Phoebe (mythology)

This article is about one of the Titans. For other persons in myth named Phoebe, see Phoebe (mythological characters).

Phoebe
Titaness of the "bright" intellect and prophecy
Member of the Titans
A fresco of Herculaneum showing women playing astragalus, depicting Phoebe, Leto, Niobe, Hilearia, and Agle, painted and signed by an artist named "Alexander of Athens", 1st century AD, now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Naples)
Personal Information
Consort	Coeus
Offspring	Leto, Asteria, Lelantos
Parents	Uranus and Gaia
Siblings	Titans Crius Cronus Coeus Hyperion Iapetus Oceanus Mnemosyne Rhea Tethys Theia Themis Hekatonkheires Briareos Cottus Gyges Cyclops Arges Brontes Steropes Other siblings Gigantes Erinyes (the Furies) Meliae Half-siblings Aphrodite Typhon Python Uranus

In ancient Greek religion, Phoebe (/ˈfiːbi/; Greek: Φοίβη Phoibe, associated with Phoebos or "shining")' was one of the original Titans, who were one set of sons and daughters of Uranus and Gaia. She was traditionally associated with the moon (see Selene), as in Michael Drayton's Endimion and Phœbe (1595), the first extended treatment of the Endymion myth in English. Her consort was her brother Coeus, with whom she had two daughters, Leto, who bore Apollo and Artemis, and Asteria, a star-goddess who bore an only daughter Hecate. Given the meaning of her name and her association with the Delphic oracle, Phoebe was perhaps seen as the Titan goddess of prophecy and oracular intellect.

Through Leto, Phoebe was the grandmother of Apollo and Artemis. The names Phoebe and Phoebus (masculine) came to be applied as synonyms for Artemis and Apollo respectively (as well as for Selene and Helios).

According to a speech that Aeschylus, in Eumenides, puts in the mouth of the Delphic priestess herself, she received control of the Oracle at Delphi from Themis: "Phoebe in this succession seems to be his private invention," D. S. Robertson noted, reasoning that in the three great allotments of oracular powers at Delphi, corresponding to the three generations of the gods, "Ouranos, as was fitting, gave the oracle to his wife Gaia and Kronos appropriately allotted it to his sister Themis."

In Zeus' turn to make the gift, Aeschylus could not report that the oracle was given directly to Apollo, who had not yet been born, Robertson notes, and thus Phoebe was interposed. These supposed male delegations of the powers at Delphi as expressed by Aeschylus are not borne out by the usual modern reconstruction of the sacred site's pre-Olympian history.

References

• Aeschylus, Persians. Seven against Thebes. Suppliants. Prometheus Bound. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Loeb Classical Library No. 145. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-674-99627-4. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Caldwell, Richard, Hesiod's Theogony, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987). ISBN 978-0-941051-00-2.
• Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Hymn to Hermes (4), in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.