In Greek mythology, Side (Ancient Greek: Σίδη, romanized: Sídē, lit. 'pomegranate'[1]) or Sida (Σιδα) was the name of the following figures:
- Sida, eponym of the city of Sidon in Phoenicia. She was the wife of Belus, king of Egypt and mother of Aegyptus and Danaus.[2] Otherwise, the wife of Belus was called Achiroe, daughter of the river-god Nilus.[3]
- Side, one of the Danaïdes, condemned to Tartarus for murdering her husband. From her, a town in Laconia was believed to derived its name from.[4]
- Side, the first wife of Orion and possible mother of his daughters Metioche and Menippe.[5] She was cast by Hera into Hades because she rivaled the goddess in beauty.[1] Modern scholars interpret the supposed marriage of Orion to Side ('pomegranate') as a mythical expression for the ripening of the fruit in the season when the constellation Orion is visible in the night sky.[1] She might have been the mother of Orion's daughters Menippe and Metioche.
- Side, a mortal woman who was chased down by her father Ictinus, intending to rape her. Side killed herself on her mother's grave, and the gods turned her blood into a pomegranate tree. Her father was changed into a kite bird that never rested on pomegranate trees.[6]
- ^ a b c Apollodorus, 1.4.3
- ^ Malalas, Chronographia 2.30
- ^ Apollodorus, 2.1.4
- ^ "Pausanias, Description of Greece, Laconia, chapter 22, section 11". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
- ^ Antoninus Liberalis, 25
- ^ Garzya, Antonius (1955). "Paraphrasis Dionysii Poematis De Aucupio". Byzantion. 25/27 (1): 195–240. ISSN 0378-2506. JSTOR 44170039.