| Oceanus |
Articles about Oceanus |
Information AboutOceanus |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT OCEANUS | |
| greek mythology | |
| titans | |
| sea and river gods | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Some scholars believe that Oceanus originally represented all bodies of salt water, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean , the two largest bodies known to the ancient Greeks. However, as geography became more accurate, Oceanus came to represent the stranger, more unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean (also called the "Ocean Sea"), while Poseidon ruled over the Mediterranean. Oceanus' consort is his sister Tethys , and from their union came the ocean Nymph s, also known as the three-thousand Oceanid s, and all the rivers of the world. , ruled the seas before Poseidon . Roman mosaic from Zeugma , c. 1st–2nd centuries AD]] In most variations of the war between the Titans and the Olympians , or Titanomachy , Oceanus, along with Prometheus and Themis , did not take the side of his fellow Titans against the Olympians, but instead withdrew from the conflict. In most variations of this myth, Oceanus also refused to side with Cronus in the latter's revolt against their father, Uranus . In the '' Iliad '', the rich iconography of Achilles ' shield, which was fashioned by Hephaestus , is enclosed, as the world itself was believed to be, by Oceanus: :''"Then, running round the shield-rim, triple-ply, :''he pictured all the might of the Ocean stream." Oceanus appears in Hellenic cosmography as well as myth. Cartographers continued to represent the encircling equatorial stream much as it had appeared on Achilles' shield. {Link without Title} Though Herodotus was skeptical about the physical existence of Oceanus, he rejected snowmelt as a cause of the annual flood of the Nile river; according to his translator and interpreter, Livio Catullo Stecchini , he left unsettled the question of an equatorial Nile, since the geography of Sub-Saharan Africa was unknown to him. EXTERNAL LINKS
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