Venti
The winds. They appear personified even in the Homeric poems, but at the same time they are conceived as ordinary phenomena of nature. The master and ruler of all the winds is Aeolus, who resides in the island Aeolia (Aeneid by Virgil); but the other gods also, especially Zeus, exercise a power over them. (Iliad of Homer xii)
Homer mentions by name Boreas (north wind), Eurus (east wind), Notus (south wind), and Zephyrus (west wind).
When the funeral pile of Patrochus could not be made to burn, Achilles promised to offer sacrifices to the winds, and Iris accordingly hastening to them, found them feasting in the palace of Zephyrus in Thrace. Boreas and Zephyrus, at the invitation of Iris, forthwith hastened across the Thracian sea into Asia, to cause the fire to blaze. (Iliad of Homer)
Boreas and Zephyrus are usually mentioned together by Homer, just as Eurus and Notus.
According to Hesiod ( Theogony), the beneficial winds, Notus, Boreas, Argestes, and Zephyrus, were the sons of Astraeus and Eos, and the destructive ones, as Typhon, are said to be the sons of Typhoeus. Later, especially philosophical writers, endeavoured to define the winds more accurately, according to their places in the compass. Thus Aristotle (Meteor, ii. 6), besides the four principal winds (Boreas or Aparctias, Eurus, Notus, and Zephyrus) mentions three, the Meses, Caicias, and Apeliotes, between Boreas and Eurus; between Eurus and Notus he places the Phoenicias; between Notus and Zephyrus he has only the Lips, and between Zephyrus and Boreas he places the Argestes (Olympias or Sciron) and the Thrascias.
It must further be observed that according to Aristotle, the Eurus is not due east, but south-east. In the Museum Pio-Clementinum there exists a marble monument upon which the winds are described with their Greek and Latin names, viz. Septentrio (Aparctias), Eurus (Euros, or southeast), and between these two Aquilo (Boreas), Vulturnus (Caicias) and Solanus (Apheliotes). Between Eurus and Notus (Notos) there is only one, the Euroauster (Euronotus); between Notus and Favonius (Zephyrus) are marked Austro-Africus (Libonotus), and Africus (Lips); and between Favonius and Septentrio we find Chrus (lapyx) and Circius (Thracius). See the tables of the winds figured in Gottling's edit, of Hesiod, p. 39.
The winds were represented by poets and artists in different ways; the latter usually represented them as beings with wings at their heads and shoulders (Metamorphoses by Ovid). On the chest of Cypselus, Boreas in the act of carrying off Oreithyia, was represented with serpents in the place of legs (Pausanias v. 1.9. § 1).
The most remarkable monument representing the winds is the octagonal tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes at Athens. Each of the eight sides of the monument represents one of the eight principal winds in a flying attitude. A moveable Triton in the centre of the cupola pointed with his staff to the wind blowing at the time. All these eight figures have wings at their shoulders, all are clothed, and the peculiarities of the winds are indicated by their bodies and various attributes.
Black lambs were offered as sacrifices to the destructive winds, and white ones to favourable or good winds. (Aeneid by Virgil) Boreas had a temple on the river Ilissus in Attica, and between Titane and Sicyon there was an altar of the winds, upon which a priest offered a sacrifice to the winds once in every year. (Pausanias ii. 12. § 1.)
Zephyrus had an altar on the sacred road to Eleusis.
From Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and MythologyFrom History of the Wars by Procopius
Among the interior towns is Beneventus, which in ancient times the Romans had named "Maleventus," but now they call it Beneventus, avoiding the evil omen of the former name, "ventus" having the meaning "wind" in the Latin tongue. For in Dalmatia, which lies across from this city on the opposite mainland, a wind of great violence and exceedingly wild is wont to fall upon the country, and when this begins to blow, it is impossible to find a man there who continues to travel on the road, but all shut themselves up at home and wait. Such, indeed, is the force of the wind that it seizes a man on horseback together with his horse and carries him through the air, and then, after whirling him about in the air to a great distance, it throws him down wherever he may chance to be and kills him. And it so happens that Beneventus, being opposite to Dalmatia, as I have said, and situated on rather high ground, gets some of the disadvantage of this same wind.
(ll. 378-382) And Eos bare to Astraeus the strong-hearted winds, brightening Zephyrus, and Boreas, headlong in his course, and Notus, -- a goddess mating in love with a god. And after these Erigenia bare the star Eosphorus (Dawn-bringer), and the gleaming stars with which heaven is crowned.
From The Georgics By Virgil
The fire, in Spring-tide chiefly, for with Spring
Warmth doth their frames revisit, then they stand
All facing westward on the rocky heights,
And of the gentle breezes take their fill;
And oft unmated, marvellous to tell,
But of the wind impregnate, far and wide
O'er craggy height and lowly vale they scud,
Not toward thy rising, Eurus, or the sun's,
But westward and north-west, or whence up-springs
Black Auster, that glooms heaven with rainy cold.
