There it was that I saw Odysseus and gave him gifts of entertainment; for the force of the wind had brought him too to Crete, as he was making for the land of Troy, and drove him out of his course past Malea. So he anchored his ships at Amnisus, where is the cave of Eilithyia, in a difficult harbor, and hardly did he escape the storm.
Then straightway he went up to the city and asked for Idomeneus; for he declared that he was his friend, beloved and honored. But it was now the tenth or the eleventh dawn since Idomeneus had gone in his beaked ships to Ilios. So I took him to the house, and gave him entertainment with kindly welcome of the rich store that was in the house, and to the rest of his comrades who followed with him I gathered and gave out of the public store barley meal and flaming wine and bulls for sacrifice, that their hearts might be satisfied. There for twelve days the goodly Achaeans tarried, for the strong North Wind penned them there, and would not suffer them to stand upon their feet on the land, for some angry god had roused it. But on the thirteenth day the wind fell and they put to sea. (Od. 19.185).
They were daughters of Zeus and Hera, who were present during a childbirth (Il. 11.270, 19.119). In the passage of the Odyssey, 19.103, only one Eilethyia, goddess of childbirth, is mentioned, to whom a cave was dedicated at Amnisus in Crete.
Daughter of Hera, daughter of Zeus and Hera, born at Amnisus, mother of Love, identified with Fate, came from Hyperboreans, cares for women in travail, holds a torch, Delians sacrifice to her, Hermionians sacrifice to her daily, the Ilithyias retard Alcmena's delivery, altar of Ilithyia, images, draped images, image seen only by priestesses, temples and sanctuaries, sanctuary of the Ilithyias, Ilithyia called 'Auge on her knees,' 'the spinner deft,' Olympian.
Eileithyia, who they say came from the Hyperboreans to Delos and helped Leto in her labour; and from Delos the name spread to other peoples. The Delians sacrifice to Eileithyia and sing a hymn of Olen. But the Cretans suppose that Eileithyia was born at Auunisus in the Cnossian territory, and that Hera was her mother. Only among the Athenians are the wooden figures of Eileithyia draped to the feet. The women told me that two are Cretan, being offerings of Phaedra, and that the third, which is the oldest, Erysichthon brought from Delos.
This extract is from: Pausanias. Description of Greece (ed. W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., & H.A. Ormerod, 1918). Cited Mar 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
The goddess of birth, daughter of Zeus and Hera, who helped women
in labor. She was also a judge of pregnant women: the ones that had been good
she blessed with an easy birth, the ones that had no she gave a long and painful
one.
Eleutho/Eileithyia was born in a cave near Knossos
on Crete, and was he sister
of Ares, Hestia and Hebe. She was generally considered to be a virgin goddess,
but sometimes it was claimed she was Eros' mother, or the mystical hero Sosipolis.
The goddess and Sosipolis were worshipped in Olympia.
It was this goddess that prolonged the birth of Heracles on Hera's
demand. She was a companion of the Moirae.
This text is cited Sept 2003 from the In2Greece URL below.
Eileithyia (Eileithuia), also called Eleithyia, Eilethyia, or Eleutho. The ancients
derive her name from the verb eleuthein, according to which it would signify the
coming or helping goddess. She was the goddess of birth, who came to the assistance
of women in labour; and when she was kindly disposed, she furthered the birth,
but when she was angry, she protracted the labour and delayed the birth. These
two functions were originally assigned to different Eileithuiai (Hom. Il. xi.
270 xvi. 187, xix. 103; comp. Paus. i. 44. § 3; Hesych. s. v. Eileithuiai). Subsequently,
however, both functions were attributed to one divinity, and even in the later
Homeric poems the Cretan Eileithyia
alone is mentioned (Hom. Hymn. in Apoll. Del. 98, Od. xix. 188). According
to the Iliad the Eileithyiae were daughters of Hera, the goddess of marriage,
whom they obeyed (Hom. Il. xix. 119; comp. Pind. Nem. vii. init.; Ov. Met. ix.
285; Anton. Lib. 29). According to Hesiod (Theog. 922) Zeus was the father of
Eileithyia, and she was the sister of Hebe and Ares (Apollod. i. 3.1). Artemis
and Eileithyia were originally very different divinities, but there were still
some features in their characters which afterwards made them nearly identical.
Artemis was believed to avert evil, and to protect what was young and tender,
and sometimes she even assisted women in labour. Artemis, moreover, was, like
Eileithyia, a maiden divinity; and although the latter was the daughter of the
goddess of marriage and the divine midwife, neither husband, nor lover, nor children
of her are mentioned. She punished want of chastity by increasing the pains at
the birth of a child, and was therefore feared by maidens (Theocrit. xxvii. 28).
Frequent births, too, were displeasing to her. In an ancient hymn attributed to
Olen, which was sung in Delos,
Eileithyia was called the mother of Eros (Paus. i. 18.5. ix. 27.2).
