ClasBib Names

Hector

-''hector of the flashing helmet' -in Greek legend, the eldest son of the Trojan king Priam and his queen Hecuba. -He was the husband of Andromache and the chief warrior of the Trojan army. In Homer's Iliad he is represented as an ideal warrior and the mainstay of Troy. -Hector's character is drawn in most favourable colours as a good son, a loving husband and father, and a trusty friend. His leave-taking of Andromache in the sixth book of the Iliad, and his departure to meet Achilles for the last time, are movingly described. He is an especial favourite of Apollo, and later poets even described him as son of that god. -During the Trojan War, Hector's chief exploits were his defense of the wounded Sarpedon, his fight with Ajax, son of Telamon (his particular enemy), and the storming of the Greek ramparts. -His demise occurs following a series of events involving Achilles and Patroclus. After quarreling with Agamemnon, Achilles deserts the Greeks, and Hector manages to drive them back to their ships, which he almost succeeds in burning. -With the help of Apollo, he also slays Patroclus, who came disguised as Achilles to aid the Greeks. -Achilles, distraught and wanting to avenge the death of his friend Patroclus, returns to the war and kills Hector. -He drags Hector's body behind his chariot to the camp and then around the tomb of Patroclus. -Aphrodite and Apollo, however, preserve the body from corruption and mutilation. -Later, Priam, guarded by Hermes, goes to Achilles and entreats him to give back the body. -The Iliad ends with Hector's funeral, during which his body is buried with great honour. -Hector was afterward worshipped in the Troad and also at Tanagra, east of Thebes.

Apollo

-God of music, poetry, medicine, Sun-God, frequently conflated in this role by the god Sol, Hyperion's son -forename Phoebus, meaning "bright" or "pure," and the view became current that he was connected with the Sun. -in Metamorphoses, -a deity of manifold function and meaning, one of the most widely revered and influential of all the ancient Greek and Roman gods. Though his original nature is obscure, from the time of Homer onward he was the god of divine distance, who sent or threatened from afar; the god who made men aware of their own guilt and purified them of it; who presided over religious law and the constitutions of cities; and who communicated with mortals through prophets and oracles his knowledge of the future and the will of his father, Zeus (Roman: Jupiter). -Even the gods feared him, and only his father and his mother, Leto (Roman: Latona), could easily endure his presence. -He was also a god of crops and herds, primarily as a divine bulwark against wild animals and disease, as his Greek epithet Alexikakos (Averter of Evil) indicates. -Among his other Greek epithets was Nomios (Herdsman), and he is said to have served King Admetus of Pherae in the lowly capacities of groom and herdsman as penance for slaying Zeus's armourers, the Cyclopes. -He was also called Lyceius, presumably because he protected the flocks from wolves (lykoi); because herdsmen and shepherds beguiled the hours with music, scholars have argued that this was his original role. -In art, he was represented as a beardless youth, either naked or robed. Distance, death, terror, and awe were summed up in his symbolic bow. -A gentler side of his nature, however, was shown in his other attribute, the lyre, which proclaimed the joy of communion with Olympus (the home of the gods) through music, poetry, and dance. -Traditionally, (...) and his twin, Artemis (Roman: Diana), were born on the isle of Delos. In HEsiod's version, he was born clutching a golden sword, and from his first taste of ambrosia he became a man. From there Apollo went to Pytho (Delphi), where he slew Python, the dragon that guarded the area. He established his oracle by taking on the guise of a dolphin, leaping aboard a Cretan ship, and forcing the crew to serve him. -Thus, Pytho was renamed Delphi after the dolphin (delphis), and the Cretan cult of Apollo Delphinius superseded that previously established there by Earth (Gaea). -Although Apollo had many love affairs, they were mostly unfortunate: Daphne, in her efforts to escape him, was changed into a laurel, his sacred shrub; Coronis (mother of Asclepius) was shot by Apollo's twin, Artemis, when Coronis proved unfaithful; and Cassandra (daughter of King Priam of Troy) rejected his advances and was punished by being made to utter true prophecies that no one believed. +++++

Hermes (Mercury, R)

-Greek god, son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia -often identified with the Roman Mercury and with Casmilus or Cadmilus, one of the Cabeiri. -His name is probably derived from herma (see herm), the Greek word for a heap of stones, such as was used in the country to indicate boundaries or as a landmark. The earliest centre of his cult was probably Arcadia, where Mt. Cyllene was reputed to be his birthplace. There he was especially worshipped as the god of fertility, and his images were ithyphallic. -Both in literature and cult Hermes was constantly associated with the protection of cattle and sheep, and he was often closely connected with deities of vegetation, especially Pan and the nymphs. -In the Odyssey, however, he appears mainly as the messenger of the gods and the conductor of the dead to Hades. -Hermes was also a dream god, and the Greeks offered to him the last libation before sleep. -As a messenger, he may also have become the god of roads and doorways, and he was the protector of travellers. -Treasure casually found was his gift, and any stroke of good luck was attributed to him; this conception and his function as a deity of gain, honest or dishonest, are natural derivatives of his character as a god of fertility. -In many respects he was Apollo's counterpart; like him, Hermes was a patron of music and was credited with the invention of the kithara and sometimes of music itself. He was also god of eloquence and presided over some kinds of popular divination. -The sacred number of Hermes was four, and the fourth day of the month was his birthday. -In archaic art, apart from the stylized herms, he was portrayed as a full-grown and bearded man, clothed in a long tunic and often wearing a cap and winged boots. -Sometimes he was represented in his pastoral character, bearing a sheep on his shoulders; at other times he appeared as the messenger of the gods with the kērykeion, or herald's staff (see caduceus), which was his most frequent attribute. -From the latter part of the 5th century BC he was portrayed as a nude and beardless youth, a young athlete.

Jupiter (Jove, L) (Zeus, G)

