General Notes

[FAMILY.FTW]

AEGLE (2) was a sister of Phaethon, and daughter of Helios and Clymene. In her grief at the death of her brother she and her sister Heliadae were changed into poplars. [Hyginus, Fables 154,156.]

AETHERIA was a daughter of Helios and Clymene, and one of the Heliadae or Phaethontiades.

ASIA, one of the Oceanides, was called by some the mother of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius by Iapetus. Most sources call the wife of Iapetus CLYMENE. According to some, she gave her name to the continent of Asia. [Hesiod, Theogony 359; Apollodorus 1.2.2; Herodotus 4.45.]

CLYMENE was one of the Oceanides, a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. By her uncle Iapetus she was the mother of Atlas, Prometheus, Menoetius, and Epimetheus. Iapetus was regarded as the ancestor of the human race, although it was his son Prometheus who fashioned men out of clay. It is to be expected that there was confusion in the genealogies of the beings involved in setting up the world. Clymene was also called the mother by Prometheus of Hellen and Deucalion. This mother/son liason would not be particularly usual in the confusing descent of the gods, but Prometheus' wife was usually called Celaeno. Somewhere along the way, probably after the confinement of Iapetus in Tartarus with other Titans, Clymene married Merops, a king of the Ethiopians. Clymene was unfaithful to him and gave herself to her cousin (and brother-in-law) Helios, the sun. By him she had the Heliades and Phaethon.
Clymene's children were pivotal in the contest of the gods against the Titans and in the development of the human race. Atlas and Menoetius were both punished for their roles in the conflict with the Olympians. Atlas was condemned to bear the heavens on his head and shoulders, but not before he became father of the Pleiades, the Hyades, the Hesperides, and other beings. Menoetius was struck by Zeus with a thunderbolt and thrown into Tartarus. Prometheus and Epimetheus were the parents of Deucalion and Pyrrha, respectively, and these offspring were responsible for repopulating the earth after the great flood. For going contrary to the will of Zeus in regard to the human race, Prometheus was punished atop Mount Caucasus by having his liver pecked out daily by an eagle and having it restored each successive day. Pandora, the wife of Epimetheus, let loose all the troubles of the world by opening a forbidden chest. Phaethon, the son of Clymene and Helios, almost caused the destruction of the world. He begged his father to let him drive the chariot of the sun across heaven. He proved too weak to handle the dazzling horses, and the chariot fell toward the earth. Zeus struck him from the chariot, and he plummeted to earth. Helios recovered the reins in time to keep the earth from burning to a cinder. Phaethon's mother was also called Merope, Prote, or Rhode. [Hesiod, Theogony 351,507; Hyginus, Fables 156; Apollodorus 1.2.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.763, Tristia 3.4.30.]

PLEIONE was one of the Oceanides and mother of the Pleiades by Atlas. Atlas was the son of Iapetus and Clymene, and leader of the Titans in the war against Zeus and the Olympians. He was condemned to bear the heavens on his head and shoulders. Pleione had to share him with Aethra, who according to some, became the mother of the Hyades and Hesperides by him. He had children by other women as well. The Pleiades mated with gods for the most part, but interestingly only one of Pleione's grandchildren--Hermes--was one of the immortal Olympian gods. An interesting question might be why he was different, since Zeus, his father, had sons by two of the other Pleiades. [Apollodorus 3.10.1; Diodorus Siculus 4.27; Scholiast on Homer's Iliad 18.486, Odyssey 5.272; Hyginus, Fables 192,248.]