The ancient poet Homer offers us an intriguing glimpse of the Ocean in the Iliad. In the lyrical description of the legendary shield of Achilles, Homer shows how the craftsman Hephaistos depicted Okeanos as a vast river that surrounds the world:

"Then, running round the shield-rim, triple-ply,
he pictured all the might of the Ocean stream."

As the god of the Ocean, Okeanos also was responsible for fathering many of the deities who in Greek myth either personified or inhabited the rivers, lakes, seas, and various other bodies of water. Okeanos, together with his consort Tethys, had many children, including the "three thousand slender-ankled daughters" who were known collectively as the Oceanids. In addition Okeanos and Tethys were the parents of the rivers and therefore the river gods.