ILISSOS

ILISSOS was a river-god of Attika in southern Greece.

The Ilissos stream flowed through the city of Athens emptying into the Saronic Gulf just south of the port of Peiraios (Piraeus). Other local rivers personified by the Athenians were the Eridanos, a small tributory of the Ilissos, and the twin streams of the Kephisos (Cephisus).

PARENTS

Presumably OKEANOS & TETHYS

OFFSPRING

PHARMAKEIA (Plato Phaedrus 229)

CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES

Plato, Phaedrus 229 (trans. Fowler) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) :
"Phaidros (Phaedrus) : I should like to know, Sokrates, whether the place is not somewhere here at which Boreas is said to have carried off Oreithyia from the banks of the Ilissos (Ilissus)?
Sokrates (Socrates) : Such is the tradition.
Phaidros : And is this the exact spot? The little stream [the Ilissos] is delightfully clear and bright; I can fancy that there might be maidens playing near.
Sokrates : I believe that the spot is not exactly here, but about a quarter of a mile lower down, where you cross to the temple of Artemis, and there is, I think, some sort of an altar of Boreas at the place . . . Oreithyia was playing with Pharmakeia (Pharmacia) [presumably a Naiad daughter of the Ilissos], when a northern gust carried her over the neighbouring rocks; and this being the manner of her death, she was said to have been carried away by Boreas."

SOURCES

GREEK

• Plato, Phaedrus - Greek Philosophy C4th B.C.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete bibliography of the translations quoted on this page.