Erytheia

Overview

Erytheia is one of the Hesperides, the nymphs of the far western garden where the golden apples were guarded.

Generation

Titan descendants

Symbols

Golden apples, sunset

Notes

Erytheia is one of the lesser-known Hesperides, the nymphs associated with the garden of the golden apples in the distant west.

Her name is connected with the idea of redness, an association particularly appropriate to the evening and the western horizon. The Hesperides themselves are often linked conceptually with evening and sunset.

Ancient traditions vary over both the number and the names of the Hesperides. Erytheia appears among several surviving lists, alongside figures such as Aegle and other differently named sisters.

The Hesperides are not simply attendants standing beside a tree. Their garden belongs to a mythological landscape beyond the ordinary Greek world, a place associated with divine possessions and guarded boundaries.

The golden apples are protected in association with Ladon, the great serpent or dragon. The apples later become the object of one of the Labours of Heracles.

Erytheia's significance therefore comes through the wider Hesperides tradition: the far west, the golden apples, Ladon, Atlas and Heracles all converge around the garden with which she is associated.