Noah and Nereus
To the right, we see a depiction of Nereus from an Attic black figure water pot, ca. 515 BC. In The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology, here is how Edward Tripp describes Nereus:
An ancient sea-god. Nereus, a son of Pontus (Sea) and Ge (Earth), may have had considerable importance before Poseidon became the ruling sea god. He is referred to by both Homer and Hesiod as the Old Man. Hesiod explains that this is because he is kind and just. He was the father, by the Oceanid Doris, of the fifty sea-nymphs—the Nereïds. Like other sea-deities, he had prophetic powers. Herakles, led to his home by the Nymphs, captured him sleeping. Herakles bound him and refused to release him until he revealed the location of the Garden of the Hesperides.
According to Robert Graves, Nereus means “Wet One.” He is Noah, the one who came through the Flood; that’s why the Greeks associated him with Sea and Earth. The ancient poets called Nereus the “Old Man of the Sea.” According to Genesis, Noah lived 600 years before the Flood, and 350 years after it. Some ancient writings referred to Nereus as the “Salt Sea Old Man.” Nereus (Noah) lived long enough to sire fifty daughters whom the Greeks called Nereïds.
The Book of Genesis does not name Noah’s wife, but the Greeks said that the wife of Nereus was the Oceanid (Okeanid) Doris. What made her an Oceanid was the fact that she rode the ocean in the ark with Nereus/Noah and their family for a year.
And of course Nereus/Noah had prophetic powers—for a hundred years he had predicted the Flood that eventually wiped out the line of Kain. As he was the living link to the days before the Flood, Herakles had to go to him to find out the location of the serpent’s ancient garden—the Garden of the Hesperides.
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