THE HESPERIAI were Naiad Nymphs of the River Eridanos in the mythical northern land of Hyperborea. This river also formed the Constellation Eridanos.
They are probably identical to either the Heliades, sisters of Phaethon, or Hesperides, goddesses of the evening.
|Perhaps daughters of the River ERIDANOS
Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. 319 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
"Phaethon [struck by Zeus from the chariot of the Sun], flames ravaging his auburn hair, falls headlong down, a streaming trail of light, as sometimes through the cloudless vault of night a star, though never falling, seems to fall. Eridanus receives him, far from home, in his wide waters half a world away. And bathes his burning face. The Naides Hesperiae bury his smouldering body in a tomb and on a stone engrave his epitaph: ‘Here Phaethon lies, his father's charioteer; great was his fall, yet did he greatly dare.'"
- Ovid, Metamorphoses - Latin Epic C1st BC - C1st AD