Asteria- Greek TitanTitan"The Starry One"

Daughter of the Starry Titans

Asteria was a second-generation Titaness, daughter of Coeus and Phoebe. Her name means "the starry one," and the arts of the night sky were hers — the oracles read by starlight and the signs written in falling stars. Her sister was Leto, who would bear Apollo and Artemis to Zeus.

Mother of Hecate

Asteria married the Titan Perses. Their daughter was Hecate, goddess of magic and crossroads, whose authority Zeus left intact even after he overthrew the Titans.

The Flight from Zeus

When the king of the gods turned his desire upon her, Asteria transformed herself into a quail (ortyx) and hurled herself into the Aegean Sea rather than submit. There in the waves she became a floating island, originally called Ortygia — "Quail Island" — drifting unanchored across the sea, belonging to no fixed place and beholden to no power.

Becoming Delos

When Leto became pregnant by Zeus, Hera forbade every land on earth from giving her a place to give birth. Every island and mainland refused the laboring goddess, terrified of Hera's wrath. Only Asteria's floating island, not fixed to the seabed and thus not truly "land" in the sense of Hera's decree, dared to welcome her sister. Even then, the island hesitated — in the Homeric Hymn, Delos speaks aloud, afraid that Apollo will despise her rocky barrenness and kick her into the sea. Leto swore that Apollo would build his first temple there, and only then did the island consent. Leto gave birth first to Artemis and then, with Artemis serving as midwife, to Apollo. In gratitude, the island was anchored to the seabed by four pillars and renamed Delos — "the Visible One."