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Oreithyia evidently became a wind-goddess as Persephone became chthonic. The ordinary derivation from ὄρος and θυίειν (cf. ch. 178. 2 n.) = montivaga is improbable. Miss Harrison (Myth. and Mon. Athens, lxxiv-ix) declares her originally a Nereid (as in Hom. Il. xviii. 48-9), daughter of the old sea-king Poseidon-Erechtheus. Boreas courting the sea-nymph is the wind sporting among the waves. Later both she and her father become Attic. The popularity of the myth just before and after the Persian war is shown by its appearance on nine archaic vases (Paul. Wiss. iii. 727) and by its frequency on red-figure vases.

περὶ Ἄθων: cf. vi. 44. 2, 3.

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