Eileithyia

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Eileithyia
Goddess of Childbirth
Amphora birth Athena Louvre F32.jpg
The birth of Athena from the head of Zeus, with Eileithyia on the right.
Abode Mount Olympus
Personal Information
Parents Zeus and Hera
Siblings Aeacus, Angelos, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Dionysus,
Enyo, Ersa, Hebe, Helen of Troy, Heracles, Hermes, Minos, Pandia, Persephone,
Perseus, Rhadamanthus, the Graces, the Horae, the Litae, the Muses, the Moirai
Roman equivalent Lucina
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Eileithyia or Ilithyia (?l?'?a?.?;[1] Greek ???e????a;,??e????a (Eleuthyia) in
Crete, also ??e???a (Eleuthia) or ???s?a (Elysia) in Laconia and Messene, and ??
e??? (Eleutho) in literature)[2] was the Greek goddess of childbirth and midwifery.
[3] In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) she was related with the annual birth of the
divine child, and her cult is connected with Enesidaon (the earth shaker), who was
the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon. It is possible that her cult is related
with the cult of Eleusis.[4]

Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Origins
3 Cult at Amnisos
4 Genealogy
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Etymology[edit]
The earliest form of the name is the Mycenaean Greek ??????????, e-re-u-ti-ja,
written in the Linear B syllabic script.[5] Ilithyia is the latinisation of ???
e????a. The etymology of the name is uncertain. R. S. P. Beekes, suggests a not
Indo-European etymology,[6] and Nilsson believes that the name is Pre-Greek [7]
19th-century scholars suggested that the name is Greek, derived from the verb
eleutho (??e???), to bring, the goddess thus being The Bringer.[8] Walter Burkert
believes that Eileithyia is the Greek goddess of birth and that her name is pure-
Greek.[9] However the relation with the Greek prefix ??e?? is uncertain, because
the prefix appears in some Pre-Greek toponyms like ??e?????a (Eleutherna) therefore
it is possible that the name is Pre-Greek.[10] Her name ???s?a (Elysia) in Laconia
and Messene, probably relates her with the month Eleusinios and Eleusis[11][12]
Nilsson believes that the name Eleusis is Pre-Greek[13]

Origins[edit]
According to F. Willets The links between Eileithyia, an earlier Minoan goddess,
and a still earlier Neolithic prototype are, relatively, firm. The continuity of
her cult depends upon the unchanging concept of her function. Eileithyia was the
goddess of childbirth; and the divine helper of women in labour has an obvious
origin in the human midwife. To Homer, she is the goddess of childbirth.[14] The
Iliad pictures Eileithyia alone, or sometimes multiplied, as the Eileithyiai

And even as when the sharp dart striketh a woman in travail, [270] the piercing
dart that the Eilithyiae, the goddesses of childbirth, sendeven the daughters of
Hera that have in their keeping bitter pangs;[15]
Iliad 11.269272
Hesiod (c. 700 BC) described Eileithyia as a daughter of Hera by Zeus (Theogony
921)[16]and the Bibliotheca (Roman-era) and Diodorus Siculus (c. 9027 BC)
(5.72.5) agreed. But Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century AD, reported another
early source (now lost) The Lycian Olen, an earlier poet, who composed for the
Delians, among other hymns, one to Eileithyia, styles her 'the clever spinner',
clearly identifying her with Fate, and makes her older than Cronus.[17] Being the
youngest born to Gaia, Cronus was a Titan of the first generation and he was
identified as the father of Zeus. Likewise, the meticulously accurate mythographer
Pindar (522443 BC) also makes no mention of Zeus

Goddess of childbirth, Eileithyia, maid to the throne of the deep-thinking Moirai,

child of all-powerful Hera, hear my song.
Seventh Nemean Ode.
Later, for the Classical Greeks, She is closely associated with Artemis and Hera,
Burkert asserts (1985, p 1761), but develops no character of her own. In the Orphic
Hymn to Prothyraeia, the association of a goddess of childbirth as an epithet of
virginal Artemis, making the death-dealing huntress also she who comes to the aid
of women in childbirth, (Graves 1955 15.a.1), would be inexplicable in purely
Olympian terms

When racked with labour pangs, and sore distressed

the sex invoke thee, as the soul's sure rest;
for thou Eileithyia alone canst give relief to pain,
which art attempts to ease, but tries in vain.
Artemis Eileithyia, venerable power,
who bringest relief in labour's dreadful hour.
Orphic Hymn 2, to Prothyraeia, as translated by Thomas Taylor, 1792.
Thus Aelian in the 3rd century AD could refer to Artemis of the child-bed (On
Animals 7.15).

The Beauty of Durrs, a large 4th-century BC mosaic showing the head figure of a
woman, probably portrays the goddess Eileithyia.[18] Vase-painters, when
illustrating the birth of Athena from Zeus' head, may show two assisting
Eileithyiai, with their hands raised in the epiphany gesture.

Cult at Amnisos[edit]
The cave of Eileithyia near Amnisos, the harbor of Knossos, mentioned in the
Odyssey (xix.198) in connection with her cult, was accounted the birthplace of
Eileithyia. The Cretan cave has stalactites suggestive of the goddess' double form
(Kerenyi 1976 fig. 6), of bringing labor on and of delaying it, and votive
offerings to her have been found establishing the continuity of her cult from
Neolithic times, with a revival as late as the Roman period.[19] Here she was
probably being worshipped before Zeus arrived in the Aegean, but certainly in
MinoanMycenaean times (Burkert 1985 p 171; Nilsson 195053). The goddess is
mentioned as Eleuthia in a Linear B fragment from Knossos. In classical times,
there were shrines to Eileithyia in the Cretan cities of Lato and Eleutherna and a
sacred cave at Inatos. In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) the god Enesidaon ( the earth
shaker, who is the chthonic Poseidon) is related with the cult of Eileithyia.[20]
She was related with the annual birth of the divine child.[21] The goddess of
nature and her companion survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words
were uttered Mighty Potnia bore a strong son[22]

On the Greek mainland, at Olympia, an archaic shrine with an inner cella sacred to
the serpent-savior of the city (Sosipolis) and to Eileithyia was seen by the
traveller Pausanias in the 2nd century AD (Greece vi.20.13); in it, a virgin-
priestess cared for a serpent that was fed on honeyed barley-cakes and wateran
offering suited to Demeter. The shrine memorialized the appearance of a crone with
a babe in arms, at a crucial moment when Elians were threatened by forces from
Arcadia. The child, placed on the ground between the contending forces, changed
into a serpent, driving the Arcadians away in flight, before it disappeared into
the hill.