Pandia

This article is about the Greek goddess. For the Athenian festival, see Pandia (festival). For the Indian village, see Pandia, Odisha. For a moon of Jupiter, see Pandia (moon).
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In Greek mythology, the goddess Pandia /pænˈdaɪə/ or Pandeia (‹See Tfd›Greek: Πανδία, Πανδεία, meaning "all brightness")[1] was a daughter of Zeus and the goddess Selene, the Greek personification of the moon.[2] From the Homeric Hymn to Selene, we have: "Once the Son of Cronos [Zeus] was joined with her [Selene] in love; and she conceived and bare a daughter Pandia, exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods."[3] An Athenian tradition perhaps made Pandia the wife of Antiochus, the eponymous hero of Antiochis, one of the ten Athenian tribes (phylai).[4]

Originally Pandia may have been an epithet of Selene,[5] but by at least the time of the late Homeric Hymn, Pandia had become a daughter of Zeus and Selene.[6] Pandia (or Pandia Selene) may have personified the full moon,[7] and an Athenian festival called the Pandia (probably held for Zeus[8]) was perhaps celebrated on the full-moon and may have been connected to her.[9]

  1. ^ Fairbanks, p. 162. Regarding the meaning of "Pandia", Kerenyi, p. 197, says: '"the entirely shining" or the "entirely bright"— doubtless the brightness of nights of full moon.'
  2. ^ Hard, p. 46; Hymn to Selene (32) 15–16; Allen, [15] "ΠανδείηΝ", says that Pandia was "elsewhere unknown as a daughter of Selene", but see Hyginus, Fabulae Preface, Philodemus, De pietate P.Herc. 243 Fragment 6 (Obbink, p. 353).
  3. ^ Hymn to Selene (32) 15–16.
  4. ^ West, p. 19, which describes Pandia as an "obscure figure"; Tsagalis, p. 53.
  5. ^ Willetts, p. 178; Cook, p. 732; Roscher, p. 100; Scholiast on Demosthenes, 21.39a.
  6. ^ For evidence on the dating of the Hymn to Selene, see Hall 2013.
  7. ^ Cox, pp. 138, 140; Casford, p. 174.
  8. ^ Parker 2005, pp. 477–478.
  9. ^ Robertson, p. 75 note 109; Willets, pp. 178–179; Cook, 732; Harpers, "Selene"; Smith, "Pandia"; Lexica Segueriana s.v. Πάνδια (Bekker, p. 292); Photius, Lexicon s.v. Πάνδια.