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In Greek mythology, silver-footed Thetis is a sea nymph, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of "the ancient one of the seas," Nereus, and Doris ( Hesiod, Theogony), a grand-daughter of Tethys.
While most extant material about Thetis concerns her role as mother of Achilles, and while she is largely a creature of poetic fancy rather than cult worship in the historical period, a few fragmentary hints and references suggest an older layer of the tradition where Thetis played a far more central role in the religious practices and imagination of certain Greeks.
The etymology of her name (from tithemi, "to set up, establish") suggests an early political role. Her aquatic functions suggest syncretism with powerful Near Eastern sea-goddesses like Tiamat.
In one fragmentary hymn by the 7th century BC8th century BC 7th century BC 6th century BC other centuries) ( 700s BC 690s BC 680s BC 670s BC 660s BC 650s BC 640s BC 630s BC 620s BC 610s BC 600s BC other decades) ( 2nd millennium BC 1st millennium BC 1st millennium AD) Events Scythians arrived in Asi SpartanThis page is about the ancient and modern Greek city of Sparta. For other uses see: Sparta (disambiguation Sparta was an ancient city in Greece, the capital of Laconia and the most powerful state of the Peloponnesus. The city lay at the northern end of th poet AlcmanAlcman or Alcmaeon (the former being the Doric form of the name), the founder of Doric lyric poetry, to whom was assigned the first place among the nine lyric poets of Greece in the Alexandrian canon, flourished in the latter half of the 7th century BC., Thetis appears as a demiurgeThe term Demiurge (or Yaldabaoth Yao Bythos and several other variants, such as Ptahil used in mandaeanism) is a name given within some belief systems to a deity responsible for the creation of the physical universe and the physical aspect of humanity., beginning her creation with poros "path, track" and tekmor "marker, end-post". Third was skotos "darkness", and then the sun and moon. This cosmogony is interesting not only because it takes up Near Eastern astronomical and theological speculation, but also because its first principles are the building-blocks of a race-track, reflecting the athletic preoccupations of Spartan society and education. Given that she is the mother of Achilles, the Greek youth par excellence, it may be that Thetis once presided over the all-important realm of aristocratic adolescence.
When Hephaestus was thrown from Olympus, whether cast out by Hera for his lameness or evicted by Zeus for taking Hera's side, the Nereids Eurynome and Thetis caught him and cared for him on the volcanic isle of Lemnos, while he labored for them as a smith, "working there in the hollow of the cave, and the stream of Okeanos around us went on forever with its foam and its murmur" (Iliad 18.369).
When Dionysus was expelled by Lycurgus with the Olympians' aid, he took refuge in the Erythraean Sea with Thetis in a bed of seaweed.