it is said, had come as a suppliant to the Palladium, which Athena had established, Zeus or Athena herself threw it into the territory of Ilium [Troy], because it had been sullied by the hands of a woman who was no longer a pure maiden, and King Ilus then built a temple to Zeus.5

According to others it was Electra herself that brought the Palladium to Ilium, and gave it to her son Dardanus.6 When she saw the city of her son perishing in flames, she tore out her hair for grief and was thus placed among the stars as a comet.7 According to others, Electra and her six sisters were placed among the stars as the seven Pleiades, and lost their brilliancy on seeing the destruction of Ilium.8

The fabulous island of Electris was believed to have received its name from her.9

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References

Notes

  1. Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library iii, 10.1, 12.1-3.
  2. On Virgil's Aeneid i, 32, ii, 325, iii, 104, vii, 207.
  3. Comp. Servius on Virgil's Aeneid i, 384, iii, 167; Tzetzes on Lycophron, 29.
  4. Historical Library v, 48.
  5. Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library iii, 12.3.
  6. Scholiast on Euripides' Phoenician Women, 1136.
  7. Servius on Virgil's Aeneid x, 272.
  8. Servius on Virgil's Georgics i, 138; Eustathius on Homer, p. 1155.
  9. Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica i, 916.

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.