In Greek mythology, the Algea (Ancient Greek: Ἄλγεα, Álgea) are the personifications of pain, sorrow, and grief. They are counted among the children of Eris (Strife), born without a father, and are little more than abstractions whose identity is exhausted by the meaning of their name. Hesiod calls them the "tearful Algea," and they are seldom personified individually elsewhere in Greek myth.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Eris (mythology)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
The Algea are listed by Hesiod in the Theogony among the offspring of Eris, the goddess of strife and discord, who herself was a daughter of Nyx (Night). According to this account Eris bears her children alone, with no father named.
Their siblings, the other children of Eris, include Ponos (Toil), Lethe (Forgetfulness), Limos (Famine), Hysminai (Combats), Machai (Battles), Phonoi (Murders), Androktasiai (Manslaughters), Neikea (Quarrels), Pseudea (Lies), Logoi (Tales or Stories), Amphilogiai (Disputes), Dysnomia (Lawlessness), Ate (Ruin or Delusion), and Horkos (Oath).
II.Character
Hesiod describes them as the "tearful Algea" (Ἄλγεα δακρυόεντα). As personified abstractions they are regarded as little more than allegorizations of suffering, with virtually no narrative or attributes beyond the sense of their name.
They are not notably personified outside the catalogue of Eris's children, and no individual cult or distinct worship of the Algea is recorded.
III.Mythology
As members of the brood of Eris, the Algea belong to a group of personifications that embody the harmful and painful aspects of human life. Alongside their warlike siblings such as the Hysminai and Machai, they represent the grief and anguish that strife brings into the world.
Pain and sorrow as personifications also appear grouped with war-related figures in Greek art and poetry, where abstractions of this kind are gathered together as the attendant evils of conflict.