Aetna
Αἴτνη
(Αἴτνη), a Sicilian nymph, and according to Alcimus (apud Schol. Theocrit. 1.65), a daughter of Uranus and Gaea, or of Briareus. Simonides said that she had acted as arbitrator between Hephaestus and Demeter respecting the possession of Sicily. By Zeus or Hephaestus she became the mother of the Palici. (Serv. ad Acn. 9.584.) Mount Aetna in Sicily was believed to have derived its name from her, and under it Zeus buried Typhon, Enceladus, or Briareus. The mountain itself was believed to be the place in which Hephaestus and the Cyclops made the thunderbolts for Zeus. (Eur. Cycl. 296; Propert. 3.15. 21; Cic. De Divinat. 2.19.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.