-He was the god of the sky and ruler of the Olympian gods. -He overthrew his father, Cronus, and then drew lots with his brothers Poseidon (Neptune) and Hades (Pluto), in order to decide who would succeed their father on the throne. -He won the draw and became the supreme ruler of the gods, as well as lord of the sky and rain. His weapon was a thunderbolt which he hurled at those who displeased or defied him, especially liars and oathbreakers. -He was married to Hera but often tested her patience, as he was infamous for his many affairs. -His first lover was Metis, a Titan goddess and mother of Athena. He later married Themis, Titan goddess of tradition, with whom he had six children; the three Horai (Hours) and the three Moirai (Fates); according to some myths, the three Nymphai (Nymphs) were also children of Zeus and Themis. -Afterwards, he began a relationship with Demeter, and bore Persephone. -His third wife was Mnemosyne, who gave birth to the nine Muses. -He was involved with Leto shortly before his marriage to Hera, and had Apollo and Artemis with her. -Even after his marriage to Hera, he continued sleeping with both goddesses and mortals. -Europa, he appeared to her in the shape of a bull and abducted her, her brother Cadmus was told by their father to not return home until he had found her, and since he could never find her he founded the city of Thebes Children were Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, the three of whom became the three judges of the Underworld when they died -Io, regarded as the first priestess of Hera. He fell in love with her and, to protect her from the wrath of Hera, changed her into a white heifer. Hera persuaded him to give her the heifer and sent Argus Panoptes to watch her. He thereupon sent the god Hermes, who lulled Argus to sleep and killed him. Hera then sent a gadfly to torment Io, who therefore wandered all over the earth, crossed the Ionian Sea, swam the strait that was thereafter known as the Bosporus (meaning Ox-Ford), and at last reached Egypt, where she was restored to her original form and gave birth to Epaphus. Synonymous with Isis. -Semele was the mortal mother of Dionysus. (...) fell in love with Semele while watching her sacrifice a bull on his altar and visited her many times afterwards. When Semele became pregnant, Hera found out and jealous of her husband's affair, set out a plan to punish Semele. Hera appeared in a different form to Semele and they became friends; Semele later confided to the goddess about her affair with him, but Hera made her doubt about it. So, Semele decided to ask him to grant her a wish, and he took an oath on the river Styx that he would give her anything. She asked that he appear to her in all his glory; he was forced to comply. However, mortals could not look upon him without bursting into flames, which is what happened to Semele. He managed to save the unborn baby by sewing it inside his thigh; a few months later, god Dionysus was born, who managed to save his mother from the Underworld and brought her to Mount Olympus, where she became the goddess Thyone -Ganymede, cup-bearer at Olympus. The son of Tros (or Laomedon), king of Troy. Because of his unusual beauty, he was carried off either by (...), disguised as an eagle to serve as cupbearer. In compensation, he gave Ganymede's father a stud of immortal horses (or a golden vine). The earliest forms of the myth have no erotic content, but by the 5th century BC it was believed that Ganymede's kidnapper had a homosexual passion for him. He was later identified with the constellation Aquarius. -Callisto, Callisto was a nymph, daughter of Lycaon, King of Arcadia. She was transformed into a bear and turned into a constellation. She was one of Artemis hunting attendants. She was a follower of goddess Artemis, and therefore, she must have taken a vow of chastity. However, Zeus saw her and fell in love with her; to lure her, he turned into Artemis and eventually took advantage of her. Callisto bore a son, Arcas. After this, she was turned into a bear, either by Zeus while trying to hide his misdeeds, by Hera out of jealousy, or by Artemis out of anger that she broke her vow of chastity. Not content with Callisto's fate as a bear, Hera continued to work against her to get Artemis to think she was a normal bear and slay her. Zeus came to the rescue turning her into the constellation Arctos, the Great Bear, also known as Ursa Major. At Zeus' direction, Hermes saved Arcas from the womb and took him to be raised by Maia. She was joined in the skies with her son, who became the nearby constellation Arctophylax, the Little Bear, also known as Ursa Minor. Continuing to hold a grudge, Hera persuaded Tethys and Oceanus to forbid Callisto from entering their realm, the ocean. As a result, Callisto must perpetually circle the Northern Star and never set over the horizon. -Dione, a Titan goddess in Greek mythology, most probably a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and thus, an Oceanid. -Persephone. He was bewitched by Persephone's beauty and somehow found out the cave where Demeter had hid her. Zeus transformed himself into a dragon, lulled the two dragons into sleep, who were guarding the cave, and managed to get inside the cave. Where he seduced his own daughter's virgin body in form of dragon. With their union, Zagreus was born. Later when Persephone became queen of underworld, she was again seduce by Zeus but this time disguised as her husband, Hades. Melinoe was said to be born from this union. -Nemesis, Nemesis turned herself into a goose to escape the clutches of Zeus; he eventually turned himself into a swan and caught her. Nemesis then laid an egg that was brought to Leda and from which Helen was hatched. -Alcmene, a mortal princess, the granddaughter of Perseus and Andromeda. She was the mother of Heracles by Zeus, who disguised himself as her husband Amphitryon and seduced her. -Danae: Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius of Argos. -Maia, one of the Pleiades, seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. She was the mother of the Olympian Hermes by Zeus. Zeus had impregnated Maia at the dead of night while all other gods slept. When dawn broke amazingly he was born. Maia is also associated with fertility and growth (particularly in Roman mythology.

Hero

-Hero, virgin priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos, was seen at a festival by Leander of Abydos; they fell in love, and he swam the Hellespont at night to visit her, guided by a light from her tower. -One stormy night the light was extinguished, and Leander was drowned; Hero, seeing his body, drowned herself likewise. -The story is preserved in Musaeus, Ovid, and elsewhere. It was also adapted by later poets, such as Christopher Marlowe (Hero and Leander), and alluded to by Lord Byron (The Bride of Abydos).

Golden Age

-In Ovid's Metamorphoses, it was the first age of mankind, followed by silver, bronze and iron. -it was the period of time during which the world was controled by Cronus after the war of the Titans with their father Ouranos. -Cronos had named it such, since relative peace enveloped the world, and mankind was happy. In reality, mankind was ignorant, and subject to the Titans' wills, and Cronos had absolute control over the Earth. -This age ended with the start of the Great War between Titans and Gods.

Ceyx

-In book XI of Metamorphoses, Ceyx tells a sad tale of his brother, Daedalion. Daedalion's beautiful daughter, Chione, has over a thousand suitors by the age of fourteen. Apollo and Mercury both rape Chione, and she bears twins with extraordinary talents. Chione considers herself greater than Diana. Diana kills her with an arrow. Daedalion goes mad and is transformed into a bird. -As Ceyx is telling this story, a servant rushes in and says a wild wolf is ravaging the cattle and people. Peleus says he must deal with this situation. -Ceyx decides to visit the oracle of Apollo for answers. Ceyx's wife, Alcyone, tries to persuade him to stay home, but in vain. -On the way to see Apollo, Ceyx dies in an enormous storm. As he dies, he bids the waves to bring his body home. -Juno sends Sleep to tell Alcyone what has happened in a dream. -The next morning, Alcyone sees Ceyx's body floating in the sea. She leaps into the water and turns into a bird. Ceyx, too, turns into a bird.

