LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
Academy · Biography & Mythology

Cassiepeia

or CASSIOPEIA (Κασσιέπεια or Κασσιόπεια), the wife of Cepheus in Acthiopia, and mother of Andromeda, whose beauty she extolled above that of the Nereids. This pride became the cause of her misfortunes, for Poseidon sent a monster into the country which ravaged the land, and to which Andromeda was to be sacrificed. But Perseus saved her life. (Hyg. Fab. 64; comp. ANDROMEDA.) According to other accounts Cassiepeia boasted that she herself surpassed the Nereids in beauty, and for this reason she was represented, when placed among the stars, as turning backwards. (Arat. Phaen. 187, &c.; Manil. Astron. 1.355.)

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.