Boreas was the son of Astraeus and the Titan Eos, or of Strymon and Euterpe (or Terpsichore), or of Aeolus. Considered the personification of the north wind, he was the brother of Zephyrus, Notus and Eurus. He was also the god of winter and the cold air that streams down into Thessaly from the mountains of Thrace. Boreas lived either near the river Strymon or on Mount Haemus in a cavern with seven portals. He is usually depicted winged and bearded; Pausanias mentions an image of him with serpents’ tails instead of feet. He abducted Oreithyia, daughter of Erechtheus (or Erichthonius), king of Athens, while she was playing with other girls by the river Ilissus or, in some sources, during a procession for Athena Polias, and carried her off to Thrace. According to Herodotus, it was this connection that emboldened the Athenians to ask for Boreas’ help against the Persians and he duly destroyed the Persian fleet. Boreas and Oreithyia had several children: Haemus, Cleopatra, Chione, Chthonia, and the twin sons known as the Boreads, whose names were Zetes and Calais, who thanks to their father were endowed with great gold and purple wings and who took part in the expedition of the Argonauts. Boreas had other children, too, by other women, the best known being Lycurgus and Butes, who according to Diodorus Siculus was the first inhabitant of Samothrace. Elsewhere, Boreas is said to have been enamoured of the nymph Pitys, beloved of Pan. Another legend has him abducting Chione, daughter of Arcturus, and carrying her off to the Caucasus, where he lay with her; that is why the original name of that region was “bed of the North Wind”. Boreas is also said to have changed himself into a stallion and sired twelve feather-light colts by the mares of Erichthonius and the four horses of Ares by one of the Furies, while the two horses that he gave Oreithyia’s father Erechtheus to appease him for the abduction of his daughter were the fruit of his union with one of the Harpies: these myths reflect the swiftness and sturdiness of the horses bred in Thrace. In one of Pindar’s Pythian Odes, finally, Boreas is said to have been a prince of Thrace whose children were called Boreads because of their northern homeland.
