NEREUS  , in

Greek mythology, the eldest son of Pontus and Gaea, and father of the fifty Nereids . He is a beneficent and venerable old man of the sea, full of wisdom and skilled in prophecy, but, like Proteus, he will only reveal what he knows under compulsion . Thus Heracles seized him when asleep, and, although he attempted to escape by assuming various forms, compelled him to reveal the whereabouts of the apples of the Hesperides (Apollodorus ii . 5) . His favourite dwelling-place is a cavern in the depths of the Aegean . The fifty daughters of Nereus, the Nereids, are personifications of the smiling, quiet sea . Of these, Thetis and Amphitrite rule the sea according to the legend of different localities; Galatea is a Sicilian figure, who plays with and deludes her rustic lover of the shore, Polyphemus . Nereus is represented with the sceptre and trident; the Nereids are depicted as graceful maidens, lightly clad or naked, riding on tritons and dolphins . The name has nothing to do with the modern Greek vep5 (really veap*v, "fresh " [waterl) : it is probably a short form of Ni peros .