Asteria was a Titaness of the second generation, daughter of Coeus and Phoebe, sister of Leto. She was loved by Zeus, but to escape his pursuit she transformed herself into a quail and threw herself into the sea, where she became the floating island that would later receive her sister Leto for the birth of Apollo and Artemis — the island Delos, which had been called Asteria before that birth. By Perses (her cousin) she was mother of Hecate, the goddess of crossroads and witchcraft. Her name ("the starry one") was given by some traditions to the night sky itself.
Before thisEurybia
Next on the wallAstraeus
Curator’s note
What the sources say, and what later tradition added. The sources for this bay
Hesiod, Theogony 409–411; the transformation into a quail is in Apollodorus 1.4.1 and Hyginus, Fabulae 53. The identification of pre-floating Delos with Asteria is in Pindar (Paean 7b, fr. 33d) and other sources.
Kin in the sources
Each tie is quoted from the entry that states it.
Child ofCoeusdaughter of Coeus and Phoebe, sister of Leto
Child ofPhoebedaughter of Coeus and Phoebe, sister of Leto
Sibling ofLetodaughter of Coeus and Phoebe, sister of Leto
Consort ofPersesBy Perses (her cousin) she was mother of Hecate
Parent ofHecateBy Perses (her cousin) she was mother of Hecate
When the sources speak
Dated witnesses for The Titans and Their Children. A date marks when the evidence was written down, not when the belief began. The whole timeline
- c. 1600–1100 BCE
- Mycenaean palace tablets in Linear B record offerings and divine names, but little continuous myth.
- c. 1100–800 BCE
- Post-palatial oral traditions and changing cult landscapes precede the surviving alphabetic epics.
- late 8th–7th centuries BCE
- The Iliad, Odyssey, Hesiodic Theogony and Works and Days give influential but non-exclusive divine orders.
- 7th–6th centuries BCE
- Homeric Hymns, lyric poetry, colonization, and local sanctuary traditions multiply regional narratives.
- 6th–5th centuries BCE
- Orphic, Pythagorean, and mystery materials develop alternative cosmogonies and afterlife doctrines.
- 5th century BCE
- Athenian tragedy and comedy recast heroic houses and divine justice for civic audiences.
- 4th century BCE
- Philosophers, antiquarians, and local historians interpret or criticize inherited myth.
- 323–31 BCE
- Hellenistic poets and scholars systematize variants across an enlarged Greek world.