Dione in Greek mythology is a vague goddess presence who has her most concrete form in Book V of Homer's Iliad as the mother of Aphrodite: Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle while protecting her favorite and son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of Rhea the Earth Mother, whom Homer also placed in Olympus. Dione's Indo-European name is really less a name than simply a title: the "Goddess", etymologically a female form of Zeus. Roman "Diana" has a similar etymology but is not otherwise connected with Dione.
After the Iliad, Aphrodite herself was sometimes referred to as "Dionaea" and even "Dione", just "the goddess" (Peck 1898). At the very ancient oracle of Zeus at Dodona, Dione rather than Hera, was the goddess resorted to in the company of Zeus, as many surviving votive inscriptions show.
Although Dione is not a Titan in Hesiod, but appears instead in his Theogony among the long list of Oceanids, Apollodorus includes her among the Titans (1.1.3 and 1.3.1).
A later mythographer, Hyginus, (Fabulae 82, 83) says that Dione is a daughter of Atlas and the mother, by Tantalus of Pelops, Niobe and Broteas . See also Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.172 and Pausanias 3.22.4
Reference
- Peck, Harry Thurston, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York.. Harper and Brothers, 1898.