Golden Fleece

-Jason was sent to retrieve the fleece with the argonauts -Jason was the leader of the Argonauts and son of Aeson, king of Iolcos in Thessaly. His father's half-brother Pelias seized Iolcos, and thus for safety Jason was sent away to the Centaur Chiron. Returning as a young man, Jason was promised his inheritance if he fetched the Golden Fleece from Colchis for Pelias, a seemingly impossible task. -The Golden Fleece had originated in the following manner. Jason's uncle Athamas had had two children, Phrixus and Helle, by his first wife, Nephele, the cloud goddess. Ino, his second wife, hated the children of Nephele and persuaded Athamas to sacrifice Phrixus as the only means of alleviating a famine. But before the sacrifice, Nephele appeared to Phrixus, bringing a ram with a golden fleece on which he and his sister Helle tried to escape over the sea. Helle fell off and was drowned in the strait that after her was called the Hellespont. Phrixus safely reached the other side, and, proceeding to Colchis on the farther shore of the Euxine (Black) Sea, he sacrificed the ram and hung up its fleece in the grove of Ares, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon. -Jason, having undertaken the quest of the fleece, called upon the noblest heroes of Greece to take part in the expedition. According to the original story, the crew consisted of the chief members of Jason's own race, the Minyans; later, other and better-known heroes, such as Castor and Polydeuces, were added to their number. -The Argonauts arrived at Lemnos, which was occupied only by women, and remained there several months. Proceeding up the Hellespont, they sailed to the country of the Doliones, by whose king, Cyzicus, they were hospitably received. After their departure, however, they were driven back to the same place by a storm and were attacked by the Doliones, who did not recognize them, and in the ensuing battle Jason killed Cyzicus. On reaching the country of the Bebryces, the Argonauts were challenged by the king Amycus, who forced all passing travelers to box with him in the hope of killing them. Polydeuces accepted the challenge and slew him. At the entrance to the Euxine Sea the Argonauts met Phineus, the blind and aged king whose food was constantly polluted by the Harpies. -After being freed by the winged sons of Boreas, Phineus told them the course to Colchis and how to pass through the Symplegades, or Cyanean rocks—two cliffs that moved on their bases and crushed whatever sought to pass. -Following his advice, Jason sent ahead a dove that was damaged between the rocks, but thanks to Athena the Argo slipped through while the rocks were rebounding. -From that time the rocks became fixed and never closed again. -When the Argonauts finally reached Colchis, they found that the king, Aeëtes, would not give up the fleece until Jason yoked the king's fire-snorting bulls to a plow and plowed the field of Ares. That accomplished, the field was to be sown with dragon's teeth from which armed men were to spring. -Aeëtes' daughter, the sorceress Medea, who had fallen in love with Jason, gave him a salve that protected him from the bulls' fire and advised him to cast a stone at the newborn warriors to cause them to fight to the death among themselves. -After these tasks were accomplished, Aeëtes still refused to give over the fleece. Medea, however, put the dragon to sleep, and Jason was able to abscond with the fleece and Medea. -After many adventures Jason abstracted the fleece with the help of the enchantress Medea, whom he married. -On their return Medea murdered Pelias as he would not give up the throne, even though they had obtained the fleece for Pelias, but she and Jason were driven out by Pelias' son and had to take refuge with King Creon of Corinth. -Later Jason deserted Medea for Creon's daughter; this desertion and its consequences formed the subject of Euripides' Medea.

Cressida

-Trojan woman who was the lover of Troilus, but deserted him for Diomedes -Troilus was a Trojan prince in Greek mythology, son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, who died young. In one tale he was killed by Achilles, as it was prophesied that Troy would not fall if Troilus reached the age of 20. Achilles also killed Polyxena, his sister. -Not named originally in the greek myths, the tale of Troilus and Cressida was invented in the 12th Century -It was adapted by Chaucer in his 'Troilus and Criseyde', and Shakespeare in 'Troilus and (...)' -The tale in Shakespeare's version tells of a Trojan woman whose father has defected to the Greeks. She pledges her love to Troilus, one of King Priam's sons. However, when her father demands her presence in the Greek camp, she reluctantly accepts the attentions of Diomedes, the Greek officer who has been sent to escort her to the Greek side. Given her situation in an enemy camp and being an attractive woman among sex-starved warriors, she has few choices. The love between Troilus and Cressida, begun on such a hopeful note, is at last overwhelmed by the circumstances of war that they cannot control. -In Chaucer's version: aided by Criseyde's uncle Pandarus, Troilus and Criseyde are united in love about halfway through the poem, but then she is sent to join her father in the Greek camp outside Troy. Despite her promise to return, she is loved by the Greek warrior Diomedes and comes to love him. Troilus, left in despair, is killed in the Trojan War.

Galathea (Galatea)

-a Nereid who was loved by the Cyclops Polyphemus. Galatea, however, loved the youth Acis. -When Polyphemus discovered Acis and Galatea together, he crushed Acis to death with a boulder. -Galatea is also the name, in some versions of the Pygmalion story, of the statue that Pygmalion creates and then falls in love with.

Endymion

-a beautiful youth, who was a Aeolian shepherd who ruled over Olympia of Elis, who spent much of his life in perpetual sleep. -Endymion's parentage varies among the different ancient references and stories, but several traditions say that he was originally the king of Elis. -According to one tradition, Zeus offered him anything that he might desire, and Endymion chose an everlasting sleep in which he might remain youthful forever. -According to another version of the myth, Endymion's eternal sleep was a punishment inflicted by Zeus because he had attempted to have a sexual relationship with Zeus's wife, Hera. -In any case, Endymion was loved by Selene, the goddess of the moon, who visited him every night while he lay asleep in a cave on Mount Latmus in Caria; she bore him 50 daughters. -A common form of the myth represents Endymion as having been put to sleep by Selene herself so that she might enjoy his beauty undisturbed. -subject of an eponymous poem written by Keats in 1818, 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever' - first line.

Hermaphroditus

-a being partly male, partly female. -The idea of such a being originated in the East; in the Greek area it appeared in Cyprus, and, although it was a favourite subject in later Greek art, it was of no importance as a Greek cult. -A legend of the Hellenistic period made Hermaphroditus a beautiful youth, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. The nymph of the fountain of Salmacis in Caria became enamoured of him and entreated the gods that she might be forever united with him. The result was the formation of a being half man, half woman.

Ceres (Demeter, G)

-goddess of the growth of food plants, worshiped either alone or in association with the earth goddess Tellus. -sister of Jupiter (Zeus, G), mother of Proserpine -controls the seasons in accordance with her daughter's return from the underworld (6m summer when she is home, 6m winter when she is in ) -At an early date her cult was overlaid by that of Demeter (q.v.), who was widely worshiped in Sicily and Magna Graecia. -On the advice of the Sibylline Books, a cult of Ceres, Liber, and Libera was introduced into Rome (according to tradition, in 496 BC) to check a famine. -The temple, built on the Aventine Hill in 493 BC, became a centre of plebeian religious and political activities and also became known for the splendour of its works of art. -Destroyed by fire in 31 BC, it was restored by Augustus.

Clytemnestra

-a daughter of Leda and Tyndareus, rulers of Sparta, and wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae or Argos, and commander of the Greek forces in the Trojan War. Her sister was Helen, who was also the wife of Agamemnon's brother, Menelaus. -she was forcefully taken from her first husband by Agamemnon, who killed him. -Agamemnon was forced to sacrifice their daughter, Iphigenia, so that they could win the war, as Agamemnon had invoked the wrath of Artemis. -She took Aegisthus as her lover while Agamemnon was away at war. -Upon his return, Aegisthus and her murdered Agamemnon. -Cassandra, Agamemnon''s concubine, had foreseen the murder, but because of a curse put on her by Apollo, no one believed her visions, as she had promised to submit to his desires in exchange for the gift of sight, but after she received the power of prophecy, she refused to give anything back. -she was then killed by her son, Orestes, with the help of his sister Electra, in revenge for his father's murder. -In Aeschylus's play Agamemnon, part of his Oresteia trilogy, she is driven to murder Agamemnon partly to avenge the death of her daughter Iphigeneia, whom Agamemnon had sacrificed for the sake of success in the war, partly because of her adulterous love for Aegisthus and partly as an agent for the curse on Agamemnon's family, the House of Atreus. -her story is also told in plays by Sophocles and Euripides.

