Thalassa

Thalassa is the Greek word for “sea” and the name of the sea as a goddess. She is a minor figure: Hesiod, the main source for the early gods, does not mention her, and the only story told about her children is a Rhodian one, recorded by Diodorus Siculus, in which she is the mother of the Telchines.

Parents

Hesiod’s Theogony has no goddess Thalassa. In his account the sea is Pontus, whom Earth (Gaea) bore by herself, without sweet love (Hesiod, Theogony 131–132). Aether and Hemera (Day) are children of Night and Erebus in the same poem (Theogony 123–125). A later mythographer, Hyginus, makes Thalassa, together with Earth and Heaven, a child of Aether and Day (Hyginus, Fabulae, Preface).

Children

Diodorus Siculus tells the story of Rhodes. The island was first inhabited by the Telchines, who, as the myth is told, were children of Thalatta (the Attic form of Thalassa). With Capheira, a daughter of Ocean, they nursed the infant Poseidon, whom Rhea had given into their care. They were also said to be the first to make statues of the gods, and to be wizards who could call up clouds, rain and hail (Diodorus Siculus 5.55.1–3).

Diodorus also calls Halia the sister of the Telchines. When Poseidon grew up he fell in love with her and had six sons and a daughter, Rhodos, from whom the island took its name. After Aphrodite maddened the sons and Poseidon buried them beneath the earth, Halia threw herself into the sea and was given the name Leucothea and honoured as a goddess (Diodorus Siculus 5.55.4–7). As their sister she would also be a child of Thalassa, although Diodorus does not name her parents.

Thalassa and Pontus

In the Theogony it is Pontus who is the father of the sea gods: with Earth he fathered Nereus, the oldest of his children, called the Old Man of the Sea because he is truthful and gentle; Thaumas; Phorcys; Ceto; and Eurybia (Hesiod, Theogony 233–239). Hesiod does not give Pontus a wife called Thalassa; his children are born of Pontus and Earth.

Not the Mother of Aphrodite

Thalassa is sometimes called the mother of Aphrodite, but Hesiod tells it differently. In his poem, Cronus cut off the genitals of Uranus and threw them into the sea. White foam (aphros) rose around them, and the goddess grew in it; she came first to Cythera and then to Cyprus, and gods and men call her Aphrodite because she was born of the foam (Hesiod, Theogony 188–200). The sea is the place of her birth, not her mother.

The Sea as a figure does appear beside Aphrodite in art. In the temple of Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth, Pausanias saw a bronze statue of the Sea next to images of Poseidon and Amphitrite, and on the base of a gold-and-ivory group dedicated by Herodes the Athenian there was a relief of the Sea holding up the young Aphrodite, with the Nereids on either side (Pausanias 2.1.7–8).

Thalassa Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 123–132, 188–200 and 233–239; Hyginus, Fabulae, Preface; Diodorus Siculus 5.55; Pausanias 2.1.7–8.

See Also: Aether, Hemera, Pontus, Aphrodite, Uranus, Cronus, Poseidon, Nereus