Boreas (north wind, devouring) In Greek mythology, the North Wind; son of Astraea and Eos, brother of the Winds, Zephyrus, Eurus, and Notus; called Aquilo in Roman mythology. His home was in the Thracian Salmydessus on the Black Sea. He carried off and raped Orithyia after her father Erechtheus, king of Athens, had refused to give her to Boreas in marriage. Their children were Calais and Zetes, the Boreadae; Cleopatra, the wife of Phineus; and Chione, the beloved of Poseidon. Vergil’s Aeneid (books 10, 12) cite Boreas, as does Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1.3.37). In Western Renaissance art, Boreas appears in allegories of the Four Seasons as the personification of Winter. He is shown as an old man with flowing gray locks and wings.

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Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow– Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante