Daily Amazing Women of History! Woman #2

The amazing woman of today is not an actual person, but rather a spectacular woman of Greek and Roman myth, the goddess Flora, goddess of spring and fertility in Roman myth. Now, Flora did not start off as a goddess, to learn how she became the goddess we must first look at what happened to her family.


In Greece, Flora was the human named Chloris, and she was daughter to a woman named Niobe, the Queen of Thebes. Niobe was a proud vain woman who boasted to Leto that she was better because Niobe had 14 children while Leto only had two the twins Apollo and Diana. Well after hearing Niobe's slight against her mother Diana went and destroyed the family. Diana killed all of the kids of the family...but one. Chloris was the youngest and she begged Diana to spare her and not punish her for her mothers sin. Diana pity the girl and spared her, but at a price.


Chloris was banished from Diana's sight and forced to endlessly roam the earth all the while being chased by Zephyrus, God of the West wind, the wind that brings Spring.


Now one might ask how Chloris became Flora? Well there are two different answers.

1. The gods and goddess finally took pity on the girl and changed her into a deity.

2. That Chloris finally stopped running and turned to face her fate and the god that had been chasing her.


Personally I like the second one best. That is what makes her an amazing woman in my eyes. The fact that she had the coraggio (courage) to stand up and face something that she was so scared of she ran for decades. But I will let you decided the end of the human girl Chloris and the beginning of the goddess Flora.


The image shown is from Botticelli's La Primavera and depicts the goddess Flora on the left and the human girl Chloris being chased by the god of the west wind, Zephyrus on the right.