Hera (Juno, R)

-a daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, sister-wife of Zeus, and queen of the Olympian gods. -The Romans identified her with their own Juno. -Hera was worshipped throughout the Greek world and played an important part in Greek literature, appearing most frequently as the jealous and rancorous wife of Zeus and pursuing with vindictive hatred the heroines who were beloved by him. -From early times Hera was believed to be the sole lawful wife of Zeus; she soon superseded Dione, who shared with him his ancient oracle at Dodona in Epirus. -In general, Hera was worshipped in two main capacities: (1) as consort of Zeus and queen of heaven and (2) as goddess of marriage and of the life of women. The second sphere naturally made her the protectress of women in childbirth, and she bore the title of Eileithyia, the birth goddess, at Árgos and Athens. -At Árgos and Sámos, however, Hera was even more than queen of heaven and marriage goddess. She was patron of those cities, which gave her a position corresponding to that of Athena at Athens. -The animal especially sacred to Hera was the cow. -Her sacred bird was first the cuckoo, later the peacock. She was represented as a majestic and severe, though youthful, matron.

Harpies

-a fabulous creature, probably a wind spirit. The presence of harpies as tomb figures, however, makes it possible that they were also conceived of as ghosts. -In Homer's Odyssey they were winds that carried people away. Elsewhere, they were sometimes connected with the powers of the underworld. -Homer mentions one Harpy called Podarge (Swiftfoot). Hesiod mentions two, Aello and Okypete (Stormswift and Swiftwing). -These early Harpies were in no way disgusting. Later, however, especially in the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, they were represented as birds with the faces of women, horribly foul and loathsome. -They were sent to punish the Thracian king Phineus for his ill-treatment of his children; the Harpies snatched the food from his table and left a disgusting smell. Calais and Zetes, the sons of Boreas, finally delivered him. Virgil imitated the episode in the Aeneid; he called the chief Harpy Celaeno (Dark).

Echo

-a mountain nymph, or oread. -Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book III, relates that Echo offended the goddess Juno (Hera) by keeping her in conversation, thus preventing her from seeing the nymphs 'lying with Jove on the mountainside'. -To punish Echo, Juno (Hera) deprived her of speech, except for the ability to repeat the last words of another. -Echo's hopeless love for Narcissus, who rejected her love and fell in love with his own image, made her fade away until all that was left of her was her voice. -According to the Greek writer Longus, Echo rejected the advances of the god Pan; he thereupon drove the shepherds mad, and they tore her to pieces. -Gaea (Earth) buried her limbs but allowed her to retain the power of song.

Bacchus (Dionysus, G)

-a nature god of fruitfulness and vegetation, especially known as a god of wine and ecstasy. -The occurrence of his name on a Linear B tablet (13th century BCE) shows that he was already worshipped in the Mycenaean period, although it is not known where his cult originated. In all the legends of his cult, he is depicted as having foreign origins. -son of Zeus and Semele, a daughter of Cadmus (king of Thebes). Out of jealousy, Hera, the wife of Zeus, persuaded the pregnant Semele to prove her lover's divinity by requesting that he appear in his real person. Zeus complied, but his power was too great for the mortal Semele, who was blasted with thunderbolts. However, Zeus saved his son by sewing him up in his thigh and keeping him there until he reached maturity, so that he was twice born. He was then brought up by Semele's sister, Ino before being given to the nymphs of Nysa. Dionysus was then conveyed by the god Hermes to be brought up by the bacchantes (maenads, or thyiads) of Nysa, a purely imaginary spot. -As Dionysus apparently represented the sap, juice, or lifeblood element in nature, lavish festal orgia (rites) in his honour were widely instituted. These Dionysia (Bacchanalia) quickly won converts among women. Men, however, met them with hostility. In Thrace Dionysus was opposed by Lycurgus, who ended up blind and mad. -In Thebes Dionysus was opposed by Pentheus, his cousin, who was torn to pieces by the bacchantes when he attempted to spy on their activities. -Athenians were punished with impotence for dishonouring the god's cult. Their husbands' resistance notwithstanding, women took to the hills, wearing fawn skins and crowns of ivy and shouting the ritual cry, "Euoi!" Forming thyai (holy bands) and waving thyrsoi (singular: thyrsus; fennel wands bound with grapevine and tipped with ivy), they danced by torchlight to the rhythm of the aulos (double pipe) and the tympanon (handheld drum). While they were under the god's inspiration, the bacchantes were believed to possess occult powers and the ability to charm snakes and suckle animals, as well as preternatural strength that enabled them to tear living victims to pieces before indulging in a ritual feast (ōmophagia). The bacchantes hailed the god by his titles of Bromios ("Thunderer"), Taurokeros ("Bull-Horned"), or Tauroprosopos ("Bull-Faced"), in the belief that he incarnated the sacrificial beast. -In Orphic legend (i.e., based on the stories of Orpheus), Dionysus—under the name Zagreus—was the son of Zeus by his daughter Persephone. At the direction of Hera, the infant Zagreus/Dionysus was torn to pieces, cooked, and eaten by the evil Titans. But his heart was saved by Athena, and he (now Dionysus) was resurrected by Zeus through Semele. Zeus struck the Titans with lightning, and they were consumed by fire. From their ashes came the first humans, who thus possessed both the evil nature of the Titans and the divine nature of the gods. -Dionysus had the power to inspire and to create ecstasy, and his cult had special importance for art and literature. Performances of tragedy and comedy in Athens were part of two festivals of Dionysus, the Lenaea and the Great (or City) Dionysia. Dionysus was also honoured in lyric poems called dithyrambs. In Roman literature his nature is often misunderstood, and he is simplistically portrayed as the jolly Bacchus who is invoked at drinking parties. -In 186 BCE the celebration of Bacchanalia was prohibited in Italy. -The followers of Dionysus included spirits of fertility, such as the satyrs and sileni, and in his rituals the phallus was prominent. Dionysus often took on a bestial shape and was associated with various animals. His personal attributes were an ivy wreath, the thyrsus, and the kantharos, a large two-handled goblet. In early Greek art he was represented as a bearded man, but later he was portrayed as youthful and effeminate. -Bacchic revels were a favourite subject of vase painters.

Eurydice

-a nymph in Greek mythology, one of the daughters of the god Apollo. She was married to Orpheus, a legendary musician and poet. -Her husband's attempt to retrieve Eurydice from Hades forms the basis of one of the most popular Greek legends -After their marriage, Eurydice was pursued by Aristaeus; in her effort to evade him, she stepped on a snake, she was bitten and died. -Orpheus, devastated, started playing such a mournful melody on his lyre that the nymphs and gods wept in pain; they advised him to search for Eurydice in the Underworld and bring her back. Passing through the Gates of the Underworld, his singing and his melody touched even the hearts of the God of the Underworld, Hades, and his wife, Persephone. Even the Furies could not withhold their tears. So, he was allowed to take Eurydice back to the surface. He was told however to walk in front of her and not look at her until both of them had reached the daylight. On their way back, though, Orpheus was wondering whether Hades had tricked him. So, when he reached the top and had just stepped into the daylight, he turned his head; as Eurydice had not yet reached the surface, she immediately disappeared back in the Underworld. -When Orpheus was killed by the Maenads, he was once again reunited with his betrothed +++++ 225

Gordian Knot

-a poor peasant called Gordius arrived with his wife in a public square of Phrygia in an ox cart. Unbeknown to Gordus, an oracle had informed the populace that their future king would come into town riding in a wagon. Seeing Gordius, therefore, the people made him king. -In gratitude, Gordius dedicated his ox cart to Zeus, tying it up with a highly intricate knot - the Gordian knot. Another oracle - or maybe the same one, the legend is not specific - foretold that the person who untied the knot would rule Asia. -The problem of untying the Gordian knot resisted all solutions until the year 333 BC, when Alexander the Great cut through it with a sword. Although it would have been unwise to have pointed it out in his presence, Alexander's method did seem to go against the spirit of the challenge, which was supposed to be solved by manipulating the knot.

