Highlighting the importance of rivers as gods, as seen through their representations in art during the Roman period in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace

Author: Georgia Aristodemou

The personification of local bodies of water (rivers or lakes) and their worship as deities was widespread in the Greek and Roman worlds. Homer (Iliad 21. 195) considers rivers to be gods and reports that Oceanus is the source of all rivers, all springs, and all fountains in the universe. Hesiod (Theogony 337-370) also tells us that all rivers originate from Oceanus and Tethys. Already in Homeric poems, rivers in human form were considered immortal, divine figures, and temples or altars were built to them, some even with their own priests. Hesiod (Erga kai Emerai 737-741) reports that a person who had to cross a river had to offer a sacrifice to the river and wash their hands. In this context, the river gods were often among the deities invoked in various oaths.