Anemoi

The Anemoi (Greek Ἄνεμοι " winds " Sing Ἄνεμος ) were in Greek mythology, the gods of the wind or personifications of certain winds.

Myth

They were regarded as children of the Titan Astraeus, the god of dusk, and Eos ( in Roman mythology Aurora), goddess of the dawn.

Representation

Shown are the Anemoi as winged people of different ages, for example, in the reliefs of the Tower of the Winds in Athens or in the Roman mosaics in the House of drinking rivalry in Seleucia Pieria.

In mythology, but they appear not only as human beings but also as divine horses that pull the chariot of Zeus as Quadriga or stand him in the battle against Typhon to the side.

And they appeared not only as a horse, but also witnessed such. According to Aelian believed the horse breeder that pregnant mares were by the winds. Virgil reported that they would, especially in spring on high cliffs to the winds, the Boreas in particular, oppose to a sudden stampede at breakneck how insane run, and that they would be so pregnant by the wind.

Cult

The Anemoi were indeed worshiped only rarely cult, yet they played an important role in Greek history, were it but the winds, whose fleet partly destroyed during the invasion of the Persians, and partly scattered. Herodotus reported that the first inhabitants of Delphi had received an oracle which instructed them to build an altar in the district of Thyia the Anemoi. The Athenians sacrificed and prayed to Boreas in particular, with which they thought they particularly connected because of its connection to the Attic nymph Oreithyia.

Pausanias reports of altars in the Anemoi Titans and Koroneia

Greek wind system

However, the name of the Anemoi also referred quite simply certain wind directions. In Hesiod are first called by the Anemoi only three:

• Zephyros, the west wind, he brought the spring to the early summer breezes
• Boreas, the north wind, he brought the winter with the cold air
• Notos: The south wind, he brought the summer with the thunderstorms and storms

This represented the only three seasons with the Greeks at the time of Hesiod. These three wind gods was also dedicated to each one of the Orphic hymns. The fourth wind, the euro, which blows from the (South ) East and the corresponding fall, appears in Homer in the Odyssey.

In the reliefs of the Tower of the Winds from the 1st century BC appear next to the four winds of the four cardinal winds of more cardinal points:

Roman wind system

The Roman equivalents of the Anemoi were the Venti. Vitruvius gives in his work de architectura a detailed list of winds using a 24 -piece wind rose, ie to each of the eight major winds, there are two rotated by 15 ° Winds: