Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, is the eldest son of Pontus and the gentlest of the deep's powers — truthful, just, and never forgetful of righteousness.1
When Pontus, the barren Sea, joined with Earth, his firstborn was Nereus — eldest of his children, who is true and does not lie. Men call him the Old Man, Hesiod says, because he is trusty and gentle, and does not forget the laws of righteousness but thinks just and kindly thoughts. After him Pontus begot Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, and Eurybia, but it was the truthful eldest who gave the sea its conscience.2
Apollodorus likewise reckons Nereus among the children of Pontus and Earth, listing him with Phorcys, Thaumas, Eurybia, and Ceto — the primordial sister Ceto, not to be confused with the Nereid of the same name.3
Of Nereus and rich-haired Doris, daughter of Ocean, were born children passing lovely among goddesses — the Nereids, conventionally numbered fifty though the lists never quite agree. Hesiod names Thetis among them, and Apollodorus too sets Thetis in his roll of Doris' daughters.4
In Homer's earliest telling, when Achilles' fate darkens, Thetis grieves in the depths of the sea beside the old man her father, and all the daughters of Nereus throng about her out of the deep.5
Nereus held the sea's secret knowledge, and like the deep itself he would not be caught without a struggle. When Heracles sought the way to the apples of the Hesperides, the nymphs who were daughters of Zeus and Themis revealed Nereus to him. The hero seized the god as he slept, and though Nereus turned himself into every kind of shape, Heracles bound him fast and would not let go until he had learned where the apples and the Hesperides were to be found.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