Marsyas

-he found the aulos (double pipe) that the goddess Athena had invented and thrown away and, after becoming skilled in playing it, challenged Apollo to a contest with his lyre. -The victory was awarded to Apollo, who tied him to a tree and flayed him. -His skin was displayed at Calaenae in southern Phrygia, as the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon report. According to the 2nd-century-AD Greek writer Hyginus, King Midas of Phrygia was given asses' ears by Apollo when he voted for Marsyas. - In Rome a statue of Marsyas, a favourite art subject, stood in the Forum; this was imitated by Roman colonies and came to be considered a symbol of autonomy.

centaurs

-a race of creatures, part horse and part man -dwelling in the mountains of Thessaly and Arcadia. -Traditionally they were the offspring of Ixion, king of the neighbouring Lapiths, and were best known for their fight (centauromachy) with the Lapiths, which resulted from their attempt to carry off the bride of Pirithous, son and successor of Ixion. They lost the battle and were driven from Mount Pelion. -In later Greek times they were often represented drawing the chariot of the wine god Dionysus or bound and ridden by Eros, the god of love, in allusion to their drunken and amorous habits. -Their general character was that of wild, lawless, and inhospitable beings, the slaves of their animal passions. -The Centaur Chiron was not typical in this respect. Chiron, in Greek mythology, one of the Centaurs, the son of the Titan Cronus and Philyra, an Oceanid or sea nymph. Chiron lived at the foot of Mount Pelion in Thessaly. Unlike other Centaurs, who were violent and savage, he was famous for his wisdom and knowledge of medicine. Many Greek heroes, including Heracles, Achilles, Jason, and Asclepius, were instructed by him. Chiron frequently appears in the legends of his grandson, Peleus, and his great-grandson, Achilles. Accidentally pierced by a poisoned arrow shot by Heracles, he renounced his immortality in favour of Prometheus and was placed among the stars as the constellation Centaurus. - Centaurs may best be explained as the creation of a folktale in which wild inhabitants of the mountains and savage spirits of the forests were combined in half-human, half-animal form. In early art they were portrayed as human beings in front, with the body and hindlegs of a horse attached to the back; later, they were men only as far as the waist. They fought using rough branches of trees as weapons.

Atalanta

-a renowned and swift-footed huntress, probably a parallel and less important form of the goddess Artemis. Traditionally, she was the daughter of Schoeneus of Boeotia or of Iasus and Clymene of Arcadia. -On her father's orders, she was left to die at birth but was suckled by a she-bear. -She took part in the Calydonian boar hunt; Atalanta drew first blood and was awarded the boar's head and hide by the boar's slayer, Meleager, who was in love with her. When his uncles took away the spoils from her, Meleager killed them and was in turn killed by their sister, his own mother. -Atalanta offered to marry anyone who could outrun her—but those whom she overtook she speared. In one race Hippomenes (or Milanion) was given three of the golden apples of the Hesperides by the goddess Aphrodite; when he dropped them, Atalanta stopped to pick them up and so lost the race. Their son was Parthenopaeus, who later was one of the Seven who fought against Thebes after the death of King Oedipus. -Atalanta and her husband, overcome with passion, made love in a shrine of the goddess Cybele (or of Zeus), for which they were turned into lions.

Laocoon

-a seer and a priest of the god Apollo; he was the son of Agenor of Troy or, according to some, the brother of Anchises (the father of the hero Aeneas). -he offended Apollo by breaking his oath of celibacy and begetting children or by having sexual intercourse with his wife in Apollo's sanctuary. -Thus, while preparing to sacrifice a bull on the altar of the god Poseidon (a task that had fallen to him by lot), him and his twin sons, Antiphas and Thymbraeus (also called Melanthus), were crushed to death by two great sea serpents, Porces and Chariboea (or Curissia or Periboea), sent by Apollo. -A much better-known reason for his punishment was that he had warned the Trojans against accepting the wooden horse left by the Greeks. This legend found its most famous expressions in Virgil's Aeneid (ii, 109 et seq.)

Circe

-a sorceress, the daughter of Helios, the sun god, and of the ocean nymph Perse. -She was able by means of drugs and incantations to change humans into wolves, lions, and swine. -The Greek hero Odysseus visited her island, Aeaea, with his companions, whom she changed into swine. -But Odysseus, protected by the herb moly (a gift from Hermes), compelled her to restore them to their original shape. -He stayed with her for one year before resuming his journey. The story is told by Homer in the Odyssey, Books X and XII. -Greco-Roman tradition placed her island near Italy or located her on Mount Circeo. -In Metamorphoses, Circe transformed Scylla into a sea monster because Glaucus, the sea god, who was in love with her, offended (...) when he asked her to make Scylla fall in love with him, as (...) was in love with him.

Adonis

-a youth of remarkable beauty, the favourite of the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). -product of the incestuous love Smyrna (Myrrha) entertained for her own father, the Syrian king Theias. -Charmed by his beauty, Aphrodite put the newborn infant in a box and handed him over to the care of Persephone, the queen of the underworld, who afterward refused to give him up. -An appeal was made to Zeus, the king of the gods, who decided that he should spend a third of the year with Persephone and a third with Aphrodite, the remaining third being at his own disposal. -A better-known story, hinted at in Euripides' Hippolytus, is that Artemis avenged her favourite, Hippolytus, by causing the death of him, who, being a hunter, ventured into her domain and was killed by a wild boar. Aphrodite pleaded for his life with Zeus, who allowed him to spend half of each year with her and half in the underworld. -The central idea of the myth is that of the death and resurrection, which represent the decay of nature every winter and its revival in spring. He is thus viewed by modern scholars as having originated as an ancient spirit of vegetation. -Annual festivals called Adonia were held at Byblos and elsewhere to commemorate him for the purpose of promoting the growth of vegetation and the falling of rain. -The name is believed to be of Phoenician origin (from ʾadōn, "lord"), Adonis himself being identified with the Babylonian god Tammuz. -Shakespeare's poem Venus and (...) (1593) is based on Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book X. Pygmalion witnesses these actions and is repulsed by women's immorality. He fashions his own perfect women from ivory. The statue is so lifelike that he falls in love with it. He dresses it, kisses it, and prays to the gods for a woman like the ivory statue. The gods hear his prayer, and to Pygmalion's surprise, the statue comes alive. She bears Pygmalion a daughter, Paphos, who in turn bears a son, Cinyras. Cinyras has a beautiful daughter named Myrrha, who is courted by princes from all over the world. However, Myrrha is in love with her father. Although she is agonized over her feelings, Myrrha tricks her father into sleeping with her for several nights. Cinyras discovers the deception and seeks to kill Myrrha. Now pregnant, Myrrha escapes and turns into a tree. Eventually she bears a beautiful son, (...). Cupid accidentally pricks his mother, Venus, with one of his arrows, and she falls in love with him. She prefers him even to heaven.

