Maera

Maera is the name of several figures in Greek mythology. The best-known is the hound of Icarius and Erigone of Athens, who led Erigone to her murdered father and was later set among the stars as the dog-star. The name also belongs to a Nereid, a daughter of Atlas who married Tegeates, and a young woman said to be a daughter of Proetus.

Maera, the Hound of Erigone

When Dionysus travelled among people to show them the sweetness of his fruit, he stayed as a guest with Icarius and Erigone in Attica. According to Apollodorus, Icarius received a vine branch from the god and learned to make wine (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.7). Hyginus adds that Dionysus gave him a full wineskin and told him to spread the gift to other lands (Hyginus, Fabulae 130).

Icarius went to some shepherds, who drank the wine without water and, thinking they had been poisoned, killed him. Apollodorus says that when his daughter Erigone was searching for her father, a household dog named Maera, which had belonged to Icarius, showed her his dead body, and she mourned her father and hanged herself (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.7). Hyginus says Icarius had travelled with a cart, his daughter Erigone and the dog Maera. The howling dog showed Erigone where her father lay unburied, and she hanged herself from a tree above his body (Hyginus, Fabulae 130).

The Anger of Dionysus and the Festival

In Hyginus, Dionysus was angry at Erigone’s death and afflicted the daughters of the Athenians with the same fate. When the Athenians consulted Apollo, he answered that they had neglected the deaths of Icarius and Erigone. They punished the shepherds, and instituted a festival of swinging for Erigone to end the plague, and began the vintage with an offering of first fruits to Icarius and Erigone (Hyginus, Fabulae 130).

Maera Among the Stars

According to Hyginus, the three were placed among the stars by the will of the gods: Erigone became the constellation Virgo, Icarius the star Arcturus, and the dog Maera the Canicula, the “little dog” (Hyginus, Fabulae 130). Callimachus and Nonnus both speak of Maera as a star that rises in the season of the vine: Callimachus names the priests of Zeus who calm “stern Maera” at her rising, and Nonnus calls the dog-star Sirius “the star of Maira” (Callimachus, Aetia, the story of Acontius and Cydippe; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 16).

Nonnus also tells the whole story in the Dionysiaca. In his version the ghost of Icarius appears to Erigone in a dream, the faithful dog stays by the tree where she has hanged herself and drives off wild beasts, and Zeus places Erigone among the stars as the Virgin (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 47).

Other Maeras

The Nereid

Homer includes Maera in his list of the Nereids, the sea goddesses who gathered around Thetis when she lamented Patroclus (Homer, Iliad 18.38–49).

The Daughter of Atlas

The Arcadians told of Maera, a daughter of Atlas, who was the wife of Tegeates, the son of Lycaon. Pausanias saw their tombs at Tegea, and says Homer mentions her where Odysseus lists the women he saw in the underworld (Pausanias 8.48.6; Homer, Odyssey 11.326). Pausanias also notes a village called Maera in the territory of Mantinea, and a grave of Maera there, and suggests it may belong to a descendant of the Tegean Maera (Pausanias 8.12.7).

The Daughter of Proetus

The poem Returns called Maera a daughter of Proetus, who died a maiden. Pausanias saw her sitting on a rock in Polygnotus’ painting of the underworld at Delphi, next to Actaeon (Pausanias 10.30.5).

Maera Sources

Apollodorus, Library 3.14.7; Hyginus, Fabulae 130; Homer, Iliad 18.38–49, Odyssey 11.326; Pausanias 8.12.7, 8.48.6, 10.30.5; Callimachus, Aetia; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 16, 47.

See Also: Dionysus, Nereus, Doris, Atlas, Thetis, Proetus