15 Facts About Oceanus

Oceanus was the eldest of the Titan offspring of Uranus and Gaia .

Oceanus married his sister Tethys, and was by her the father of numerous sons, the river gods and numerous daughters, the Oceanids.

Oceanus was said to have fathered the Cercopes on one of his daughters, Theia.

Oceanus seemingly did not join the Titans in the Titanomachy, the great war between the Cronus and his fellow Titans, and Zeus and his fellow Olympians, for control of the cosmos; and following the war, although Cronus and the other Titans were imprisoned, Oceanus certainly seems to have remained free.

In Hesiod, Oceanus sends his daughter Styx, with her children Zelus, Nike, Cratos, and Bia, to fight on Zeus' side against the Titans, And in the Iliad, Hera says that during the war she was sent to Oceanus and Tethys for safekeeping.

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Sometime after the war, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, has Oceanus visit his nephew the enchained Prometheus, who is being punished by Zeus for his theft of fire.

Oceanus arrives riding a winged steed, saying that he is sympathetic to Prometheus' plight and wishes to help him if he can.

Oceanus appears near the end of a long procession of gods and goddesses arriving at the palace of Peleus for the wedding.

Oceanus follows a chariot driven by Athena and containing Artemis.

Oceanus has bull horns, holds a snake in his left hand and a fish in his right, and has the body of a fish from the waist down.

Oceanus appears, as part of a very similar procession of Peleus and Thetis' wedding guests, on another early sixth century BC Attic black-figure pot, the Francois Vase .

Oceanus is depicted as one of the gods fighting the Giants in the Gigantomachy frieze of the second century BC Pergamon Altar.

Oceanus stands half nude, facing right, battling a giant falling to the right.

Some scholars believe that Oceanus originally represented all bodies of salt water, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the two largest bodies known to the ancient Greeks.

However, as geography became more accurate, Oceanus came to represent the stranger, more unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean, while the newcomer of a later generation, Poseidon, ruled over the Mediterranean Sea.