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{{Short description|Personification of the sea in Greek mythology}}
{{other uses}}
[[File:Hatay thalassa.jpg|upright=1.5|thumb|A 5th-century Roman mosaic of Thalassa, in the [[Hatay Archaeological Museum]]<ref>Wages, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1291533?seq=14 p. 125].</ref>]]
'''Thalassa'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|θ|ə|ˈ|l|æ|s|ə}};<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/thalassa |title=THALASSA definition and meaning |website=[[Collins Online Dictionary]] |access-date=4 August 2025}}</ref> {{langx|grc|θάλασσα|thálassa|sea}};<ref>Beekes, [https://dictionaries.brillonline.com/search#dictionary=greek&id=gr2784 s.v. θάλασσα, p. 530].</ref> [[Attic Greek]]: {{lang|grc|θάλαττα|}}, ''thálatta''<ref>Silva, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CGwdivdETYIC&pg=PA71 pp. 71 ff.]; Beekes, [https://dictionaries.brillonline.com/search#dictionary=greek&id=gr2784 s.v. θάλασσα, p. 530].</ref>}} was the general word for 'sea' and for its divine female personification in [[Greek mythology]]. The word may have been of [[Pre-Greek]] origin<ref>Beekes, [https://dictionaries.brillonline.com/search#dictionary=greek&id=gr2784 s.v. θάλασσα, p. 530].</ref> and connected to the name of the Mesopotamian primordial sea goddess [[Tiamat]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jacobsen |first=Thorkild |date=1968 |title=The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/597902 |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=88 |issue=1 |pages=104–108 |doi=10.2307/597902 |jstor=597902 |issn=0003-0279|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
== Mythology ==
According to a scholion on [[Apollonius of Rhodes]], the fifth-century BC poet [[Ion of Chios]] had Thalassa as the mother of [[Aegaeon (mythology)|Aegaeon]] (Briareus, one of the [[Hecatoncheires]]).<ref>[[Ion of Chios]], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ion_chios-lyric_fragments/1992/pb_LCL461.355.xml fr. 741 Campbell] [= fr. 741 ''PMG'' = Scholia on [[Apollonius of Rhodes]], 1.1165c (Wendel, [https://books.google.com/books?id=0lkhbarJcukC&pg=PA106 p. 106])]; ''BNJ'', [https://scholarlyeditions.brill.com/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:fgrh.0003.bnjo-2-comm4-eng:f43 commentary on 3 F43], [https://scholarlyeditions.brill.com/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:fgrh.0424.bnjo-2-comm3-eng:f5 commentary on 424 F5].</ref> [[Diodorus Siculus]] ({{fl.}} 1st century BC), in his ''[[Bibliotheca historica]]'', states that "Thalatta" is the mother of the [[Telchines]] and the [[sea-nymph]] [[Halia of Rhodes|Halia]],<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]], [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5D*.html#55.1 5.55.1], [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5D*.html#55.4 5.55.4].</ref> while in the ''[[Orphic Hymn]] to the Sea'', [[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]], who is here equated with Thalassa,<ref>Morand, p. 338, table 2; Athanassakis and Wolkow, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TTo3r8IHy0wC&pg=PA114 p. 114].</ref> is called the mother of [[Cypris|Kypris]] ([[Aphrodite]]).<ref>Morand, p. 332, table 1; ''[[Orphic Hymns|Orphic Hymn]] to the Sea'' (22), 7 (Athanassakis and Wolkow, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TTo3r8IHy0wC&pg=PA22 p. 22]).</ref>
The Roman mythographer [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]] (c. 64 BC – AD 17), in the preface to his ''[[Fabulae]]'', calls Mare (Sea, another name for Thalassa)<ref>''Oxford Classical Dictionary'', [https://archive.org/details/oxfordclassicald0000unse_w0u7/page/1220/mode/2up?view=theater s.v. Pontus, p. 1220].</ref> the daughter of [[Aether (mythology)|Aether]] and [[Dies (deity)|Dies]] (Day), and thus the sister of [[Terra (mythology)|Terra]] (Earth) and [[Caelus]] (Sky).<ref>[[Hyginus (Fabulae)|Hyginus]], ''[[Fabulae]]'' Theogony 2 (Smith and Trzaskoma, [https://books.google.com/books?id=vczTNMWLGdoC&pg=PA95 p. 95]; [https://latin.packhum.org/loc/1263/1/0#0 Latin text]).</ref> With her male counterpart [[Pontus (mythology)|Pontus]], she spawns the species of fish.<ref>[[Hyginus (Fabulae)|Hyginus]], ''[[Fabulae]]'' Theogony 5 (Smith and Trzaskoma, [https://books.google.com/books?id=vczTNMWLGdoC&pg=PA95 p. 95]; [https://latin.packhum.org/loc/1263/1/0#0 Latin text]).</ref>
== Literature ==
[[Category:Greek goddesses]]▼
[[File:Rackham shipwreck.jpg|thumb|upright|Thalassa defends herself in Aesop's fable, "The Farmer and the Sea"]]
Two rather similar fables are recorded by [[Babrius]]. In one, numbered 168 in the [[Perry Index]], a farmer witnesses a shipwreck and reproaches the sea for being "an enemy of mankind". Assuming the form of a woman, she answers by blaming the winds for her turbulence. Otherwise, "I am gentler than that dry land of yours."<ref>[http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/perry/168.htm Babrius II.22]</ref> In the other, a survivor from a shipwreck accuses the sea of treachery and receives the same excuse. But for the winds, "by nature I am as calm and safe as the land."<ref>[http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/vernonjones/86.htm Babrius I.71]</ref>
In yet another fable, Perry's number 412 and only recorded by [[Syntipas]], the rivers complain to the sea that their sweet water is turned undrinkably salty by contact with her. The sea replies that if they know as much, they should avoid such contact. The commentary suggests that the tale may be applied to people who criticize someone inappropriately even though they may actually be helping them.<ref>[http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford/258.htm Aesopica]</ref>
