In Greek mythology, Orithyia (also spelled Oreithyia) was an Athenian princess, a daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens and his wife Praxithea. She was carried off by Boreas, the north wind, who took her by force to Thrace after failing to woo her, and there she bore him the winged Boreads, Calais and Zetes, who later joined the Argonauts. In time she was made the goddess of cold mountain winds, and the Athenians sacrificed to her and Boreas during the Persian War. Her name is taken to mean "mountain-raging" or "mountain-rushing."
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Orithyia (daughter of Erechtheus)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
Orithyia was the fifth daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens and his wife, Praxithea, daughter of Phrasimus and Diogeneia. She was sister to Cecrops, Pandorus, Metion, Protogeneia, Pandora, Procris, Creusa, and Chthonia. Her other possible siblings were Merope, Orneus, Thespius, Eupalamus, and Sicyon.
Orithyia gave Boreas two daughters, Chione and Cleopatra (the wife of Phineus), and two sons, Calais and Zetes, both known as the Boreads. These sons grew wings like their father and joined the Argonauts in the quest for the Golden Fleece.
II.Legends
Boreas, the north wind, fell in love with Orithyia. At first he attempted to woo her, but after failing at that he decided to take her by force, as violence felt more natural to him. While she was playing by the Ilissos River, Orithyia was carried off to Sarpedon's Rock, near the Erginos River in Thrace. There she was wrapped in a cloud and attacked.
Plato wrote somewhat mockingly that there may have been a rational explanation for her story. She may have been killed on the rocks of the river when a gust of northern wind came, and so she was said to have been 'taken by Boreas.' He also mentioned in another account that she was taken by Boreas not along the Ilissos, but from the Areopagus, a rock outcropping near the Acropolis where murderers were tried.
Because she remained in Thrace with Boreas, Orithyia survived the destruction of Erechtheus's house during Athens's war with Eleusis, in which her sisters perished. She was later made into the goddess of cold mountain winds. It is said that prior to the destruction of a large number of barbarian ships due to weather during the Persian War, the Athenians offered sacrifices to Boreas and Oreithyia, praying for their assistance.
III.In art
The abduction of Orithyia by Boreas was a popular subject in later European art. It was treated by painters and draughtsmen across the centuries, from Giovanni Maria Morandi's red chalk drawing to works by Peter Paul Rubens, François Boucher, and others, who repeatedly depicted the windy violence of her seizure.