Her worship appears to have been first established among the Dorians
in Crete, where she was believed
to have been born in a cave in the territory of Cnossus.
From thence her worship spread over Delos
and Attica. According to
a Delian tradition, Eileithyia was not born in Crete,
but had come to Delos from
the Hyperboreans, for the purpose of assisting Leto (Herod. iv. 35). She had a
sanctuary at Athens, containing
three carved images of the goddess, which were covered all over down to the toes.
Two were believed to have been presented by Phaedra, and the third to have been
brought by Erysichthon from Delos
(Paus. i. 8.15). Her statues, however, were not thus covered everywhere, as Pausanias
asserts, for at Aegion there
was one in which the head, hands, and feet were uncovered (Paus. vii. 23.5). She
had sanctuaries in various places, such as Sparta
(Paus. iii. 17.1, 14.6), Cleitor
(viii. 21.2), Messene (iv.
31.7), Tegea (viii. 48.5),
Megara (i. 44.3), Hermione
(ii. 35.8), and other places.
The Elionia, who was worshipped at Argos
as the goddess of birth (Plut. Quaest. Rom. 49), was probably the same as Eileithyia.
(Bottiger, Ilithyia oder die Hexe, Weimar, 1799; Muller, Dor. ii. 2.14)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
The rivergod Amnisus
Amnisiades or Amnisides, the nymphs of the river Amnisus in Crete, who are mentioned in connexion with the worship of Artemis there. (Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 15, 162 ; Apollon. Rhod. iii. 881.)
But Minos is said to have used as seaport Amnisus, where is the temple of Eileithuia (Strab. 10,4,8).
Ancient site on N coast 7.5 km E. of Iraklion. Homer (Od. 19.188-89)
refers to its difficult harbor and to the Cave of Eileithyia; a later tradition
made it the port of Knossos under Minos (Strab. 10.4.8, probably a deduction from
Homer rather than a genuine surviving Minoan tradition, despite the considerable
Minoan remains now revealed). Ancient sources (see Guarducci) refer only to the
Amnisos river (now Karteros), the harbor, the plain, and the cave and sanctuary
of Eileithyia. There is no clear evidence that a city called Amnisos ever existed:
no coins or public inscriptions of Amnisos are known, and the main coastal settlement
(Palaiochora) may have been called Thenai.
A sandy beach runs E for 2.5 km from the mouth of the Karteros. Half
way along it is a rocky hill (Palaiochora), on which there was a fortified village
(Mesovouni) in the Venetian period, probably abandoned during the Turkish attacks
of the mid 17th c.; Minoan remains have been found beneath the ruined houses of
this period.
At the E and N foot of the hill and W of the hill are Minoan remains,
and traces of occupation on the W in the early post-Minoan period also, though
the evidence is confused. In the archaic Greek period an open-air sanctuary was
built over and into the Minoan ruins, which were at least partly visible: in front
of a long wall fronted by steps was an altar, over and around which were found
large numbers of archaic votives, and faience objects imported from Egypt. A coastal
recession deposited a deep layer of sand over the site, probably in the Classical
period. The sanctuary was rebuilt with roofed buildings over the sand layer by
the end of the 2d c. B.C. A dedication to Zeus Thenatas indicates the identity
of the cult practiced here (or one of them), which lasted until the 2d c. A.D.
at least.
Farther W, towards the river, lay the impoverished settlement of LM
IIIB, with traces of post-Minoan occupation. The Minoan harbor must have lain
in the river mouth, then much less silted, but still rather exposed to the NW
wind.
The Cave of Eileithyia (Neraidospilios or Koutsouras) lies 1 km inland,
in the ridge on the E side of the Karteros valley. First identified and briefly
excavated in the 1880s, it was fully excavated, with the coastal site, in the
1930s. The cave (62 m long, 9-12 m wide and 3-4 m high) was entered from the E.
Roughly in the center of the cave are a large and small stalagmite (clearly objects
of cult) and a simple altar, surrounded by a low wall (probably Minoan or Geometric);
water dripping at the back of the cave may have been connected with the (probably
kourotrophic) cult, which seems to have flourished in LM III-Archaic and Hellenistic-Roman
times. The remains are mostly of pottery, ranging in date from Neolithic to 5th
c. A.D.
Regarded in antiquity as the birthplace of Eileithyia, the cave was
her chief cult place. Her cult may also have been later practiced in the coastal
settlement, whose origin may have been due to the cult rather than the harbor.
D. J. Blackman, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
A town in the N. of Crete, and the harbour of Cnossus in the time of Minos, was
situated at the mouth of a river of the same name (the modern Aposelemi). It possessed
a sanctuary of Eileithyia, and the nymphs of the river, called Amnisiabes and
Amnisides, were sacred to this goddess.
Tel: +30 2810 331433, 331487
Fax: +30 2810 346710
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