Idaea or Idaia (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

: Ἰδαία) is the name of several figures in

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

, it means "she who comes from Ida" or "she who lives on Ida", and is often associated with

Mount Ida In Greek mythology, two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida, the "Mountain of the Goddess": Mount Ida in Crete, and Mount Ida in the ancient Troad region of western Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey), which was also known as the '' Phrygian Ida'' ...

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

, and

in the Troad.

Figures

Those named Idaea include: *

Idaea Idaea or Idaia (Ancient Greek: Ἰδαία) is the name of several figures in Greek mythology, it means "she who comes from Ida" or "she who lives on Ida", and is often associated with Mount Ida in Crete, and Mount Ida in the Troad. Figures T ...

, a

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

, who was the mother, by the river-god Scamander, of

King Teucer In Greek mythology, King Teucer (; Ancient Greek: Τεῦκρος ''Teûkros'') was said to have been the son of the river-god Scamander and the nymph Idaea. Mythology Before the arrival of Dardanus, the land that would eventually be called D ...

. *

, the daughter of the Scythian king Dardanus, and wife of Phineus, who falsely accused her stepsons, leading to their imprisonment and torture. *Idaea was, according to

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...

, the mother of the Kuretes (), the armed dancers who guarded the infant

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=Genitive case, genitive el, Δίας, ''D� ...

in a cave on

Cretan Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

. *Idaea, a nymph who consorted with Zeus and became the mother of

Cres Cres (; dlm, Crepsa, vec, Cherso, it, Cherso, la, Crepsa, Greek language, Greek: Χέρσος, ''Chersos'') is an Adriatic island in Croatia. It is one of the northern islands in the Kvarner Gulf and can be reached via ferry from Rijeka, ...

, possible eponym of

. She may be the same with Idaea, daughter of

Minos In Greek mythology, Minos (; grc-gre, Μίνως, ) was a King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus's creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten ...

who mothered Asterion by Zeus also.

Etymology

The name is related with

. In the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...

'' (2.821 etc.), ''Ida'' means wooded hill, and recalls the

mountain worship Mountain worship (sangaku shinko, ) is a faith that regards mountains as sacred and objects of worship. Description Mountain worship is a form of Nature worship that seems to have evolved from the reverence that ethnic groups closely associate ...

in the

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...

mother goddess religion. Three inscriptions in Linear A, which represents the Minoan language, bear just the name ''i-da-ma-te'' ( AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2). The inscriptions may refer to the "mother goddess of Ida" (Ἰδαία μάτηρ).Richard Valance
/ref>

Νotes

References

Apollodorus Apollodorus (Ancient Greek, Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: ...

, ''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 Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* '' Clementine Recognitions'', translated by Thomas Smith, in ''Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325''. Editied by Alexander Roberts, and James Donaldson, Vol III. Tatian, Theophilus, and The Clementine Recognitions. T. and T, Clark, Edinburgh 1867
Online version at Wikisource
*

, ''Diodorus Siculus: The Library of History''. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. Twelve volumes.

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and L ...

. Cambridge, MA:

; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989
Online version by Bill Thayer
* Grimal, Pierre, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, . * Tripp, Edward, ''Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology'', Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). . {{Greek myth index Nymphs Cretan characters in Greek mythology Hellenistic Anatolian deities Ancient Greek religion