There is some discrepancy in the sources over who controls the Winds: in some cases, they are autonomous, merely heeding the will of the Olympians out of polite consideration. At other times they are subjects of a mortal, Aeolus, or of various gods. Homer is the first to mention Aeolus, at Odyssey X.1-76, yet he also presents them as autonomous deities in the Iliad XXIII.192ff, and as servants of Poseidon and Athena, both in Book V of the Odyssey. Since all subsequent writers took their lead from Homer’s handling of the Winds, this discrepancy exists as late as (ironically) Quintus of Smyrna’s version of the Trojan War.Taking first the issue of Olympian control, Zeus is the first and foremost deity to whom the Winds are, or should be, subservient. Zeus himself was originally a sky and weather god, a point taken up by the Presocratic Epicharmus of Syracuse, a comedian with a philosophical bent:
This is Zeus, of whom I speak, whom the Greeks call Air; who is wind and clouds, and afterwards rain, and from rain comes cold, and after that, wind, and again air. Therefore these elements of which I tell you are Zeus, because with them he helps all mortals, cities and animals (550).Therefore, it is not surprising that Zeus is seen as the god who has most control over the Winds. In the Iliad, Zeus is depicted as sending gales and cyclones (XVI.365 and 386, respectively), both of which utilise winds; yet gales and cyclones may be considered part and parcel of the responsibilities of an almighty weather-god like Zeus, whose main symbol was, after all, the lightning-bolt (551). The first mention of his implicit control is in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, at II.992 and II.1099ff, when on both occasions Zeus sends out the North-West Wind and the North Wind respectively to help the Argonauts. The wording is such that it does not suggest any long-lasting control, merely a request from one god to another. A similar thing may be found in the works of the poet Theocritus, when in his Idylls XXVIII he writes of asking Zeus to send a "gracious wind" to blow them to Alexandria. Later poets will speak of addressing the Winds directly before a voyage or journey (see above), but here Zeus is appealed to in his role as King of the Gods and lord of all elemental weather forces. Zeus is again seen as exercising control in the issue of Leto’s safe passage to Ortygia, and taking a more personal interest in matters during Deucalion’s Flood (Ovid, Metamorphoses I.262ff), deliberately sending out the South Wind in order to punish the sacrilegious mortals. More specific control is mentioned several times by Lucian; for example, in Icaromenippos 26, Zeus is spied givingorders to the Winds and the weather, telling them what to do: "Let there be rain today in Scythia, lightning in Libya, snow in Greece. Boreas, blow in Lydia. Notus, take the day off. Let Zephyrus raise a storm on the Adriatic, and let about a thousand bushels of hail be sprinkled over Cappadocia,and likewise, in Dialogues of the Sea-Gods 7, when Zephyrus informs Notus that Zeus has asked them not to blow on the waves while Io is swimming to Egypt, especially as she will "have power over those at sea and be our mistress" (552). Quintus of Smyrna also mentions Zeus as the master of the Winds, writing at XII.192 of the god ascending to the heavens, "charioted upon the Winds, Eurus and Boreas, Zephyrus and Notus". This line reminds one of the numerous descriptions in the Iliad which describe the gods’ horses as "swifter than the wind", yet they are not actually Winds. Here, as elsewhere, Quintus of Smyrna is marrying traditions together, that of the old Homeric link between Winds and horses. Zeus is therefore seen as a god whose control over the Winds is undisputed, since he is both supreme Olympian deity and also god of the weather, yet his control is more passive than anything else.Hera, Queen of the gods, plays a more active role in her control of the Winds; she uses them mainly to further her plans in meddling with the lives of mortals, especially those that she dislikes or favours. This begins in the Iliad when Zeus accuses his wife at XV.26 of enlisting the help of Boreas to send Hercules off-course to Cos, "scudding over the barren salt sea - you [are] always plotting miseries for my son". Hera also send the Winds as helpers in XXI.334, when Achilles is threatened by the River Scamander. She runs to Hephaestus to ask him to burn the river, and says:
I’ll drive the West and South Winds white with clouds and sweep in from the open seas a tearing gale to sear the Trojan bodies and gear and spread your lethal flames!Hera also sends to Aeolus in the Argonautica IV.763-839 to ask him to keep back the Winds and send a gentle westerly so that her favourites, the Argonauts, may have plain sailing. She says to Iris, her messenger to Aeolus, that "I have little doubt that... Aeolus will do what I have told [him]"; she is the Queen of the gods, after all. A similar tale is told by Virgil in the Aeneid I.51-83, except that Hera herself visits Aeolus in person to request the use of the Winds. In this case, too, her words of command are not enough, and she offers Aeolus a bribe, the lovely sea-nymph Deiopea, as his wife; this is despite the fact that Aeolus counters Hera’s words with:Highness, your sole task is to decide what your wish is to be; and my only duty is prompt obedience to you. I owe to you all my authority in this little realm of mine, for