Maia, in Greek mythology, is the eldest of the Pleiades, the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. She and her sisters, born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, are sometimes called mountain goddesses. Maia was the oldest, most beautiful and shyest. She is also the goddess of fields. // Greek mythology consists in part in a large collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines. ... The Pleiades Πληιόνης (pleye-a-deez, also plee-a-deez), companions of Artemis (ar-te-mis), were the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas (at-las) and the sea-nymph Pleione (pleye-oh-nee) born on Mount Cyllene (seye-lee-nee). ... In Greek mythology, Atlas was a member of a race of giant gods known as Titans. ... Pleione is in Greek mythology, an Oceanid, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. ... There are several places on the Peloponnesus peninsula in Greece named Kyllíni (classically transliterated as Cyllene or Kyllênê): Mount Kyllini (Cyllene), the mythological birthplace of Hermes (also called Mount Ziria). ... Arcadia or Arkadía (Greek Αρκαδία; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. ...

In a cave of Cyllene, Maia became by Zeus the mother of the god Hermes. The story is told in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Statue of Zeus Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall statue of Zeus at Olympia about 435 BC. The statue was perhaps the most famous sculpture in ancient Greece, imagined here in a 16th-century engraving. ... Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles Hermes (Greek IPA ), in Greek mythology, is the god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators, literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and invention and commerce in general, of liars, and of... The anonymous Homeric Hymns are a collection of ancient Greek hymns. ...

After giving birth to the baby, Maia wrapped him in blankets and went to sleep. The rapidly-maturing infant Hermes crawled away to Thessaly, where by nightfall of his first day he stole some of Apollo's cattle and invented a lyre. Maia refused to believe Apollo when he claimed Hermes was the thief and Zeus then sided with Apollo. Finally, Apollo exchanged the cattle for the lyre. Map showing Thessaly periphery in Greece Thessaly (Θεσσαλια; modern Greek Thessalía; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. ... For other uses, see Apollo (disambiguation). ... A lyre is a stringed musical instrument well known for its use in Classical Antiquity. ...

Maia also raised the infant Arcas to protect him from Hera, who had turned his mother, Callisto into a bear. In Greek mythology, Arcas (Αρκάς) was the son of Zeus and of the nymph Callisto, whom Hera turned into a bear. ... In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hêra (IPA pronunciation: ; Greek or ) was the wife and sister of Zeus. ... From Greek mythology, Callisto was the daughter of Lycaon, the king of Arcadia (or possibly a nymph). ...

See also

• Maia Maiestas, the Roman mythological equivalent
• Mya, English Variant of Maia