Peitho

In Greek mythology, Peitho /piː.θɔː/ (Ancient Greek: Πειθώ Peithō "Persuasion") is the goddess who personifies persuasion and seduction. Her Roman name is Suadela or Suada.

Pausanias reports that after the unification of Athens, Theseus set up a cult of Aphrodite Pandemos and Peitho on the south slope of Acropolis at Athens. According to the same author, they had also a sanctuary and a cult at Sicyon. In her role as an attendant or companion of Aphrodite, Peitho was intimately connected to the goddess of love and beauty. Ancient artists and poets explored this connection in their works. The connection is even deeper in the context of Ancient Greek marriage because a suitor had to negotiate with the father of a young woman for her hand in marriage and offer a bridal price in return for her. The most desirable women drew many prospective suitors, and persuasive skill often determined their success.

Aphrodite and Peitho were sometimes conflated to a certain extent, with the name Peitho appearing in conjunction with, or as an epithet of, Aphrodite's name. This helps to demonstrate how the relationship between persuasion and love (or desire) was important in Greek culture. Peitho's ancestry is somewhat unclear. According to Hesiod in the Theogony, Peitho was the daughter of the Titans Tethys and Oceanus, which would make her an Oceanid and therefore sister of such notable goddesses as Dione, Doris, Metis, and Calypso. However, Hesiod's classification of Peitho as an Oceanid is contradicted by other sources. When Zeus ordered the creation of the first woman: Pandora, Peitho and the Graces put golden necklaces around her neck, and the rich-haired Hours crowned her head with spring flowers.

118 Peitho

118 Peitho is a main-belt asteroid. It is probably an S-type asteroid. It was discovered by R. Luther on March 15, 1872, and named after one of the two Peithos in Greek mythology. There have been two observed Peithoan occultations of a dim star: one was in 2000 and the other in 2003.

In 2009, Photometric observations of this asteroid were made at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The resulting asymmetrical light curve shows a synodic rotation period of 7.823 ± 0.002 hours with a brightness variation of 0.15 ± 0.02 in magnitude. This was reasonably consistent with independent studies performed in 1980 (7.78 hours) and 2009 (7.8033 hours).

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