Aetna (Gr. Αίτνη) was in Roman mythology a Sicilian nymph,[1] and according to Alcimus,[2] a daughter of Uranus and Gaea, or of Briareus. Simonides said that she had acted as arbitrator between Hephaestus and Demeter respecting the possession of Sicily. By Zeus or Hephaestus she became the mother of the Palici.[3] Mount Aetna in Sicily was believed to have derived its name from her, and under it Zeus buried Typhon, Enceladus, or Briareus. The mountain itself was believed to be the place in which Hephaestus and the Cyclops made the thunderbolts for Zeus.[4][5][6]
References
- ^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1870), "Aetna", in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston, pp. 54
- ^ Alcimus, ap. Schol. Theocrit. i. 65
- ^ Servius, ad Aen. ix. 584
- ^ Euripides, Cyclops 296
- ^ Propertius, iii. 15. 21
- ^ Cicero, De Divinatione ii. 19
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1867).
