Thetis, one of the sea deities, daughter of Nereus and Doris, often confounded with Tethys her grandmother. She was courted by Neptune and Jupiter; but when the gods were informed that the son she would bring forth must become greater than his father, their addresses were stopped, and Peleus the son of Œacus was permitted to solicit her hand. Thetis refused him, but the lover had the artifice to catch her when asleep, and, by binding her strongly, he prevented her from escaping from his grasp, in assuming different forms. When Thetis found that she could not elude the vigilance of her lover she consented to marry him, though much against her inclination. Their nuptials were celebrated on mount Pelion with great pomp; all the deities attended except the goddess of discord, who punished the negligence of Peleus, by throwing into the midst of the assembly a golden apple, to be given to the fairest of all the goddesses. See: [Discordia]. Thetis became mother of several children by Peleus, but all these she destroyed by fire in attempting to see whether they were immortal. Achilles must have shared the same fate, if Peleus had not snatched him from her hand as she was going to repeat the cruel operation. She afterwards rendered him invulnerable by plunging him in the waters of the Styx, except that part of the heel by which she held him. As Thetis well knew the fate of her son, she attempted to remove him from the Trojan war by concealing him in the court of Lycomedes. This was useless. He went with the rest of the Greeks. The mother, still anxious for his preservation, prevailed upon Vulcan to make him a suit of armour; but when it was done, she refused the god the favours which she had promised him. When Achilles was killed by Paris, Thetis issued out of the sea with the Nereides to mourn his death, and after she had collected his ashes in a golden urn, she raised a monument to his memory, and instituted festivals in his honour. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 244, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, chs. 2 & 9; bk. 3, ch. 13.—Hyginus, fable 54.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 1, &c.; Odyssey, bk. 24, li. 55.—Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 18, &c.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 11, fable 7; bk. 12, fable 1, &c.
Theutis, or Teuthis, a prince of a town of the same name in Arcadia, who went to the Trojan war. He quarrelled with Agamemnon at Aulis, and when Minerva, under the form of Melas son of Ops, attempted to pacify him, he struck the goddess and returned home. Some say that the goddess afterwards appeared to him and showed him the wound which he had given her in the thigh, and that he died soon after. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 28.
Thia, the mother of the sun, moon, and Aurora by Hyperion. See: [Thea]. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 371.——One of the Sporades, that rose out of the sea in the age of Pliny. Pliny, bk. 27, ch. 12.
Thias, a king of Assyria.
Thimbron, a Lacedæmonian, chosen general to conduct a war against Persia. He was recalled, and afterwards reappointed. He died B.C. 391. Diodorus, bk. 17.——A friend of Harpalus.
Thiodamas, the father of Hylas. See: [♦][Theodamas].
[♦] ‘Theodamus’ replaced with ‘Theodamas’
Thirmidia, a town of Numidia, where Hiempsal was slain. Sallust, Jugurthine War, ch. 2.
Thisbe, a beautiful woman of Babylon. See: [Pyramus].——A town of Bœotia, between two mountains. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 32.
Thisias, a Sicilian writer.