In Greek mythology, Asteria or Asterie (Ancient Greek Ἀστερία, "of the stars," "starry one") is a second-generation Titaness, daughter of Coeus and Phoebe and sister of Leto. By the Titan Perses she is the mother of Hecate. Fleeing Zeus, she became a quail and cast herself into the sea, becoming the island later called Delos — the floating isle that received Leto for the birth of Apollo and Artemis.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Asteria" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
Hesiod's Theogony makes Asteria the daughter of the Titans Phoebe and Coeus (Polus in some lists), sister of Leto. Perses led her to his house as wife; she bore Hecate, whom Zeus honoured with shares of earth, sea, and starry heaven. A minority of later authors make Asteria mother of a "fourth Heracles" and of Hecate by Zeus rather than by Perses.
II.Mythology
Pseudo-Apollodorus recounts that Asteria fled Zeus's advances: taking the form of a quail (ortyx), she threw herself into the sea and became an island first named Asteria. That island was later called Delos, and it received her sister Leto when Hera forbade the lands of the earth to host Leto's labour. Thus Asteria's metamorphosis supplies the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis.
Callimachus and other Hellenistic poets elaborate Delos's floating, wandering status before it was anchored for the twin birth. Asteria's starry name and her daughter's celestial privileges in Hesiod keep her within the Coeus–Phoebe line of prophetic and luminous Titans rather than among the Olympian generation.
III.Namesakes
The atlas id asteria is the Titaness mother of Hecate and aetiology of Delos. Other mythic women named Asteria (and modern uses of the word) must not be merged with this Titaness without clear source identity; the island names Asteria/Ortygia/Delos commemorate her transformation rather than standing as separate characters here.