In Greek mythology, Melissa (Ancient Greek: Μέλισσα) may refer to the following women:

  • Melissa, a nymph who discovered and taught the use of honey,[1] and from whom bees were believed to have received their name, μέλισσαι.[2] Bees seem to have been the symbol of nymphs, whence they themselves are sometimes called Melissae, and are sometimes said to have been metamorphosed into bees.[2][3] Hence also nymphs in the form of bees are said to have guided the colonists that went to Ephesus;[4] and the nymphs who nursed the infant Zeus are called Melissae, or Meliae.[5][6][7]
  • Melissa, daughter of the Cretan king Melissus, who, together with her sister Amalthea, fed Zeus with goats' milk.[8] She may be the same as the above Melissa.
  • Melissa, daughter of Epidamnus and mother of Dyrrhachius by Poseidon. Her father and son gave their name to the town in Illyria which was called Epidamnos and later on Dyrrhachium.[9]

The name Melissae was transferred to priestesses in general, but more especially to those of Demeter,[2][10] Persephone,[11] and to the priestess of the Delphian Apollo.[12] According to the scholiasts of Pindar and Euripides, priestesses received the name Melissae from the purity of the bee.[13]

Notes

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  1. ^ Col. 9.2.3
  2. ^ a b c Scholia ad Pindar, Pythian Odes 4.104
  3. ^ Hesychius s.v. Ὀροδεμνίαδες; Columell. 9.2; Scholia (ad Theocritus 3.13.)
  4. ^ Philostr. Icon. 2.8
  5. ^ Antoninus Liberalis, 19
  6. ^ Callimachus, Hymns to Zeus 47
  7. ^ Apollodorus, 1.1.3
  8. ^ Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.22.19 sq
  9. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Dyrrhakhion
  10. ^ Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo 110; Hesychius s.v. Μελισσαι
  11. ^ Theocritus, Idylls 15.94 with scholia
  12. ^ Pindar, Pythian Odes 4.106; Scholia ad Euripides, Hippolytus 72
  13. ^ Compare a story about the origin of bees in Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 1.434

References

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