July 25: Travel Month

The Titan-sisters Asteria and Leto had been best friends since birth. And as they were equally elegant and beautiful, both were pursued by supreme god Zeus. Leto quite liked him, and even accepted to become his sixth wife. When he got her pregnant, his attention shifted to sister Asteria, whom he pursued in the form of an eagle. Asteria flung herself into the sea, and became a sort of hidden island, loosely floating under the surface of the ocean. In the meantime, Zeus had decided his sister Hera would make a better wife than Leto, and she couldn’t bear the thought there was still offspring to come. So she ordered that “no land should shelter” poor pregnant Leto. As Asteria’s island could hardly be considered as “land”, Leto fled there to give birth to the divine twins Artemis and Apollo. Since Hera had forbidden any assistance of birth goddess Eileithyia, it was Artemis – born fully grown – who helped delivering her brother. Some time later, Apollo brought the island to the surface, fixed it in place and gave it its current name: Delos (meaning “visible”).

Asteria pursued by Zeus in the form of an eagle, Marco Liberi, Web Gallery of Art

Asteria, amphora, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Did you know?

• Leto and Asteria were the daughters of the titans Phoibe (Phoebe) and Koios (Coeus or Polus) and thus granddaughters of Gaia (Terra) and Ouranos (Uranus).

• Asteria was the goddess of falling stars. She would have been the mother of Hekate (Hecate, cfr. “Keeper of the Keys”) by her Titan-nephew Perses.

• About Leto: cfr. “Lethargic Love”.

• About Eileithyia (Ilithyia): cfr.”Bringer of Light”.

• About Delos: “The Delos Doves”.

• Apollo was especially revered at Delos and it has always been his favourite island.

• About the Titans: cfr. “The Weight of the World”.