it was you who won for me [Zeus’] favour. I owe you my place at the feasts of the immortals; from you I hold my power over the storm-clouds and over storms.Hera does not have carte blanche over the Winds; all her dealings with them are a little underhand, presumably because she is tampering with deities that belong, strictly, to her husband. Unlike other deities who claim control over the Winds, like Poseidon and Rhea, Hera has no possible connection with them apart from her position as the wife of Zeus; it is this fact, coupled with her naturally cunning mind (which she has both as a woman and because of Zeus’ frequent infidelities), that lead her to deal with the Winds, and especially Aeolus, in such a way. It is also interesting to note that Zeus’ control over the Winds is presented as a job that has to be done, but when Hera interferes, it is the machinations of a betrayed woman that rouse the tempests.Poseidon, surprisingly, has little mention in the literature as controlling the Winds, appearing only three times in the extant sources. One would have thought that his role as god of the sea (and of horses) would have been enough to ensure a stronger link between the two. His earliest appearance comes in the Odyssey V.291ff, where he spies his enemy Odysseus making his way to the land of the Phaecians on board a raft he made on Calypso’s island. Poseidon is furious:
and seizing his trident in his hands [he] stirred up the sea. He roused the stormy blasts of every wind that blows, and covered land and water alike with a great canopy of cloud. Darkness swept down from the sky. Eurus and Notus and tempestuous Zephyrus fell to on one another, and from the North came a white squall, rolling a great wave in its van.Following this was Virgil’s description in Aeneid I.132; Poseidon, roused by the storm loosed by Aeolus at Hera’s request, comes up from the ocean depths to chastise Eurus:So, Winds, this is the length to which your pride of birth prompts you to go? You actually dare, without my sovereign consent, to throw sky and earth into confusion, and raise these mountainous seas?Both cases serve to show that Poseidon’s control over the Winds is connected with his command over the seas, in the same way that Zeus’ control is over the other heavenly elements like lightning and cyclones. This point is emphasised by Virgil, who makes Poseidon say later in the above passage: "Dominion over the ocean, sanctioned by the ruthless trident, was allotted not to [Aeolus] but to me". Still, it is odd that more was not made in mythological literature of the peculiar relationship between the sea and the wind, especially given that (arguably) the most important function of the Winds in the ancient world was in shipping and therefore trade - the link with the sea is therefore undisputed, although not capitalised upon. The only author to do so is Ovid, who merely hints at the relationship:But if the windy power of Poseidon holds sway, and the waves shall sweep away the gods that should aid us, oh place your snowy arms around my neck (543).Four other deities are mentioned in connection with control of the Winds: Athena, Rhea, ‘God’, and Eros. Athena’s involvement is in Odyssey V.109; Hermes goes to ask Calypso to free Odysseus from her island, and in his preamble, the god tells the nymph that Athena sent "evil winds" against the Greeks on their departure from Troy, which scattered the fleet. These winds are unconnected to the Wind-gods named in the Iliad, being mere elemental forces conjured up by a goddess (who was, moreover, the favourite of Zeus). This distinction between ‘proper’ Wind deities and elemental forces is one that is poorly drawn in literature, with both personification and force appearing within lines of one another. Another example of this is that of Rhea in the Argonautica, l.1090-1095. Here, the Argonauts are delayed in their journey by bad weather. After seeing a halcyon (a nod to Aeolus), the helmsman Mopsus advises Jason to sacrifice to Rhea:Rhea’s dominion covers the winds, the sea, the whole earth, and the god’s home on snow-capped Olympus. Zeus himself, son of Cronos, gives place to her when she leaves her mountain haunts and rises into the broad sky.Rhea, also identified with Gaia, was the Titaness who married Cronos and gave birth to the major Olympian gods: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades and Hestia. Her mythology is shadowy, being pre-Hellenic, but her position as mother of the gods is enough for her to assume control over everything, if we are to believe Apollonius, that her children rule. Her appearance in Argonautica is very much an aside; but it is interesting to note that the sacrifice must be performed on a mountain-top, a place usually equated with offerings to Zeus or to the Winds (544).Another mysterious deity appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses I.61ff, credited with the creation of the world. He is never named, known only as ‘the god’. Ovid has disposed of the earlier Hesiodic creation-myths, presenting an initial monotheistic view before the rise of the Olympians. This god creates the Winds and assigns them each a direction and quarter of the earth to inhabit, so that they will not destroy the world with their battles. The next time that Ovid mentions the Winds (I.262ff), they are under the control of Zeus and Aeolus, although the poet has given no indication of where Aeolus came from nor how he became ruler of the Winds.
