Brother And Husband Of Tethys Greek Mythological Characters

During the Golden Age, the earth was ruled by a race of powerful Gods who called themselves the Titans. They were twelve in number and they remained in power till the Olympians overthrew them. One such Titaness was Tethys who was the daughter of Uranus and Gaia. She had a brother by the name of Oceanus. Story says that Tethys married Oceanus, thus making him both the brother and husband of Tethys. They were the parents of 3000 children, who were called the Oceanids.

The Titans were said to have control over various primal factors of life, some of which can be easily recognized by their names: ocean and fruitful earth, sun and moon, memory and natural law. Oceanus, the brother and husband of Tethys is considered to have control over water bodies like oceans, streams, rivers and fresh water. He, in fact was the earth-encircling, fresh-water stream. In Greek mythology, this Titan was pictured as having a human shape on the upper part of their body while the lower portion of their body resembled the body of a serpent.

This brother and husband of Tethys was also the god who regulated the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies which were believed to emerge and descend into his watery realm at the ends of the flat topped earth. Tethys on the other hand was a goddess of the fresh waters which nourished the earth. Their union produced ocean nymphs who were the member of a large class of female entities in human form, who were either bound to a particular location, or landform, or is part of the attendants of a god.

At that time, there was a continuous long war between the Titans and Olympions, who were the principle god of the Greek. This brother and husband of Tethys however, never involved himself in time of such wars. Oceanus, along with two of his six brothers, Prometheus and Themis did not fight against the Olympions. In fact, he totally withdrew himself from the conflict. The mythology also says that when the youngest son of Uranus and Gaia, Cronus revolted against his father, Oceanus refused to be on his side.

Different works of art have represented the brother and husband of Tethys in different ways. Let us take for instance the paintings on the ancient vases that were found showed a bull-horned god with the tail of a serpentine fish in place of legs, similar to his river-god sons. However, the Hellenistic Era redefined the god Oceanus. Oceanus was then considered to be the god of Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean and his previous identity being a great, earth-encircling, fresh-water stream was considered incorrect. On the other hand, mosaic art provides another possible appearance of Oceanus. Here, he is pictured as having crab-claw horns, and had a power of converting himself as a serpent, oar or a school of fish. Wikipedia