[oh-see-uh-nuh
s] 
| 1. | a Titan who was the son of Uranus and Gaea, the consort of Tethys, and the father of the river gods and Oceanids. |
| 2. | a great stream of water encircling the earth and believed to be the source of all rivers, lakes, etc. |
| O·ce·a·nus (ō-sē'ə-nəs) n. Greek Mythology A Titan god of the outer sea encircling the earth and the father of the Oceanides and the river gods. |
Oceanus
in Greek mythology, the river that flowed around the Earth (conceived as flat), for example, in the shield of Achilles described in Homer's Iliad, Book XVIII. Beyond it, to the west, were the sunless land of the Cimmerii, the country of dreams, and the entrance to the underworld. In Hesiod's Theogony, Oceanus was the oldest Titan, the son of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth), the husband of the Titan Tethys, and father of 3,000 stream spirits and 3,000 ocean nymphs. In the Iliad, Book XIV, Oceanus is identified once as the begetter of the gods and once as the begetter of all things; although the comments were isolated, they were influential in later thinking. Oceanus also appears in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound
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