- Looks after
- Sight and shining
Theia
Θεία
Theia is a Titaness associated with sight and brightness, the mother of the sun, moon and dawn.
Theia, whose name means divine or goddess, is one of the twelve Titans. Hesiod says that she and Hyperion were the parents of Helios, Selene and Eos. Pindar addresses her in an ode as the mother of the sun, and says that men honour gold above all because of her.
She has no major myths. She also appears in some sources with the epithet Euryphaessa, wide-shining, and she is placed among the Titans who lost the Titanomachy.
In later art and language
Theia is the name astronomers give to the hypothesised Mars-sized body that struck the early Earth and formed the Moon, in the giant-impact hypothesis. The name was chosen because, in myth, Theia was the mother of Selene.
The ancient evidence for Theia is limited, so this page is short on purpose.
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 132-138, 371-374
- Pindar, Isthmian 5.1-6