Idaea

Idaea or Idaia (Ancient Greek: Ἰδαία) is the name of several figures in Greek mythology, it means "she who comes from Ida" or "she who lives on Ida", and is often associated with Mount Ida in Crete, and Mount Ida in the Troad.

Figures
Those named Idaea include:


 * Idaea, a nymph, who was the mother, by the river-god Scamander, of King Teucer.
 * Idaea, the daughter of the Scythian king Dardanus, and wife of Phineus, who falsely accused her stepsons, leading to their imprisonment and torture.
 * Idaea was, according to Diodorus Siculus, the mother of the Kuretes (Κουρῆτες), the armed dancers who guarded the infant Zeus in a cave on Cretan Mount Ida.
 * Idaea, a nymph who consorted with Zeus and became the mother of Cres, possible eponym of Crete. She may be the same with Idaea, daughter of Minos who mothered Asterion by Zeus also.

Etymology
The name is related with Mount Ida. In the Iliad (2.821 etc.), Ida means wooded hill, and recalls the mountain worship in the Minoan mother goddess religion. Three inscriptions in Linear A, which represents the Minoan language, bear just the name i-da-ma-te (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2). The inscriptions may refer to the "mother goddess of Ida" (Ἰδαία μάτηρ).