This article is about the mythological figures. For the moon of Neptune, see Psamathe (moon)

Psamathe (moon)

Psamathe , also known as Neptune X, is a retrograde irregular satellite of Neptune. It is named after Psamathe, one of the Nereids. This moon was discovered by Scott S. Sheppard and David C. Jewitt in 2003 using the 8.2 meter Subaru telescope...

. For the polychaete worm genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

, see Psamathe (polychaete).

Psamathe (Greek: Ψάμαθη) was a Nereid in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, i.e., one of the fifty daughters of Nereus

Nereus

In Greek mythology, Nereus was the eldest son of Pontus and Gaia , a Titan who with Doris fathered the Nereids, with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea. In the Iliad the Old Man of the Sea is the father of Nereids, though Nereus is not directly named...

 and Doris

Doris (mythology)

Doris , an Oceanid, was a sea nymph in Greek mythology, whose name represented the bounty of the sea. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and the wife of Nereus. She was also aunt to Atlas, the titan who was made to carry the sky upon his shoulders, whose mother Clymene was a sister of Doris...

. The goddess of sand beaches, Psamathe was the wife of Proteus

Proteus

In Greek mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea", whose name suggests the "first" , as protogonos is the "primordial" or the "firstborn". He became the son of Poseidon in the Olympian theogony In Greek mythology, Proteus (Πρωτεύς)...

 and the mother of Phocus

Phocus

Phocus was the son of Aeacus and Psamathe in Greek mythology. His mother, the Nereid goddess of sand beaches, transformed herself into a seal when she was ambushed by Aeacus, and was raped as a seal; conceived in the rape, Phocus' name means "seal". He had two sons, Crisus and Panopaeus.Aeacus...

 by Aeacus

Aeacus

Aeacus was a mythological king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.He was son of Zeus and Aegina, a daughter of the river-god Asopus. He was born on the island of Oenone or Oenopia, to which Aegina had been carried by Zeus to secure her from the anger of her parents, and whence this...

.

This was also the name of the mortal mother of Linus

Linus

-People:*Pope Linus , the second Pope of the Catholic Church*Linus B. Comins, member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts in 1857–59*Linus Yale, Jr., American mechanical engineer...

 by Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

. This second Psamathe was the daughter of Crotopus

Crotopus

In Greek mythology, Crotopus of Argos was the son of Agenor and father of Psamathe. He succeeded his uncle Iasus as King of Argos upon the latter's death....

, king of Argos

Argos

Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...

, who, fearing her father, gave her infant son Linus to shepherds to be raised; after reaching adulthood, he was torn apart by dogs, and Psamathe was killed by her father. Apollo avenged her murder by sending a child-killing plague to Argos.

Some translations of Ovid have the name as Psamanthe.