Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
---|---|---|
God name "ADONIS (lord)" | Lebanon / Syria | Fertility and vegetation god. Adonis is modeled on the Mesopotamian dying vegetation god DUMUZI (Hebrew: Tammuz). He appears as a youthful deity. The river Adonis [Nahr Ibrahim] is sacred to him largely because its waters flow red after heavy Winter Rains, having become saturated with ferrous oxide. In Hellenic tradition he is the son of the mythical Cyprian king Cinyras and his mother is MYRRHA. According to Hesiod he is also the son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea. He is the consort of APHRODITE. Tradition has it that he was killed by a boar during a hunting expedition and is condemned to the underworld for six months of each year, during which the earth's vegetation parches and dies under the summer Sun and drought. He was honored in a spring festival when priests in effeminate costume gashed themselves with knives. Frequently depicted nude and sometimes carrying a lyre. Also ATTIS (Phrygian); ATUNIS (Etruscan).... |
Goddess name "Feronia" | Etruscan | Goddess of the autumn, fire and volcanoes. She also served as a goddess of travel, fire, and waters. Erilio, the king of Preneste, was her son according to one tradition. According to another tradition her son was the underworld god Herulus. Etruscan |
King name "Mezentius" | Greek | A mythical king of the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans, at Caere or Agylla, and father of Lausus. When he was expelled by his subjects on account of his cruelty he took refuge with Turnus, king of the Rutulians, and åśśisted him in his war against Aeneas and the Trojans. Greek |
King name "Nortia" | Etruscan | An Etruscan divinity, who was worshipped at Volsinii, where a nail was driven every year into the wall of her temple, for the purpose of marking the number of years. |