Calliope

-according to Hesiod's Theogony, foremost of the nine Muses -she was later called the patron of epic poetry. -At the behest of Zeus, the king of the gods, she judged the dispute between the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone over Adonis. -In most accounts she and King Oeagrus of Thrace were the parents of Orpheus, the lyre-playing hero. -She was also loved by the god Apollo, by whom she had two sons, Hymen and Ialemus. Other versions present her as the mother of Rhesus, king of Thrace and a victim of the Trojan War; or as the mother of Linus the musician, inventor of melody and rhythm.

Elysium (Elysian)

-also called Elysian Fields or Elysian Plain, in Greek mythology, originally the paradise to which heroes on whom the gods conferred immortality were sent. -It probably was retained from Minoan religion. -In Homer's writings the Elysian Plain was a land of perfect happiness at the end of the Earth, on the banks of the Oceanus. -A similar description was given by Hesiod of the Isles of the Blessed. -In the earlier authors, only those specially favoured by the gods entered Elysium and were made immortal. -By the time of Hesiod, however, Elysium was a place for the blessed dead, and, from Pindar on, entrance was gained by a righteous life. -Later writers made it a particular part of Hades, as in Virgil, Aeneid, Book VI. -According to some sources, a second Elysian Fields may have existed. This underworld was separated from Hades by the Lethe River. The paradise was promised to the initiates of the Mystery cults of Demeter, Persephone, and Hekate, among others. -They were taught that if they lived virtuous lives, they would be elevated to the status of a god upon their death and become immortal. With their newfound immortality, they would be able to gain access to their promised utopia and live in eternal bliss. -On occasion, the two concepts of the Elysian Fields were combined and, if a soul passed through the netherworld Elysian three times, it would then progress on to the Isle of the Blessed, or ultimate paradise.

Hydra

-also called the Lernean (...) -in Greek legend, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna (according to the early Greek poet Hesiod's Theogony), -a gigantic water-snake-like monster with nine heads (the number varies), one of which was immortal. -The monster's haunt was the marshes of Lerna, near Árgos, from which he periodically emerged to harry the people and livestock of Lerna. -Anyone who attempted to behead the Hydra found that as soon as one head was cut off, two more heads would emerge from the fresh wound. -The destruction of the Lernean Hydra became one of the 12 Labours of Heracles. For that and other labours, Heracles enlisted the aid of his nephew Iolaus. As Heracles severed each mortal head, Iolaus was set to the task of cauterizing the fresh wounds so that no new heads would emerge. When only the immortal head remained, Heracles cut it off too and buried it under a heavy rock. Further, he dipped his arrows in the beast's poisonous blood (or venom) to be able to inflict fatal wounds. -According to Sophocles (Trachinian Women), that measure eventually caused his own accidental death at the hands of his wife, Deianeira.

Helicon

-also spelled Elikón, mountain of the Helicon range in Boeotia (Modern Greek: Voiotía), Greece, between Límni (lake) Kopaḯs and the Gulf of Corinth (Korinthiakós). -A continuation of the Parnassus (Parnassós) range, which rises to about 8,000 ft (2,400 m), the Helicon range reaches only about 5,000 ft. -The mountain was celebrated in classical literature as the favourite haunt of the Muses, and its eastern, or Boeotian, side was particularly sacred. -On those fertile eastern slopes stood a sacred temple and grove adorned with numerous statues, eventually taken by Constantine the Great to adorn his new city, Constantinople. -Nearby were the fountains Aganippe and Hippocrene, the latter in legend created by the imprint of the hooves of the winged horse Pegasus. -The 2nd-century-CE Greek geographer Pausanias described Helicon as the most fertile mountain in Greece. His descriptions made it possible to reconstruct the classical topography and led to the discovery of an ancient theatre at Thespiae (modern Thespiaí).

Medea

-an enchantress who helped Jason, leader of the Argonauts, to obtain the Golden Fleece from her father, King Aeëtes of Colchis. -She was of divine descent and had the gift of prophecy. Her mother was Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, magic and spells. -She married Jason and used her magic powers and advice to help him. In one version, when they fled and were pursued by Aeëtes, Jason, in conspiracy with Medea, cut her brother Apsyrtus to pieces and threw him into the sea to delay the pursuit. -The Medea of Euripides takes up the story at a later stage, after Jason and Medea had fled Colchis with the fleece and had been driven out of Iolcos because of the vengeance taken by Medea on King Pelias of Iolcos (who had sent Jason to fetch the fleece). -The play is set during the time that the pair lived in Corinth, when Jason deserted Medea for the daughter of King Creon of Corinth; in revenge, Medea murdered Creon, his daughter, and her own two sons by Jason and took refuge with King Aegeus of Athens, having escaped from Corinth in a cart drawn by dragons sent by her grandfather Helios. -After fleeing Corinth, Medea became the wife of Aegeus, who later drove her away after her unsuccessful attempt to poison his son Theseus. The Greek historian Herodotus related that from Athens Medea went to the region of Asia subsequently called Media, whose inhabitants thereupon changed their name to Medes.

Scylla

-an immortal and irresistible monster who beset the narrow waters traversed by the hero Odysseus in his wanderings described in Homer's Odyssey, Book XII. -localized in the Strait of Messina. -She was a supernatural female creature, with 12 feet and 6 heads on long, snaky necks, each head having a triple row of sharklike teeth, while her loins were girdled by the heads of baying dogs. -From her lair in a cave she devoured whatever ventured within reach, including six of Odysseus's companions. -In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books XIII-XIV, she was said to have been originally human in appearance but transformed out of jealousy through the witchcraft of Circe into her fearful shape. -She was sometimes identified with the (...) who betrayed her father, King Nisus of Megara, out of love for Minos, king of Crete. -Scylla was often rationalized in antiquity as a rock or reef. Both gave poetic expression to the dangers confronting Greek mariners when they first ventured into the uncharted waters of the western Mediterranean. -To be "between (S...) and (C...)" means to be caught between two equally unpleasant alternatives.

Aphrodite (Venus, R)

-ancient Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty. -The Greek word aphros means "foam," and Hesiod relates in his Theogony that she was born from the white foam produced by the severed genitals of Uranus. Uranus, in Greek mythology, the personification of heaven. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Gaea (Earth), emerging from primeval Chaos, produced Uranus, the Mountains, and the Sea. From Gaea's subsequent union with Uranus were born the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires. Uranus hated his offspring and hid them in Gaea's body. She appealed to them for vengeance, but Cronus (a Titan) alone responded. With the harpē he removed Uranus' testicles as he approached Gaea. From the drops of Uranus' blood that fell on her were born the Furies, the Giants, and the Meliai (ash-tree nymphs). The severed genitals floated on the sea, producing a white foam, from which sprang the goddess of love. -she was, in fact, widely worshipped as a goddess of the sea and of seafaring; she was also honoured as a goddess of war, especially at Sparta, Thebes, Cyprus, and other places. -However, she was known primarily as a goddess of love and fertility and even occasionally presided over marriage. -Although prostitutes considered Aphrodite their patron, her public cult was generally solemn and even austere. -Many scholars believe Aphrodite's worship came to Greece from the East, and many of her characteristics must be considered Semitic. -Although Homer called her "Cyprian" after the island chiefly famed for her worship, she was already Hellenized by the time of Homer, and, according to Homer, she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione, his consort at Dodona. -In Book 8 of the Odyssey, she was mismatched with Hephaestus, the lame smith god, and she consequently spent her time philandering with the handsome god of war, Ares (by whom she became the mother of Harmonia, the warrior twins Phobos and Deimos, and Eros, the god of love). -Of her mortal lovers, the most important were the Trojan shepherd Anchises, by whom she became the mother of Aeneas, and the handsome youth Adonis (in origin a Semitic nature deity and the consort of Ishtar-Astarte), who was killed by a boar while hunting and was lamented by women at the festival of Adonia. The cult of Adonis had underworld features, and she was also connected with the dead at Delphi. -Among her symbols were the dove, pomegranate, swan, and myrtle. -Early Greek art represented Aphrodite either as the Oriental, nude-goddess type or as a standing or seated figure similar to all other goddesses. Aphrodite first attained individuality at the hands of the great 5th-century-BCE Greek sculptors. Perhaps the most famous of all statues of Aphrodite was carved by Praxiteles for the Cnidians; it later became the model for such Hellenistic masterpieces as the Venus de Milo (2nd century BCE). -her children were: With Ares: Eros, Phobos, Deimos, Harmonia, Pothos, Anteros, Himeros, With Hermes: Hermaphroditus, With Poseidon: Rhodos, Eryx, With Dionysus: Peitho, The Graces, Priapus, With Anchises: Aeneas

