The Hesperides were given the task of tending to the grove, but occasionally plucked from it themselves. The apples were planted from the fruited branches that Gaia gave to her as a wedding gift when Hera accepted Zeus. The Garden of the Hesperides is Hera's orchard in the west, where either a single tree or a grove of immortality-giving golden apples grew. By Ephorus and Philistides it is called Erythia, by Timæus and Silenus Aphrodisias, and by the natives the Isle of Juno." The island was the seat of Geryon, who was overcome by Heracles. Pliny's Natural History (VI.36) records of the island of Gades: "On the side which looks towards Spain, at about 100 paces distance, is another long island, three miles wide, on which the original city of Gades stood. The name was applied to an island close to the coast of southern Hispania, which was the site of the original Punic colony of Gades (modern Cadiz). In addition to their tending of the garden, they were said to have taken great pleasure in singing.Įrytheia ("the red one") is one of the Hesperides. Hesperis is appropriately the personification of the evening (as Eos is of the dawn) and the Evening Star is Hesperus. They are sometimes called the Western Maidens, the Daughters of Evening or Erythrai, and the "Sunset Goddesses", designations all apparently tied to their imagined location in the distant west. Hesperides scene of the apotheosis of Heracles (romanised to Hercules) on a late fifth-century hydria by the Meidias Painter in London HesiodĪn ancient vase painting attests the following names as four: Asterope, Chrysothemis, Hygieia and Lipara.Īnother ancient vase painting give the seven names as Aiopis, Antheia, Donakis, Kalypso, Mermesa, Nelisa and Tara. Īpollonius of Rhodes gives their names as Aigle, Erytheis and Hespere (or Hespera). Hesiod gives the number of the "clear-voiced Hesperides" as three, and their names as: Aigle (or Aegle, "dazzling light"), ox-eyed Hesperethusa ("sunset glow", alternatively Hesperathusa, Hesperarethusa) and Erytheia (or Erytheis). In another source, they are named Ægle, Arethusa and Hesperethusa, the three daughters of Hesperus. Hyginus in his preface to the Fabulae names them as Aigle, Hesperie and Aerica. Pseudo-Apollodorus gives the number of the Hesperides as four, named: Aigle, Hesperia (or Hesperie), Are-thusa and Erytheia. įulgentius gives four Hesperides, named: Aigle, Hesperie, Arethusa and Me-dusa. Their names were: Aigle, Erythea, Arethusa, Hespereia, Hestia, Hespera, and Hesperusa. He believed that they were the seven Hesperides, nymph daughters of the Atlas. Petrus Apianus attributed to these stars a mythical connection of their own. Nevertheless, among the names given to them, though never all at once, there were either three, four, or seven Hesperides. They are sometimes portrayed as the evening daughters of Night ( Nyx) either alone, or with Darkness ( Erebus), in accord with the way Eos in the farthermost east, in Colchis, is the daughter of the titan Hyperion. They are listed as the daughters of Atlas, or of Zeus, and either Hesperius or Themis, or Phorcys and Ceto. The one shown presents the Olympian gods feasting around a tripod table holding the golden Apple of the Hesperides. This circular Pyxis or box depicts two scenes. Their abstract, interchangeable names are a symptom of their impersonality," Evelyn Harrison has observed. "Since the Hesperides themselves are mere symbols of the gifts the apples embody, they cannot be actors in a human drama. Ordinarily the Hesperides number three, like the other Greek triads (the Three Graces and the Moirai).