The final god to have any kind of control over a Wind is Eros, as envisaged by Apuleius in his Metamorphoses. He rules over Zephyrus (passim IV-V), who carries Psyche down to the palace in the hidden valley, and also carries her treacherous sisters to visit her. As has been previously mentioned, Zephyrus is the Wind who most complements Eros, being gentle and warm; in addition, a family connection between the two gods was made by Alcaeus and was repeated by Nonnos. This was probably not at the forefront of Apuleius’ mind, though, as the Wind makes a good minor plot device: Psyche, abandoned by Eros, tells her sisters individually that the god wants them to wife instead of her, and both sisters fling themselves to their death from the cliff-top, calling on Zephyrus to catch them and bring them to safety - which he does not do (V.26.7-27.2).
Aeolus, the mortal who befriended the Olympians and received the Winds to rule over as his reward for discretion, is a figure shrouded in mystery. There are, in mythology, two men named Aeolus. Both appear to be the descendants of Hellenus: one his son, the other being the son of Poseidon and thus carrying the epithet Hippotes or Hippotades (see genealogical table 4). Until Euripides’ lost play Aeolus, it seems that the two Aeoloi were perceived as separate beings despite the similarity in their stories that both had six sons and six daughters. Aeolus son of Hellenus was the father of Canace and Alcyone; the latter married Ceyx (not her brother) and they foolishly called each other ‘Zeus and Hera’, and were punished for their sacrilege by Zeus, who turned them into birds (545). The children of Aeolus Hippotades, according to Homer (Odyssey X.1-6), were married to one another, and the only names we have belong to Canace and her brother-lover Macareus (546). Euripides merged the two Aeoloi together, making much of the issue of incest that Homer touched upon (547), and ever after they stayed as one character. By unknown means, Aeolus is raised to a privileged position: he is confidante to the gods, and is given charge of the Winds, to free when he thinks best, or at the request of an Olympian. Mythology places the Winds in caves on an island, on top of which is Aeolus’ palace; this island is named after its ruler: Aeolia. His earliest appearance is in the Odyssey X.1-76, where his island is described as having a wall of bronze around it (548). Odysseus is welcomed by the king and stays for a month before moving on; to help him on his journey back to Ithaca, Aeolus gives Odysseus a gift:
... a leather bag, made from the flayed skin of a full-grown ox, in which he had imprisoned the boisterous energies of all the Winds... This pouch he stowed in the hold of [Odysseus’] ship, securing it tightly with a burnished silver wire so as to prevent the slightest leakage. Then, for [Odysseus’] present purpose, he called up a breeze from the west to blow [the] ships and their crews across the sea.The Aeolus episode in the Odyssey is the best and most informative of all his appearances in the ancient literature regarding his own, non-mythological, sources. Later writers tended to follow Homer’s example, making Aeolus custodian of the Winds and adapting his personality to suit his job, especially Ovid (as seen above: Heroides XI.9-14, XI.481ff, XVIII.39). Virgil is the first writer to expand on the special relationship between mortal and the gods in the conversation between Aeolus and Hera (above, Aeneid I.51-83), in which Aeolus acknowledges his debt to Hera for his current position; Virgil is no less elusive than Homer, as he does not reveal the particulars behind the deal between Aeolus and the Olympians - presumably nobody knew what the original myth entailed.Valerius Flaccus, in his version of the Argonautica, at l.575ff retells the Winds’role in Ovid’s creation story in a few lines before making Boreas spy the ship Argo sailing peacefully past Thrace en route to Colchis. Boreas, although his sons Zetes and Calaïs are on board the ship (not a consideration with Flaccus), immediately goes to Aeolus to ask permission to raise a storm against them. Although a new twist on the old story, in basics nothing has changed. Quintus of Smyrna mentions Aeolus in a bare dozen lines, where the Winds are elemental forces with no kind of personality, subjugated by Aeolus and trapped in the island until Iris orders them to be freed (549) - which is at variance with other accounts within The Fall of Troy where the Winds are more carefully drawn as personalities (550); presumably it became de rigueur to include a reference to Aeolus when making any mention of the Winds.
To return to Homer, then: the passage in the Odyssey has long been seen as indicative of weather-magic (551), with Aeolus the sorcerer who communicates with the elements, and therefore, with the gods themselves. Page, for example, quotes Frazer’s seminal work The Golden Bough for numerous instances from throughout the world and its history of control of the winds (552). Many of the people who claim to ‘sell’ the winds do so by trapping the winds in a bag, as Aeolus did, or by tying them into knots on a cord or piece of cloth. The control of the winds in this context is mainly connected with sailing, although farmers may have purchased such charms to ensure a good crop. Homer’s audience, writes Page, would have been familiar with the Aeolus character; they would probably have seen one or two people like him in their own ports, selling their wind-charms (552). He even points to the specific example of the Presocratic Empedocles, who was reputed to have captured the Etesian winds in bags made of donkey-hide in order to save a harvest (553). Empedocles lived many centuries after Homer’s world, but in a country driven by trade and colonisation, as Greece was, the Winds continued to be pacified and controlled by any means possible - even if it meant resorting to ‘magic’.
[index] [prolegomena] [iconography] [cult, magic & death]
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