Cupid (Eros, G)

-ancient Roman god of love in all its varieties, the counterpart of the Greek god Eros and the equivalent of Amor in Latin poetry. -According to myth, he was the son of Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods, and Venus, the goddess of love. -He often appeared as a winged infant carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows whose wounds inspired love or passion in his every victim. -He was sometimes portrayed wearing armour like that of Mars, the god of war, perhaps to suggest ironic parallels between warfare and romance or to symbolize the invincibility of love. -Although some literature portrayed Cupid as callous and careless, he was generally viewed as beneficent, on account of the happiness he imparted to couples both mortal and immortal. -At the worst he was considered mischievous in his matchmaking, this mischief often directed by his mother, Venus. -In one tale, Venus' machinations backfired when she used Cupid in revenge on the mortal Psyche, only to have Cupid fall in love and succeed in making Psyche his immortal wife.

Ilion/Ilium

-another name for the city of Troy

Argonauts

-any man of a band of 50 heroes who went with Jason in the ship Argo to fetch the Golden Fleece. -Jason's uncle Pelias had usurped the throne of Iolcos in Thessaly, which rightfully belonged to Jason's father, Aeson. Pelias promised to surrender his kingship to Jason if the latter would retrieve the Golden Fleece from Colchis. -The Golden Fleece had originated in the following manner. Jason's uncle Athamas had had two children, Phrixus and Helle, by his first wife, Nephele, the cloud goddess. Ino, his second wife, hated the children of Nephele and persuaded Athamas to sacrifice Phrixus as the only means of alleviating a famine. But before the sacrifice, Nephele appeared to Phrixus, bringing a ram with a golden fleece on which he and his sister Helle tried to escape over the sea. Helle fell off and was drowned in the strait that after her was called the Hellespont. Phrixus safely reached the other side, and, proceeding to Colchis on the farther shore of the Euxine (Black) Sea, he sacrificed the ram and hung up its fleece in the grove of Ares, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon. -Jason, having undertaken the quest of the fleece, called upon the noblest heroes of Greece to take part in the expedition. According to the original story, the crew consisted of the chief members of Jason's own race, the Minyans; later, other and better-known heroes, such as Castor and Polydeuces, were added to their number. -The Argonauts arrived at Lemnos, which was occupied only by women, and remained there several months. Proceeding up the Hellespont, they sailed to the country of the Doliones, by whose king, Cyzicus, they were hospitably received. After their departure, however, they were driven back to the same place by a storm and were attacked by the Doliones, who did not recognize them, and in the ensuing battle Jason killed Cyzicus. On reaching the country of the Bebryces, the Argonauts were challenged by the king Amycus, who forced all passing travelers to box with him in the hope of killing them. Polydeuces accepted the challenge and slew him. At the entrance to the Euxine Sea the Argonauts met Phineus, the blind and aged king whose food was constantly polluted by the Harpies. After being freed by the winged sons of Boreas, Phineus told them the course to Colchis and how to pass through the Symplegades, or Cyanean rocks—two cliffs that moved on their bases and crushed whatever sought to pass. Following his advice, Jason sent ahead a dove that was damaged between the rocks, but thanks to Athena the Argo slipped through while the rocks were rebounding. From that time the rocks became fixed and never closed again. -When the Argonauts finally reached Colchis, they found that the king, Aeëtes, would not give up the fleece until Jason yoked the king's fire-snorting bulls to a plow and plowed the field of Ares. That accomplished, the field was to be sown with dragon's teeth from which armed men were to spring. Aeëtes' daughter, the sorceress Medea, who had fallen in love with Jason, gave him a salve that protected him from the bulls' fire and advised him to cast a stone at the newborn warriors to cause them to fight to the death among themselves. After these tasks were accomplished, Aeëtes still refused to give over the fleece. Medea, however, put the dragon to sleep, and Jason was able to abscond with the fleece and Medea. Various accounts are given of the homeward course; eventually the Argo reached Iolcos and was placed in a grove sacred to Poseidon in the Isthmus of Corinth. -The story of the expedition of the Argonauts is mentioned by Homer (Odyssey, Book XII). It is also mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Cyclops

-any of several one-eyed giants to whom were ascribed a variety of histories and deeds. -In Homer, the Cyclopes were cannibals, living a rude pastoral life in a distant land (traditionally Sicily), and the Odyssey contains a well-known episode in which Odysseus escapes death by blinding the Cyclops Polyphemus. -In Hesiod the Cyclopes were three sons of Uranus and Gaea (Arges, Brontes, and Steropes (Bright, Thunderer, Lightener)) who forged the thunderbolts of Zeus. -Later authors made them the workmen of Hephaestus and said that Apollo killed them for making the thunderbolt that slew his son Asclepius. -In Metamorphoses, the Cyclops Polyphemus was the would-be lover of Galatea, who attempted to woo her, however she was in love with Acis. Polyphemus in a rage threw a rock at the fleeing boy, crushing him. Galatea transformed the blood of Acis into a river god. -Polyphemus is shown as temperamental and heartless in his treatment of most, but he is shown to have a tender, sincere affection for Galatea. -The walls of several ancient cities (e.g., Tiryns) of Mycenaean architecture were sometimes said to have been built by Cyclopes. Hence in modern archaeology the term cyclopean is applied to walling of which the stones are not squared. -

Andromeda

-beautiful daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiope of Joppa in Palestine (called Ethiopia) and wife of Perseus. -Cassiope offended the Nereids and Juno by boasting that she was more beautiful than they, so in revenge Poseidon sent a sea monster and a disastrous flood to devastate Cepheus' kingdom. -Since only her sacrifice would appease the gods, she was chained to a rock and left to be devoured by the monster. -Perseus flew by on the winged horse Pegasus, -he fell in love with her: 'By loveliness so exquisite and so rare/He almost forgot to hover in the air.' -asked Cepheus for her hand. Cepheus agreed, and Perseus slew the monster. -At their marriage feast, however, her uncle, Phineus, to whom she had originally been promised, tried to claim her. -A battle ensued and Perseus killed many of her family with the Gorgon's head. -Perseus turned Phineus to stone with Medusa's head, claiming that he 'shall be an everlasting monument/In Cepheus' palace'. -she bore Perseus six sons and a daughter.

