Name origin: Greek goddess of motherhood. Leto was one of the Titanides, a bride of Zeus, and the mother of the twins Artemis and Apollo. Alongside her children, she was a protectress of the young. Her name and iconography suggest she also represented modesty and demure womanhood.
Zeus ordered Ekho to protect him when he was dallying with her fellow nymphs. She did this by engaging his wife Hera in chat when about to discover her husband’s infidelity. As punishment, Hera cursed Ekho by only allowing her to repeat another’s words. Afterwards, Ekho fell in love with the mortal Narcissus, who spurned her. He wasted away pining for his own reflection, and she eventually did the same in mourning for him.
Name origin: Greek personification of the spirit of hope. Elpis was depicted as a young woman, usually carrying flowers or a cornucopia in her hands. In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Elpis was the last item in Pandora’s box (or jar).
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), a German polymath whose work pioneered or foreshadowed biogeography, modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring, ecology and holistic views of the universe. He also helped establish geography as an independent scientific discipline.
Greek nymph and minor goddess. Kalypso is most famed for detaining Odysseus on her island for seven years, before the gods intervened to get him released. She then aids him to leave.
Name origin: Greek goddess of the hearth (both private and municipal) and the home. Hestia presides over the cooking of bread and the preparation of the family meal. She was also the goddess of the sacrificial flame and received a share of every sacrifice to the gods.
Harmonia was a daughter of Ares and Aphrodite and as such ruled both marital and martial harmony. Later classical writers sometimes gave her a more abstract representation, as a deity who presided over cosmic balance. She was considered the opposite of Eris.
Name origin: Aetolian princess who became a Spartan queen; mother of the Dioscuri, Clytaemnestra and Helen, after Zeus seduced her in the guise of a swan.
Name origin: Roman goddess of trust and good faith (bona fides). One of the original virtues to be considered an actual religious divinity. She is everything that is required for “honour and credibility, from fidelity in marriage, to contractual arrangements, and the obligation soldiers owed to Rome.”
Name origin: Greek; one of the three Kharites and goddess of good cheer, mirth, merriment and joy. Her name is the feminine form of the Greek word euphrosynos meaning “merriment”.
