Ceto


Ceto, is a primordial sea goddess in Greek mythology, the daughter of Pontus and his mother, Gaia. As a mythological figure, she is most notable for bearing by Phorcys a host of monstrous children. The small solar system body 65489 Ceto was named after her, and its satellite after Phorcys.
Ceto was also variously called Crataeis and Trienus, and was occasionally conflated by scholars with the goddess Hecate.
This goddess should not be confused with the minor Oceanid also named Ceto, or with various mythological beings referred to as ketos ; this is a general term for "sea monster" in Ancient Greek.

In ancient texts

's Theogony lists the children of Phorcys and Ceto as Echidna, The Gorgons, The Graeae, and Ladon, also called the Drakon Hesperios. These children tend to be consistent across sources, though Ladon is sometimes cited as a child of Echidna by Typhon and therefore Phorcys and Ceto's grandson.
The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius cites Phorcys and Ceto as the parents of the Hesperides, but this assertion is not repeated in other ancient sources.
Homer refers to Thoosa, the mother of Polyphemus in The Odyssey, as a daughter of Phorcys, but does not indicate whether Ceto is her mother.
Pliny the Elder mentions worship of "storied Ceto" at Joppa, in a single reference, immediately after his mention of Andromeda, whom Perseus rescued from a sea-monster. S. Safrai and M. Stern suggest the possibility that someone at Joppa established a cult of the monster under the name Ceto. As an alternative explanation, they posit that Pliny or his source misread the name cetus—or that of the Syrian goddess Derceto.

Genealogy