In the 2nd century CE, Lucian represented Thalassa in a comic dialogue with Xanthus, the god of the River [[Scamander]], who had been attacked by a rival Greek deity for complaining that his course was being choked with dead bodies during the [[Trojan War]]. In this case he had been badly scorched and asks her to soothe his wounds.<ref>[[Lucian]], ''Confabulations of the Marine Deities'' XI ([https://books.google.com/books?id=FzVAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA355 pp. 355–356]).</ref>
== Art ==
[[File:ViennaDioscoridesCoral.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.75|Illustration of coral with the goddess at the base, from a 6th-century medical discourse]]
While the sea-divinities Tethys and Oceanus were formerly represented in Roman-era mosaics, they were replaced at a later period by the figure of Thalassa, especially in [[Western Asia]]. There she was depicted as a woman clothed in bands of seaweed and half submerged in the sea, with the crab-claw horns that were formerly an attribute of Oceanus now transferred to her head. In one hand she holds a ship's oar, and in the other a dolphin.<ref>Eraslan, [http://artsanatjournal.art-archaeology.org/files/ART-SANAT-4-2015.pdf#page=10 pp. 5–7].</ref>
In 2011, [[Swoon (artist)|Swoon]] created a [[site-specific art|site-specific]] [[Installation art|installation]] depicting the goddess in the atrium of the [[New Orleans Museum of Art]].<ref name="SWOON: THALASSA - The Great Hall Project">{{cite web|url=http://noma.org/exhibitions/detail/1/Swoon-THALASSA-The-Great-Hall-Project|title=Swoon: Thalassa (The Great Hall Project)|access-date=2013-04-16}}</ref> In fall 2016, the installation was erected once more in the atrium of the [[Detroit Institute of Arts]].
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== Notes ==
{{notelist}}
{{reflist}}
== References ==
* [[Apostolos Athanassakis|Athanassakis, Apostolos N.]], and Benjamin M. Wolkow, ''The Orphic Hymns'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0882-8}}.
* [[Babrius]], [[Phaedrus (fabulist)|Phaedrus]], ''Fables''. Translated by Ben Edwin Perry. [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 436. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1965. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL436/1965/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press].
* [[Robert S. P. Beekes|Beekes, Robert S. P.]], ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', 2 vols, Leiden, [[Brill Publishing|Brill]], 2009. {{ISBN|978-90-04-17418-4}}. [https://dictionaries.brillonline.com/greek Online version at Brill].
* Campbell, David A., ''Greek Lyric, Volume IV: Bacchylides, Corinna'', [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 461. Cambridge, Massachusetts, [[Harvard University Press]], 1992. {{ISBN|978-0-674-99508-6}}. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL461/1992/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press].
* [[Diodorus Siculus]], ''[[Bibliotheca Historica|Library of History]], Volume III: Books 4.59-8'', translated by [[Charles Henry Oldfather|C. H. Oldfather]], [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 340, Cambridge, Massachusetts, [[Harvard University Press]], 1939. {{ISBN|978-0-674-99375-4}}. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL340/1939/volume.xml Online version at Harvard University Press]. [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/home.html Online version by Bill Thayer].
* Eraslan, Şehnaz, "Tethys and Thalassa in mosaic art", in ''Art Sanat'', Vol. 4, pp. 1–13. [http://artsanatjournal.art-archaeology.org/files/ART-SANAT-4-2015.pdf#page=6 PDF].
* [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus, Gaius Julius]], ''[[Fabulae]]'' in ''Apollodorus' ''Library'' and Hyginus' ''Fabulae'': Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma'', Hackett Publishing, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-87220-821-6}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=vczTNMWLGdoC&pg=PA95 Google Books].
* [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus, Gaius Julius]], ''Hygini Fabulae'', edited by [[Herbert Jennings Rose]], Leiden, Sijthoff, 1934. [https://latin.packhum.org/loc/1263/1/0 Online version at Packhum].
* [[Lucian]], ''Lucian of Samosata, from the Greek, with the Comments and Illustrations of Wieland and others'', Volume I, translated by [[William Tooke]], London, 1820. [https://books.google.com/books?id=FzVAAAAAYAAJ Google Books].
* Morand, Anne-France, ''Études sur les Hymnes Orphiques'', [[Brill Publishers|Brill]], 2001. {{ISBN|978-900-4-12030-3}}. [https://brill.com/view/title/7182 Online version at Brill].
* ''[[Oxford Classical Dictionary]]'', revised 3rd ed., Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (editors), [[Oxford University Press]], 2003. {{ISBN|0-19-860641-9}}. [https://archive.org/details/oxfordclassicald0000unse_w0u7/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater Internet Archive].
* Silva, Moises, ''God, Language and Scripture: Reading the Bible in the light of general linguistics'', Zondervan, 1990. {{ISBN|978-0-310-87743-1}}.
* Wages, Sara M., "A Note on the Dumbarton Oaks 'Tethys Mosaic'", in ''Dumbarton Oaks Papers'', Vol. 40, pp. 119–128. {{JSTOR|1291533}}.
* Wendel, Carl, ''Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium vetera'', Hildesheim, Weidmann, 1999. {{ISBN|978-3-615-15400-9}}.
== External links ==
* {{Commons category-inline|Thalassa (mythology)}}
{{Greek religion}}
{{Greek mythology (deities)}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Aesop's Fables]]
[[Category:Greek primordial deities]]
▲[[Category:Greek sea goddesses]]
[[Category:Personifications in Greek mythology]]
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