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Greek

Hesperides

Daughters of Evening · Keepers of the Golden Apples · Guardians of Hera’s Garden

01Identity

Hesperides in Greek tradition

Golden apples grew on trees in the Garden of the Hesperides, where nymphs tended the fruit and helped guard it. A hundred-headed serpent or dragon, Ladon, also watched the trees. The Hesperides were nymphs of the evening, between four and seven in number, with names that vary between accounts. In one tradition, they were daughters of Nyx, Night, and Erebus, Darkness. Other accounts make them children of Phorcys and Ceto, Zeus and Themis, or Atlas and Hesperis.

The trees were gifts from Gaia to Hera for her marriage to Zeus. Hera had them planted in the garden of the gods, near Mount Atlas. Its location varies in myth and was placed in Libya, by the river Oceanus, or in the lands of the Hyperboreans. These settings were all imagined at the ends of the earth. The Hesperides belong to the myths of the golden apples, including the labour assigned to Heracles and the Argonauts’ search for water. In one account, three Hesperides became rooted as a poplar, elm, and willow.

Top questions

The quick answers

  • Who are the Hesperides?

    Hesperides is a Greek being associated with guardianship of the golden apples, Hera’s sacred garden, the sacred apple trees, the far western boundary of the world, evening and sunset.
    Source

    Source

    • Dictionary of northern mythology
    • Classical Mythology a to Z
    • Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland
    • The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)

  • What is Hesperides associated with?

    guardianship of the golden apples, Hera’s sacred garden, the sacred apple trees, the far western boundary of the world, evening and sunset
    Source

    Source

    • Dictionary of northern mythology
    • Classical Mythology a to Z
    • Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland

  • What family links are recorded for Hesperides?

    Father: Atlas, Mother: Ceto.
02Family

Hesperides’s family, at a glance

Parents above, children below, and the figure’s consorts named in between, the same family data as the fact box, laid out as a chart instead of a field list.

AtlasErebosHesperusPhorcysZeusCetoHesperisNyxThemis
Hesperides
03The names

The names Hesperides answers to

Atlantides

Daughters of Atlas

SourceClassical Mythology a to Z

Daughters of Night

Daughters of Nyx

SourceThe Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)

Daughters of Evening

Nymphs associated with the evening

SourceClassical Mythology a to Z

Nymphs of the West

Nymphs dwelling in the far western realm

SourceClassical Mythology a to Z

04Who it is

Hesperides, and where the myths place it

Appears in

The myths across MythSource where Hesperides features, each on that figure’s page.

The film

The Underdrawing video on Hesperides embeds here once it publishes.

Continue the road

More of Hesperides’s family, sourced

ZeusFather