Eos (Greek Ἠώς, or Ἕως "dawn") is, in Greek mythology, the
Titan goddess[1] of the dawn, who rose from her home at the
edge of Oceanus, the Ocean that surrounds the world, to herald
her brother Helios, the sun.
The Greek worship of the dawn as a goddess is believed to be
inherited from Indo-European times. The name Eos is cognate to
Latin Aurora, to Vedic Ushas...
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（Ἠώς), in Latin Aurora, the goddess of the morning red, who
brings up the light of day from the east. She was a daughter
of Hyperion and Theia or Euryphassa, and a sister of Helios
and Selene. (Hes. Th. 371, &c.; Hom. Hymn in Sol. ii.) Ovid
(Ov. Met. 9.420, Fast. 4.373) calls her a daughter of
Pallas. At the close of night she rose front the couch of
her beloved Tithonus, and on a chariot drawn by the swift
horses Lampus and Phaeton she ascended up to heaven from the
river Oceanus, to announce the coming light of the sun to
the gods as well as to mortals. (Hom. Od. 5.1, &c., 23.244;
Verg. A. 4.129, Georg. 1.446; Hom. Hymn in Merc. 185;
Theocrit. 2.148, 13.11.) In the Homeric poems Eos not only
announces the coming Helios, but accompanies him throughout
the day, and her career is not complete till the evening;
hence she is sometimes mentioned where one would have
expected Helios (Od. 5.390, 10.144); and the tragic writers
completely identify her with Hemera, of whom in later times
the same myths are related as of Eos. (Paus. 1.3.1, 3.18.7.)
The later Greek and the Roman poets followed, on the whole,
the notions of Eos, which Homer had established, and the
splendour of a southern aurora, which lasts much longer than
in our climate, is a favourite topic with the ancient poets.
Mythology represents her as having carried off several
youths distinguished for their beauty. Thus she carried away
Orion, but the gods were angry at her for it, until Artemis
with a gentle arrow killed him. (Hom. Od. 5.121.) According
to Apollodorus (1.4.4) Eos carried Orion to Delos, and was
ever stimulated by Aphrodite. Cleitus, the son of Mantius,
was carried by Eos to the seats of the immortal gods (Od.
15.250), and Tithonus, by whom she became the mother of
Emathion and Memnon, was obtained in like manner. She begged
of Zeus to make him immortal, but forgot to request him to
add eternal youth. So long as he was young and beautiful,
she lived with him at the end of the earth, on the banks of
Oceanus ; and when he grew old, she nursed him, until at
length his voice disappeared and his body became quite dry.
She then locked the body up in her chamber, or metamorphosed
it into a cricket. (Hom. Hymn. in Ven. 218, &c.; Hor. Carm.
1.22. 8, 2.16. 30; Apollod. 3.12.4; Hes. Th. 984; Serv. ad
Virg. Georg. 1.447, 3.328, Aen. 4.585.) When her son Memnon
was going to fight against Achilles, she asked Hephaestus to
give her arms for him, and when Memnon was killed, her tears
fell down in the form of morning dew. (Verg. A. 8.384.) By
Astraeus Eus became the mother of Zephyrus, Boreas, Notus,
Heosphorus, and the other stars. (Hesiod. Theog. 378.)
Cephalus was carried away by her from the summit of mount
Hymetttus to Syria, and by him she became the mother of
Phaeton or Tithonus, the father of Phaeton; but afterwards
she restored her beloved to his wife Procris. (Hes. Th. 984;
Apollod. 3.14.3; Paus. 1.3.1; Ov. Met. 7.703, &c.; Hygin.
Fab 189; comp. CEPHALUS.) Eos was represented in the
pediment of the kingly stoa at Athens in the act of carrying
off Cephalus, and in the same manner she was seen on the
throne of the Amyclaean Apollo. (Paus. 1.3.1, 3.18.7.) At
Olympia she was represented in the act of praying to Zeus
for Memnon. (5.22. 2.) In the works of art still extant, she
appears as a winged goddess or in a chariot drawn by four
horses. - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and
mythology, William Smith, Ed.
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