A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Ἀστερία), a daughter of the Titan Coeus (according to Hygin. Fab. Pref. of Polus) and Phoebe. She was the sister of Leto, and, according to Hesiod (Hes. Th. 409), the wife of Perses, by whom she became the mother of Hecate. Cicero (de Nat. Deor. 3.16) makes her the mother of the fourth Heracles by Zeus. But according to the genuine and more general tradition, she was an inhabitant of Olympus, and beloved by Zeus. In order to escape from his embraces, she got metamorphosed into a quail (ὄρτυξ), threw herself into the sea, and was here metamorphosed into the island Asteria (the island which had fallen from heaven like a star), or Ortygia, afterwards called Delos. (Apollod. 1.2.2, 4.1; Athen. 9.392; Hyg. Fab. 53; Callimach. Hymn. in Del. 37; Serv. ad Aen. 3.73.) There are several other mythical personages of this name,--one a daughter of Alcvoneus [ALCYONIDES]; a second, one of the Danaids (Apollod. 2.1.5); a third, a daughter of Atlas (Hyg. Fab. 250, where, perhaps, Asterope is to be read); and a fourth, a daughter of Hydis, who became by Bellerophontes the mother of Hydissus, the founder of Hydissus in Caria. (Steph. Byz. s. v. Γ̔δισσός.)

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