Combie

Combie (ΚÏŒμβη) is a mythical figure from ancient Greece. She was one of the Asopides, daughter of Asopus and Metope, wife of Sokos or Sochos and mother of one hundred children (the Couretes) or the seven Corybantes from Euboea (Prymneus, Mimas, Acmon, Damneus, Ocythous, Idaeus and Melisseus). At the time of Cecrops I reign, Combie and her seven sons left Euboea because of Sokos' madness and went to Cnossus in Crete. Then, they went to Phrygia in Asia Minor and returned to Athens where Cecrops killed Sokos.

Diodorus Siculus writes that Combie was also called Chalkis and that she gave her name to the city Chalkis in Euboea. Stephanus Byzantius adds that she was one of the Asopides. Therefore, the city was founded by Combie the Chalkis. Later, some of the people of this city, called Couretes, went west and founded another homonymous city in Aetolia, near the sea.(Homer B 640).

According to Hesychius, the ancient inhabitants of Polyrrenia (a city in Crete) called the bird crow comba.

The Sons
Melisseus was a king of Crete at the time of Zeus' birth. His daughters Amaltheia and Melissa (= honey-bee) were the nurses of the baby. Apollodorus writes that his daughters were the nymphs Adrasteia and Ide; they raised Zeus with the milk of the goat Amaltheia. Nonnus tells that Melisseus was one of the Couretes who protected Zeus from his father Cronus.

Idaeus seems to be the ancestor of the Idaeoi Dactyloi (dactyloi = fingures). According to Pausanias they were five of them (as our fingures): Heracles, Paeonaeos, Epimedes, Iasios and Idas. These men were protecting the baby in a Cretan cave and they were the first to discover all the metals, including the iron.

Mimas gave his name to a mountain in Erythrae in Asia Minor. It is obvious that this hero was the "giant" who was killed in the Gigantomachia (the war of the Giants) by Zeus or Hephaestus.

Acmon was a powerful magician and the founder of the Phrygian city Acmonia in Asia Minor.

Related Stories
Idaea married Zeus, the king of Crete (not the god).

Idaea was a Cretan nymph who came to northwestern Phrygia in Asia Minor (in the land where Troy was built later) and married king Scamandrus, son of Corybas from Crete. The river that flows there was named Scamandros and the mountain that it springs from Ide, after the homonymous Cretan one. Their son Teucros was the father of Bateia (Myrina), wife of Dardanos and mother of Ilos and Ericthonios.
Ericthonios was the father of Tros who found Troy.

According to Diodorus Siculus, at his time there were some people living in an island called Panchaia near India, who spoke an ancient Cretan dialect. The priests insisted that their ancestors had been brought there from Crete by Zeus when he was a king and ruler of the world. Nonnus tells that a long time before Dionysos, the son of Semele, his father Zeus had defeated the Indians and had conquered the world with his weapons. Arrianos informs us that according to the Indians, Dionysos lived 6042 years before their king Sandracottos (300 B.C.), therefore around 6300 B.C.

Bibliography
*Apollodorus 1,5 - 3,140
*Diodorus Siculus 3,61 - 4,72 - 5,42.46 - 17,7
*Pausanias 5,7,6
*Stephanus Byzantius in ΧαλκÎ¯ς
*Hesychius in ΚÏŒμβη
*Euripedes ÎŠων
*Apollonius of Rhodes 3,1227
*Arrianos Indica 1,4 - 9,9.10

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