Boreas is the Greek god of the cold north wind, storms, and winter. Although he was normally taken as the north wind, the Roman writers Aulus Gellius and Pliny the Elder both took Boreas as a northeast wind, equivalent to the Roman god Aquilo or Septentrio. Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man or sometimes as a young man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell and wearing a billowing cloak. Boreas's most known myth is his abduction of the Athenian princess Oreithyia.
Greco-Buddhist fragment of the god Boreas with billowing cloak (velificatio) overhead. Hadda, Afghanistan.
Boreas' rape of Oreithyia, Apulian red-figure oenochoe, 360 BC, Louvre.
Boreas abducts Oreithyia, ca 500s BC, Archaeological Museum of Delos.
Relief of Boreas in the Tower of the Winds, Athens.
In Greek mythology, Orithyia or Oreithyia was an Athenian princess who was raped by Boreas, the north wind, and gave birth to the twin Boreads, Zetes and Calaïs.
Boreas & Oreithyia Louvre
Folding mirror depicting the abduction of Orithyia by Boreas at the cover. Post 300 BC, found in Eretria at Euboea. National Archaeological Museum, Athens
Boreas and Orithya, etching by the German painter and illustrator Heinrich Lossow (1840-1897)
The flight of Boreas with Oreithyia by Charles William Mitchell (1893)
