Phoebe was a Titaness of the first generation, daughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Coeus, mother of Asteria and Leto. She was associated with prophecy and brightness; according to Aeschylus, she held the Delphic oracle for a time, in the succession Gaia—Themis—Phoebe—Apollo, and her grandson Apollo received Delphi from her hands as a birthday gift. Her name ("bright") was inherited by Apollo, who in poetry is often called Phoebus Apollo; and through that inheritance the name passed to Latin (Roman Phoebus, the sun) and into modern Romance and English usage.
Before thisCoeus
Next on the wallCrius
Curator’s note
What the sources say, and what later tradition added. The sources for this bay
Hesiod, Theogony 136, 404–410; Aeschylus, Eumenides 6–8 (Phoebe's possession of Delphi).
Kin in the sources
Each tie is quoted from the entry that states it.
Child ofUranusdaughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Coeus, mother of Asteria and Leto
Child ofGaiadaughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Coeus, mother of Asteria and Leto
- Consort ofCoeus
daughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Coeus, mother of Asteria and Leto
- Sibling ofCoeus
daughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Coeus, mother of Asteria and Leto
Parent ofAsteriadaughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Coeus, mother of Asteria and Leto
Parent ofLetodaughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Coeus, mother of Asteria and Leto
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.