Oceanus symbol
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When most of us think about the sea as it relates to Greek mythology, we usually envision Poseidon, who is the god of the sea. However, there is a lot more to it than that. The reality is that there are multiple deities that are associated with the sea, and the lore is also filled with other sea creatures and monsters. Oceanus is one of the figures of Greek mythology that are associated with the sea and the ocean. Here are the details of his story:
Divine Representation of the Sea
There is a key difference between Poseidon and Oceanus. While Poseidon was the god who was able to control the sea, Oceanus was actually looked at as the deity that physically represented the sea. In fact, the English word, Ocean, is derived from Oceanus, and this initially came about because of what he represented. Oceanus personified the sea. At the time, the Greeks looked at the sea as an incredibly large river that surrounded the known world.
Information About Oceanus
It is said that Oceanus was the son of Uranus, the god of the sky, and Gaia, the goddess of the earth. Both Uranus and Gaia were p
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Overview
The first son of Gaia and Uranus, Oceanus was a Titan who personified the great seas and oceans. He was often likened to a great river that spanned the entirety of the known world. With his sister and lover Tethys, Oceanus spawned the legions of sea nymphs known as the Oceanids.
Though not as popular as the Olympian deities, Oceanus was still well known throughout ancient Greece. He was mentioned in the Homeric epics, though his exact personality remained obscure. The ancient Greeks viewed Oceanus as a kind and benevolent deity; he was generally represented as an older male with a flowing beard that symbolized his fatherly authority.
Etymology
The name “Oceanus” (Greek Ὠκεανός, translit. Ōkeanos) is identical to the Greek word ōkeanos, meaning “great sea or river,” a reference to the body of water thought to encompass the world. The origins of the word are obscure, and possibly pre-Greek[1] or even Semitic.[2] The term may have been derived from the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European *ō-kei-m̥[h₁]no-, meaning “lying on.”[3] The Titan was often depicted in a
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OKEANOS
Greek Name
Ωκεανος
Transliteration
Ôkeanos
OKEANOS (Oceanus) was the primordial Titan god of the great, earth-encircling River Okeanos, font of all of the earth's fresh-water - rivers, wells, springs and rain-clouds. He was also the god who regulated the heavenly bodies which rose from and set into his waters. Okeanos' wife Tethys "the Nurse" was probably envisioned distributing his nourishing waters across the earth through subterranean acquifers. Their children were the Potamoi, gods of rivers, and the Okeanides (Oceanids), nymphs of springs and fountains. Unlike his Titan-brothers Okeanos did not participate in the castration of their father Ouranos nor join the war against Zeus and the Olympian gods.
Okeanos was probably identical to Ophion, an elder Titan in the Orphic myths who ruled heaven briefly before being wrestled and cast into the Ocean stream by Kronos (Cronus).
Okeanos was depicted in a
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