Phoenice (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Phoenice (Ancient Greek: Φοινίκη, romanized: Phoenike) may refer to three distinct characters:

• Phoenice, an Attican princess as the daughter of the autochthonous King Actaion and sister to Aglauros, Erse and Pandrosos. According to the Suda, the ancient Greek historian Scamon of Mytilene claimed that her father named the Phoenician letters in her honor after she died a virgin.^[1]
• Phoenice, mother by Poseidon of Torone, wife of Proteus^[2] but more likely she bore Proteus to the sea-god. No parentage was attributed to Phoenice but she was probably a daughter or a descendant of Phoenix, eponym of Phoenicia.^[3]
• Phoenice, a dear companion of Artemis who was seduced (or raped) by Zeus. When she found out, Artemis turned her into a bear, and then later fixed her among the stars as the constellation Ursa Minor.^[4][5]

Notes

1. Suda, s.v. Phoenician letters with the authority of Skamon in his second book on Discoveries
2. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Torōnē
3. Scholia on Euripides, Phoenissae 5
4. Hard 2015, p. 8.
5. Hyginus, De astronomia 2.2.3

References

• Hard, Robin (2015). Constellation Myths: With Aratus's 'Phaenomena'. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871698-3.
• Stephanus of Byzantium, Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790–1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
• Suida, Suda Encyclopedia translated by Ross Scaife, David Whitehead, William Hutton, Catharine Roth, Jennifer Benedict, Gregory Hays, Malcolm Heath Sean M. Redmond, Nicholas Fincher, Patrick Rourke, Elizabeth Vandiver, Raphael Finkel, Frederick Williams, Carl Widstrand, Robert Dyer, Joseph L. Rife, Oliver Phillips and many others. Online version at the Topos Text Project.