Galatea (mythology) Galatea (mythology) Galatea (; ; "she who is milk-white") is a name popularly applied to the statue carved of ivory by Pygmalion of Cyprus, which then came to life in Greek mythology. In modern English the name usually alludes to that story. Galatea is also the name of Polyphemus's object of desire in Theocritus's "Idylls VI" and "XI" and is linked with Polyphemus again in the myth of Acis and Galatea in Ovid's "Metamorphoses". Though the name "Galatea" has become so firmly associated with Pygmalion's statue as to seem antique, its use in connection with Pygmalion originated with a post-classical
Pygmy (Greek mythology) Pygmy (Greek mythology) The Pygmies ( "Pygmaioi", from the adjective πυγμαῖος from πυγμή "pygmē", "the length of the forearm") were a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology. According to the Iliad, they were involved in a constant war with the cranes, which migrated in winter to their homeland on the southern shores of the earth-encircling river Oceanus. One story describes the origin of the age-old battle, speaking of a Pygmy Queen named Gerana who offended the goddess Hera with her boasts of superior beauty, and was transformed into a crane. In art the scene was popular with little Pygmies