Pleiades in Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
(*Pleia/des or Πελειάδες), the Pleiads, are called
daughters of Atlas by Pleione (or by the Oceanid Aethra,
Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1155), of Erechtheus (Serv. ad Aen.
1.744), of Cadmus (Theon, ad Arat. p. 22), or of the queen
of the Amazons. (Schol. ad Theocrit. 13.25.) They were the
sisters of the Hyades, and seven in number, six of whom are
described as visible, and the seventh as invisible. Some
call the seventh Sterope, and relate that she became
invisible from shame, because she alone among her sisters
had had intercourse with a mortal man ; others call her
Electra, and make her disappear from the choir of her
sisters on account of her grief at the destruction of the
house of Dardanus (Hyg. Fab. 192, Poet. Astr. 2.21). The
Pleiades are said to have made away with themselves from
grief at the death of their sisters, the Hyades, or at the
fate of their father, Atlas, and were afterwards placed as
stars at the back of Taurus, where they form a cluster
resembling a hunch of grapes, whence they were sometimes
called βότρυς (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1155). According to
another story, the Pleiades were virgin companions of
Artemis, and, together with their mother Pleione, were
pursued by the hunter Orion in Boeotia; their prayer to be
rescued from him was heard by the gods, and they were
metamorphosed into doves (πελειάδες), and placed among the
stars (Hygin. Poet. Astr. 2.21; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod.
3.226; Pind. Ncm. 2.17). The rising of the Pleiades in Italy
was about the beginning of May, and their setting about the
beginning of November. Their names are Electra, Maia,
Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope, and Merope (Tzetz. ad
Lyc. 219, comp. 149; Apollod. 3.10.1). The scholiast of
Theocritus (13.25) gives the following different set of
names : Coccymo, Plaucia, Protis, Parthemia, Maia,
Stonychia, Lampatho. (Comp. Hom. Il. 18.486, Od. 5.272; Ov.
Fast. 4.169, &c.; HYADES; and Ideler, Untersuch. über die
Sternennamen, p. 144.) - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman
biography and mythology, William Smith, Ed.
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