Alektrona, Princess of Rhodes
[Detail from Gone But Not Forgotten by John William Waterhouse.]
My friend Adrian recently wrote a very thought-provoking piece about relatively unknown gods receiving worship for the first time in centuries, or even millennia. It really got me thinking about the way I engage with parts of my faith, specifically adding new deities into my current worship practice. I realized I’d always been hesitant to expand my horizons and learn about new deities and other prominent religious figures because it felt like I was taking time away from the gods I do actually worship. However, I’ve since realized that this researching was a form of worship, as it brought back onto the scene a god or hero or spirit who may have been almost entirely forgotten over time. Plus, the gods I worship preside over wisdom, history, and things of that nature. The mere act of researching a topic I’m passionate about can surely count as an act of worship towards them too, am I right?
This line of thinking eventually carried me to Alektrona. For the past few months I’ve had a vague interest in the local religion of the island of Rhodes, spurred on by some information I found on joint cults of Apollo, Dionysos, and the Muses there. Since then it’s led to the big man himself, Helios, potentially knocking on my door but definitely gesturing wildly towards his children in hopes that I’d take notice. And I did!
Leave it to me to pick one of the most obscure ones right off the bat, right?
Elektryone, or Alektrona in the Doric-Aeolic dialect, is the daughter of Helios, god of the sun, and Rhodos/Rhode, a daughter of Poseidon and (usually) the Telkhine Halia [1]. The Telkhines were the original inhabitants of the island of Rhodes, children of some combination of primordial gods (there’s a whole bunch of pairings they supposedly came from). Alektrona is the sister of the seven Heliadai, the sons of Helios and Rhodos (not to be mistaken with the Heliades, who were female nymphs with another mother). Alektrona’s brother Kerkaphos, one of the Heladai, fathered Ialysos, Kamiros, and Lindos, who would eventually found the three primary cities of ancient Rhodes [2].
Little remains of the story of Alektrona’s life, other than that she died while still a maiden and was given the honors of a heroine after her death [3]. It has been postulated that she was a goddess of the sunrise, who stirred men to wake in the morning, as the Attic form of her name, Elektryone, bears resemblance to the attic word for the color amber, elektra, used by Homer to describe the sunrise. However, one of the few things that we do know about her is that she died a parthenos, so it seems more likely that she, like her brothers, was mortal. She was also potentially depicted on Rhodian coins with a solar crown similar to that of Helios’s, though some argue that the coins depict Helios himself [4].
Aside from the tiny bone that Diodorus throws us in The Library of History, pretty much all that’s known about Alektrona’s worship comes from an inscription found at Ialysos. From this we learn that she had her own sacred precinct outside the city proper, with a temple and a dining hall. Horses, donkeys, mules, or “any other animal with a long-haired tail” were not permitted to enter the precinct, and no one could wear anything made of pig [5]. Those who broke any of these rules received the hefty punishment of having to cleanse both the sanctuary and the entire precinct, as well as make a sacrifice to the heroine, or be considered guilty of impiety. The penalty for bringing flock animals onto the land, such as sheep or goats, and allowing them to graze where they don’t belong, was a considerably smaller fine of one obol per animal [6].
Her cult may have achieved prominence after the synoecism of Rhodes, when her father Helios was established as the island’s chief god [7].
Since there’s just so little information on her besides her family and one decree about her cult, pretty much everything from this point forwards is UPG. Tread with caution and whatnot.
It makes sense for Alektrona to be accompanied by solar imagery, given that she’s a daughter of the sun god, and the possibility of Rhodian coins portraying her with a sun crown. Gardner presumes that in a time before Diodorus’s description of Rhodes, Alektrona was a powerful sun goddess [8], though there’s not a whole lot to back that up.
Any myths that might have existed of her life or death seem to be lost, and she has no surviving hymns or epithets. Hell, she doesn’t even have her own theoi.com page. If you’re keen on worshiping her, pretty much everything is going to have to be remade from scratch. We do know, however, that she is a daughter of the sun god, has familial connections to the mythical settlers of Rhodes (the Telkhines) through her mother, and is the aunt of the mythical founders of Rhodes’s three major cities. That’s really better than nothing, isn’t it?
Praise fair Alektrona, only daughter of Rhodos the sea maid and blazing Helios!
Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, 5.55.4
Strabo, Geography, 14.2.8
Gardner, “NUMISMATIC REATTRIBUTIONS.—PHANES, LAMIA, ELECTRYONA.” pp. 272
Collection of Greek Ritual Norms #90, lines 19-27
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