Sabazius

Sabazius was a Thracian or Phrygian god who came to be identified with Dionysus. His name is rather more straightforward to interpret than that of Dionysus - if, as seems likely, it comes from sabazo, 'to shatter', 'destroy'. Sabazius would thus be a 'destroyer' with a powerful, belligerent name.

Salmoneus

Salmoneus was a son of Aeolus and Enarete and a brother of Sisyphus. His first wife was Alcidice, who bore him Tyro, and later he married Sidero. He was a king of Salmonia, in Elis, and there is a good case for regarding his name as 'Halmoneus' and so making him a 'seaman', from halme, 'salt water', especially as Elis was a coastal district on the Ionian Sea.

The 'good case' here is that's' often took the place of'h' in Greek, especially in the Aeolian dialect, and a similar interchange took place between Greek and Latin words, such as Greek hys and Latin sus, 'pig', Greek hals and Latin sal, 'salt', Greek hex and Latin sex, 'six', Greek hepta and Latin septem, 'seven', Greek herpo and Latin serpo, 'to crawl', and so on.

Sarpedon

Sarpedon was a son of Zeus and Europa, and he was a brother of Minos and Rhadamanthys, with whom he was reared by the childless king Asterius (who had married Europa). On the basis that 'h' could often replace 's' in Greek (see Salmoneus) we have good grounds for reading his name as 'Harpedon' and so for regarding his name, perhaps, as deriving from harpage, 'seizure', 'rape', this referring to his abduction of Europa. Compare the name of the Harpies.

Saturn

Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture, the husband of Rhea and the father of Jupiter. His name is usually derived from the root sat- that means 'sowing' (seen in the verb sew, 'to sow' itself, where satus means 'sown'), but there is also a possibility that the name connects with saturo, 'to fill', 'satiate' and that the original form of the name was something like 'Saturinus', meaning 'satisfier'.

On the other hand the Romans identified Saturn with Cronos who is certainly an early god, and the name Saturn itself may thus derive also from an ancient Etruscan or even oriental god. As a planet, Saturn was originally called Phainon, 'shining', by the Greeks (compare Phaënon), and subsequently, when names of gods were given to planets, Cronos. Saturn, of course, is the planet next to Jupiter, so it is perfectly logical that father should be placed next to son!

Satyrs

Satyrs were woodland creatures in the form of men with some animal features. They were usually young and vigorous (today they would be called randy) and traditionally accompanied the Maenads in the revels of Dionysus. Hesiod says that they were descended from the five daughters of one Hecaterus, who had married an Argive princess, the daughter of king Phoroneus.

The Romans identified them with their own woodland spirits, the fauns, and it was thus the Romans who gave them the familiar goats' legs and horns with which they are depicted in post-Renaissance paintings. Popularly they were thought of (the image still lives) as perpetually pursuing maidens through the woods.

Their name has been associated with ther, 'wild animal' (Euripides certainly referred to them as theres) but it may actually be derived from some ancient Peloponnesian dialect word meaning 'the full ones', this referring to their 'abundant' or sexually excited condition. Eric Partridge suggests that possibly the 'sowing' root of sat- may lie behind the name.

Scamander

Scamander (or Scamandrus) was a Trojan river and its god, this river being the Maeander (today the Menderes) whose god Maeander we have already considered (see this name). Scamander was the son of Oceanus and Tethys, and the father of Teucer by the nymph Idaea, as well as of Callirrhoë and Strymo.

The name seems to derive from scazo, 'to limp' or perhaps scaios, 'left', 'awkward' and aner, andros, 'man', thus being a 'limping man' or a 'clumsy man' This would refer to the many bends and winds ('meanders') of the river, which does not run straight and true but 'limps' its way along. Scamander was also known as Xanthus.

Schoeneus

Schoeneus was a king of Orchomenus, in Boeotia, the son of Athamas and Themisto. He is chiefly known for being the father of Atalanta, an honour that many writers ascribe instead to Iasus. The base of the name appears to be schoinos, 'rush'. This coul make Schoeneus a 'man of the rushes', so named for the swamps that were the haunts of Atalanta, as well as the mountains.

On the other hand the suggestion has been made that the word refers to the measured race that Atalanta ran: in ancient Greece the schoinos was a land measure equal to 60 stadia, that is, appro mately seven miles. There was another Schoeneus who was the son of Autonoös and Hippodamia. For the 'rushes' in his name.

Sciron

Sciron was a famous robber, a son of Poseidon or Pelops. He had developed the idiosyncratic practice of forcing passing travellers to wash his feet as he stood on a cliff-top by the sea on the border between Attica and Megaris on the isthmus of Corinth.

As they did so, he gave them a hefty kick and sent them into the sea, where a giant turtle devoured their bodies. (Theseus eventually put an end to this by paying him back in his own coin - he booted him off the cliff into the sea.) We have a choice here: sciron means 'parasol', sciros means 'gypsum'.

The former may refer to a type of sacrifice in which a victim was pushed from a cliff-top into the sea carrying a token parachute; the latter could mean 'limestone' and refer to the rock of the cliff. Parasols were by no means unfamiliar objects to the Greeks: at an annual women's festival in Athens, priestesses processed carrying parasols. (This ceremony was called the Scirophoria, 'parasol-bearing', and gave its name to one of the Greek months, Scirophorion, which corresponded to the latter half of June and the first half of July.)

