Aphaea
Aphaea is the 'invisible' patroness of the island of Aegina. Antoninus interprets the name Aphaea as 'she who disappeared'. Aphaea was primarily worshiped at the temple of "Athena Aphaea," where she had a statue.
↻ synthesized from 3 sources
When
- First attested
- 600 BCE
- Attested period
- 0 – 2020
- Historical notes
- Mentioned by Antoninus Liberalis in the 2nd century CE.
Relationships
- aspect of
- Artemis (Diana)
- manifests as
- Britomartis
- co occurs with
- Aeginaea, Aetole, Agoraea, Despoinai, Agrotera, Alphaea, Amarynthia, Amphipyros, Apanchomene, Helene, Dentritis, Kondyleatis, Aricina, Ariadne, Alpheus, Virbius, Anaïtis, Angelos, Zeus, Aphrodite, Heracles, Athena, Telamon
- syncretized with
- Britomartis, Diktynna, Dictynna
Mentioned by
Sources
- peer reviewed
Source passages
“Antoninus Liberalis wrote that after escaping Minos, she arrived at Aegina, but a local fisherman named Andromedes attempted to assault her, so she jumped off the boat and fled onto the island, where she became known as Aphaea, the "invisible" patroness of the island.”
#42367 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“Aphaea, or Apha, unseen or disappeared, a goddess at Aegina and a rare epithet of Artemis. Aphaea is identified with Britomartis. In the legend Britomartis (the sweet young woman) escaped from Minos, who fell in love with her.”
#42935 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“Inscriptions found by the recent excavations seem to prove that it must be identified as the shrine of the local goddess Aphaea, identified by Pausanias with Britomartis and Dictynna.”
#43754 · extracted by openai/gpt-oss-120b:free