In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and a messenger of the gods, serving especially as the personal herald and attendant of Hera. She is the daughter of the sea-god Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra, and a sister of the Harpies. Unlike Hermes, the other great divine messenger, Iris had little independent mythology and received scarcely any cult, appearing chiefly to deliver messages and carry out divine errands across the rainbow that links heaven and earth.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Iris (mythology)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
Iris is the daughter of Thaumas, a sea-god, and the Oceanid Electra. Through this parentage she is counted among the sea and cloud deities, and she bears the patronymic epithet Thaumantias, "daughter of Thaumas."
Her siblings are the Harpies, the storm-winds personified as winged spirits, named in some accounts as Aello and Ocypete. According to certain sources Iris was the consort of Zephyrus, the west wind, by whom she became the mother of Pothos (Longing), with alternative accounts naming Eros as their son.
II.Role and Mythology
Iris is above all a divine messenger, carrying word between the gods and between gods and mortals along the rainbow that joins the heavens to the earth. She serves especially as the personal messenger and attendant of Hera, though she also runs errands for Zeus and the other Olympians.
In Homer's Iliad she delivers commands and warnings among the gods and to the heroes at Troy. One of her recurring tasks is to fetch water from the River Styx in a ewer, used in the swearing of solemn divine oaths; according to one tradition, this Styx-water puts to sleep any god who has sworn falsely. Iris appears throughout later Greek and Roman literature in this messenger role, including in the works of Virgil and Ovid.
III.Iconography
In ancient art Iris is typically depicted as a winged young woman, with wings at her shoulders, carrying a caduceus or winged herald's staff and a pitcher of water for the gods. These attributes mark her clearly as a messenger and parallel those of Hermes.
She may be shown either as the rainbow itself or as a beautiful maiden, sometimes wearing a robe of many colors, and was understood as a visual link between sky and earth. Her swift, golden-winged movement is reflected in her epithets and in the imagery of her travelling across the rainbow.
IV.Cult
Unlike Hermes, the other prominent messenger god, Iris played only a minor part in Greek religion and was rarely worshipped; no temples, shrines, sanctuaries, or festivals dedicated to her are known.
There is, however, evidence of modest cult activity on the island of Delos. According to Athenaeus in his Scholars at Dinner (Deipnosophistae), the people of Delos sacrificed to Iris, offering her cakes called basyniae, made of wheat-flour, suet, and honey boiled together.