Tanagra (mythology)

In Greek mythology Tanagra (in Greek Ταναγρα) was a nymph who gave her name to the polis of Tanagra, located in Boeotia. Regarding the girl's genealogy there are two variants. Some say that she was one of the daughters of Aeolus, but they do not mention the name of her mother. Others imagined Tanagra as a naiad nymph, daughter of the river god Asopus - without specifying the consort - or with the nymph Metope, daughter in turn of Ladón. It is said that the main gods kidnapped the daughters of Asopus. The poetess Corina reports that because of Tanagra the gods Hermes and Ares faced each other in a boxing competition to win the affection of the naiad.

Pausanias wrote that the Tanagraeans believed that their founder was Pemander—son of Cheresileus, grandson of Iasius, and great-grandson of Eleuter. Eleuter himself was the son of Apollo and grandson of Poseidon. They also say that Pemander himself took Tanagra, daughter of Aeolus, as his wife. As Tanagra had a long life, the inhabitants called it Grea (whose meaning is "old woman") and that was the name of the city that Homer mentioned: "Thespea, Grea and spacious Mycalesus" whose inhabitants participated in the war of Troy. It is said that the city later recovered its old name of Tanagra. Pemander and Tanagra fathered Leucippus and Ephippus.

It was also called after her "tanagras" to some small terracotta statuettes that served as votive offerings, painted at the end of the classical period and in Hellenistic times.