Idaea
A nymph of Mount Ida in the Troad who became the second wife of the river god Scamander — or in other versions, of King Phineus.
The Myth of Idaea
Idaea takes her name from Mount Ida, the great peak that overlooked Troy and from whose summit the gods watched the Trojan War unfold. She was a nymph of that mountain — its forests, its springs, its high meadows where Paris once judged the beauty contest of three goddesses.
In one tradition, she married the river god Scamander, whose river flowed from Ida down to the Trojan plain. Their son Teucer became the first king of the Troad, the ancestor of the royal house that would culminate in Priam, Hector, and the doomed city of Troy. Through Idaea, Mount Ida's wildness became domesticated into royal lineage.
In another version, she was the second wife of King Phineus of Thrace, where she played the villain — falsely accusing her stepsons of assault to get them blinded and imprisoned. The gods punished Phineus by sending the Harpies. This Idaea is harder to love, but she represents a common pattern: the same name carrying utterly different moral weight depending on which author tells the tale.
Parents
A nymph of Mount Ida
Symbols
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