Scylla

Scylla was the infamous sea monster who devoured sailors as they passed through the Strait of Messina. She had earlier been a beautiful nymph of variously recorded parentage, but Circe (out of envy of all the suitors she attracted) turned her into a monster with a woman's head and six dogs for legs - or something on similar lines, depending which account one reads or prefers. She lay low on a promontory opposite a whirlpool called Gharybdis (which see) - hence the phrase 'between Scylla and Charybdis' to refer to an unpleasant dilemma.

She was said to bark like a dog or whine like a puppy, and thus her name may mean 'whelp', 'puppy' (scymnos). However, she also used to tear her prey to pieces, and this suggests an origin in scyllo, 'to flay', 'rend'. Another Scylla was the daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, who has sometimes been confused with the monster.

Yet she did some 'rending' too, for she is said to have torn her father's body to pieces after she had caused his death by cutting off the golden hair on his head that ensured he would live. (In his Art of Love, Ovid positively identifies the monster with this second Scylla.)

Scythes

Scythes was the mythical ancestor of the Scythians. He was the son of Heracles and a 'woman with a snake's tail' who is usually identified as Echidna. His name, and that of the Scythians, has been linked with scythros, 'angry', 'sullen', 'gloomy', but the word is probably not Greek at all.

Selemnus

Selemnus was a handsome youth who loved the sea-nymph Argyra. She tired of him, and when he died of heartbreak, Aphrodite changed him into the river Selemnus. If his name derives from selas, 'bright' (as for Selene), then it closely approximates the origin of Argyra's own name (which see). The story seems to have originated from a spring called Argyra that was located near the river Selemnus in Achaea.

Selene

Selene was the goddess of the moon (not the only one, of course). She was the daughter of Hyperion and Theia (or of Pallas or Helios and Euryphaessa).

Her name undoubtedly comes from selas, 'bright light', 'brightness', to which word are also related hele, 'light of the sun' (compare Helios) and German hell, 'bright'. (For alternation between 'h' and 's' see Salmoneus.) The Roman equivalent goddess was Luna, whose name means 'moon' just as selene means 'moon' in Greek.

Semele

Semele was a daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and the mother of Dionysus. There are two rival origins for her name. One is as a corruption of Selene or 'Seleme', so meaning 'bright'. The other is as a non-Greek word meaning 'earth'.

The 'bright' derivation makes sense if we consider Selene's name (or even that of Selemnus), and if we regard her name as similar to the 'bright' names of water-nymphs such as Electra, Galatea, Glauce and Ianthe (to say nothing of her sister Ino, who became Leucothea and a goddess of the sea).

The 'earth' sense could derive from a Thracian word zemelo, 'earth' (compare modern Russian zemlya, with identical meaning), so that she was an earth goddess with a name something like 'Zemelo'. She was also known as Thyone. The latter does seem to be a Greek name.

Sibylla

Sibylla was a prophetess (the original sibyl) who lived at Marpessus near Troy and was devoted to serving Apollo, who inspired her to make her predictions. She gave her name to all the prophetesses called sibyls, so that the meaning of her name will be the meaning of this word. Unfortunately, the derivation is not easy. Plutarch proposed an origin in Dios, 'of Zeus' and boule, 'counsel', so that the name means 'counsel of Zeus'.

Saint Jerome saw the name as originating in theou boule, 'divine counsel', with this being an Attic Greek expression for which the Doric would have been Siobolla. Eric Partridge favours a link with Latin sibilus, so that her name may mean 'the hisser' (presumably mouthing predictions).

In any event, her name first appears in the writings of Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher who lived in the sixth and fifth centuries BC. The name was steadily popular until quite recently (often with the spelling Sybil) as a Christian name. Its 'boost' in the nineteenth century may have owed something to Disraeli's novel Sybil published in 1845.

Sicyon

Sicyon was the son or grandson of Erechtheus. He married Zeuxippe, who bore him Chthonophyle - who in turn bore Polybus to Hermes. He is said to have given his name to the city of Sicyon on the Gulf of Corinth. If his name derives from sicyos, 'cucumber', then this may be either a 'fertility' name (even a phallic one) or else refer to some incident that has not come down to us.

Side

Side was the first wife of Orion. When married to him, she offended Hera and was sent down to the Underworld. Her name means 'pomegranate' (side), a fruit that has links with the Underworld, since it was the food that Persephone had thoughtlessly eaten there when she should have eaten nothing (for Demeter to be able to win her back from Hades, who had carried her off there).

Sidero

Sidero was the second wife of Salmoneus and the step-mother of Tyro. She was hard-hearted towards her step-daughter, and that is why her name derives from sideros, 'iron'.

Sileni

Sileni were the sons of Silenus and a number of nymphs. They resembled the satyrs, except that on the whole they were older, wiser and drunker - a distinction both formidable and exciting. For the origin of their name, see Silenus.

Silenus

Silenus was an elderly companion of the Maenads in the revels of Dionysus, a cross between a dirty old man and a chronic alcoholic - yet also wise and possessing powers of prophecy.

He is usually regarded as being a son of Pan or Hermes and a nymph. He may originally have been a river god, in which case his name can perhaps be derived from eilo or Mo, 'to roll'. In this respect it may be no coincidence that Latin silanus means 'fountain', 'jet of water'.

Some writers, too, say that Silenus was the son of Gaia, which further suggests a fountain or stream that springs from the earth. Whether this 'moisture' connection can be extended to the wine that he drank and that Dionysus symbolised is another matter.

Sillus

Sillus, with Triballus, was one of the twin brothers Cercopes who plagued Heracles (their names were also recorded as Passalus and Acmon, or Olus and Eurybatus). His name means 'mocker', from sillaino, 'to insult', 'mock', 'jeer', and this is exactly what he was.