Unsolved:Opis (mythology)

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In Greek mythology, Opis (Ancient Greek: Ὦπις or Ὦπιν means 'sighting') or Upis (Οὖπις) may refer to the following characters:

Feminine

  • Opis or Ops, another name for Rhea.[1]
  • Opis, one of the 50 Nereides, marine-nymph daughters of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris.[2] She was one of the nymphs in the train of Cyrene.[3][4]
  • Opis, Oupis or Upis, a Hyperborean nymph, daughter of the North Wind Boreas.[5] Together with Arge, she carried an offering which had been vowed for the birth of Apollo and Artemis, to Eileithyia, at Delos.[6] Later on, Opis with her sisters Hecaerge (Arge) and Loxo, they became the handmaidens of the goddess.[7] Orion tried to rape her but the giant was shot by Artemis.[8] In later myths, Opis was called by the goddess Diana (Artemis) to avenge the death of the Amazon-like female warrior Camilla. Diana gave Opis magical weapons for revenge on Camilla's killer, the Etruscan Arruns. Opis saw and lamented Camilla's death, and slayed Arruns with an arrow in revenge as directed by Diana.[9][10]
  • Upis, the name of a mythical being said to have reared Artemis.[11] She may be the same to above nymph.
  • Opis or Ops, mother by Evaemon of Eurypylus, one of the Achaean Leaders.[12]

Masculine

  • Upis or Upisis, father of the "third" Artemis by Glauce.[13]

Surname

  • Oupis or Upis, a surname of Artemis, as the goddess assisting women in childbirth.[14]
  • Upis, a surname of Nemesis at Rhamnous, in the remote northernmost deme of Attica.[15]

Notes

  1. Hyginus, Fabulae 139
  2. Hyginus, Fabulae Preface
  3. Virgil, Georgics 4.343
  4. This was definitely a misinterpretation of Hyginus in Virgil's Georgics 4.343 which suggests that Opis was a naiad, more likely an Oceanid, rather than a Nereid.
  5. Callimachus, Hymn to Delos 292
  6. Herodotus, 4.35; Pausanias, 1.43.4 & 5.7.8
  7. Nonnus, 48.331
  8. Apollodorus, 1.4.5
  9. Virgil: His life and times by Peter Levi, Duckworth, 1998
  10. Virgil, Aeneid 11.533 & 11.863
  11. Scholiast on Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis
  12. Hyginus, Fabulae 97
  13. Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.23
  14. Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis 240
  15. Pausanias, 1.33.2

References