Ossa

The personification of rumor or report, the Latin Fama. As it is often impossible to trace a report to its source, it is said to come from Zeus, and hence Ossa is called the messenger of Zeus.1 Sophocles2 calls her a daughter of Hope, and the poets, both Greek and Latin, have indulged in various imaginary descriptions of Ossa or Fama.3

At Athens she was honored with an altar.4

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References

Notes

  1. Homer. Odyssey i, 282, ii, 216; xxiv, 412; Iliad ii, 93.
  2. Oedipus Tyrannus, 158.
  3. Hesiod. Works and Days, 705 ff.; Virgil. Aeneid iv, 174 ff.; Ovid. Metamorphoses xii, 39 ff.
  4. Pausanias. Description of Greece i, 17.1.

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.