Argus

-byname Panoptes -figure in Greek legend described variously as the son of Inachus, Agenor, or Arestor or as an aboriginal hero (autochthon). -His byname derives from the hundred eyes in his head or all over his body, as he is often depicted on Athenian red-figure pottery from the late 6th century BC. -Argus was appointed by the goddess Hera to watch the cow into which Io (Hera's priestess) had been transformed, but he was slain by Hermes, who is called Argeiphontes, "Slayer of Argus," in the Homeric poems. -Argus's eyes were transferred by Hera to the tail of the peacock. -His fate is mentioned in a number of Greek tragedies from the 5th century BC—including two by Aeschylus, Suppliants and Prometheus Bound, and Euripides' Phoenician Women and the Latin poet Ovid's Metamorphoses from the 1st century AD.

Ambrosia

-considered the food or drink of the Olympian gods, and it was thought to bring long life and immortality to anyone who consumed it. -It was often linked to nectar, the other element that the gods consumed; usually, it was thought that it was the food and nectar was the drink of the gods. -In general, it was only consumed by deities -when Heracles achieved immortality, Athena offered him ambrosia -while when Tantalus tried to steal some to give to other mortals, he was punished for committing hubris. -Whoever consumed it no longer had blood in their veins, but another substance called ichor. -One of the myths about Achilles' immortality has it that his mother Thetis anointed him with ambrosia when he was born and then passed him through flames, so that the mortal elements of his body would be consumed. However, Peleus, his father, found out and stopped her; this caused Thetis' rage and left without managing to immortalise Achilles' heel. As a result, that was the only vulnerable spot in his body. Another myth is that Thetis dipped the child Achilles into the substance by his heel so that it was the only area not covered by it, leaving it vulnerable.

Lethe

-daughter of Eris (Strife) and the personification of oblivion. -Lethe is also the name of a river or plain in the infernal regions. -In Orphism, a Greek mystical religious movement based on the music and teachings of Orpheus, it was believed that the newly dead who drank from the River Lethe would lose all memory of their past existence. -The initiated were taught to seek instead the river of memory, Mnemosyne, thus securing the end of the transmigration of the soul. -At the oracle of Trophonius near Lebadeia (modern Levadhia, Greece), which was thought to be an entrance to the underworld, there were two springs called Lethe and Mnemosyne. -Aristophanes' The Frogs mentions a plain of Lethe. In Book X of Plato's The Republic the souls of the dead must drink from the "river of Unmindfulness" before rebirth. -In the works of the Latin poets Lethe is one of the five rivers of the underworld.

Io (Isis, E)

-daughter of Inachus (the river god of Argos) and the Oceanid Melia. -Under the name of Callithyia, Io was regarded as the first priestess of Hera, the wife of Zeus. -Zeus fell in love with her and, to protect her from the wrath of Hera, changed her into a white heifer (cow, not born a calf). Hera persuaded Zeus to give her the heifer and sent Argus Panoptes ("the All-Seeing") to watch her. Zeus thereupon sent the god Hermes, who lulled Argus to sleep and killed him. Hera then sent a gadfly to torment Io, who therefore wandered all over the earth, crossed the Ionian Sea, swam the strait that was thereafter known as the Bosporus (meaning Ox-Ford), and at last reached Egypt, where she was restored to her original form and gave birth to Epaphus. -Io was identified with the Egyptian goddess Isis, and Epaphus with Apis, the sacred bull. Epaphus was said to have been carried off by order of Hera to Byblos in Syria, where he was found again by Io. This part of the legend connects Io with the Syrian goddess Astarte. Both the Egyptian and the Syrian parts, in fact, reflect interchange with the East and the identification of foreign with Greek gods. -Isis is the Greek form of an ancient Egyptian word for "throne." -As mourner, she was a principal deity in rites connected with the dead; as magical healer, she cured the sick and brought the deceased to life; and as mother, she was a role model for all women. -Isis had strong links with Egyptian kingship, and she was most often represented as a beautiful woman wearing a sheath dress and either the hieroglyphic sign of the throne or a solar disk and cow's horns on her head. Occasionally she was represented as a scorpion, a bird, a sow, or a cow. -The priests of Heliopolis, followers of the sun god Re, developed the myth of Isis. This told that Isis was the daughter of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut and the sister of the deities Osiris, Seth, and Nephthys. Married to Osiris, king of Egypt, Isis was a good queen who supported her husband and taught the women of Egypt how to weave, bake, and brew beer. But Seth was jealous, and he hatched a plot to kill his brother. Seth trapped Osiris in a decorated wooden chest, which he coated in lead and threw into the Nile. The chest had become Osiris's coffin. With his brother vanished, Seth became king of Egypt. But Isis could not forget her husband, and she searched everywhere for him until she eventually discovered Osiris, still trapped in his chest, in Byblos. She brought his body back to Egypt, where Seth discovered the chest and, furious, hacked his brother into pieces, which he scattered far and wide. Transforming into a bird, and helped by her sister, Nephthys, Isis was able to discover and reunite the parts of her dead husband's body—only his penis was missing. Using her magical powers, she was able to make Osiris whole; bandaged, neither living nor dead, Osiris had become a mummy. Nine months later Isis bore him a son, Horus. Osiris was then forced to retreat to the underworld, where he became king of the dead. -Isis hid with Horus in the marshes of the Nile delta until her son was fully grown and could avenge his father and claim his throne. She defended the child against attacks from snakes and scorpions. But because Isis was also Seth's sister, she wavered during the eventual battle between Horus and Seth. In one episode Isis took pity on Seth and was in consequence beheaded by Horus (the beheading was reversed by magic). Eventually she and Horus were reconciled, and Horus was able to take the throne of Egypt. -a great magician, whose power transcended that of all other deities. Several narratives tell of her magical prowess, far stronger than the powers of Osiris and Re. She was frequently invoked on behalf of the sick, and, with the goddesses Nephthys, Neith, and Selket, she protected the dead. Isis became associated with various other goddesses, including Bastet, Nut, and Hathor, and thus her nature and her powers became increasingly diverse. Isis became known, like other fierce goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, as the "Eye of Re" and was equated with the Dog Star, Sothis (Sirius).

Ariadne

-daughter of Pasiphae and the Cretan king Minos. -She fell in love with the Athenian hero Theseus and, with a thread or glittering jewels, helped him escape the Labyrinth after he slew the Minotaur, a beast half bull and half man that Minos kept in the Labyrinth. -the minotaur is ARIADNE's half brother, born of Pasiphae and a white bull after being cursed by Poseidon -She is also the sibling of Androgeus, Glaucus, Phaedra and Xenodice -Here the legends diverge: she was abandoned by Theseus and hanged herself; or, Theseus carried her to Naxos and left her there to die, and she was rescued by and married the god Dionysus.

Hebe

-her name means "young maturity," or "bloom of youth"), daughter of Zeus, the chief god, and his wife Hera. -In Homer this princess was a divine domestic, appearing most often as cupbearer to the gods. -As the goddess of youth, she was generally worshiped along with her mother, of whom she may have been regarded as an emanation or specialized form. -She was also associated with the hero-god Heracles, whose bride she became when he was received into heaven. -Her major centres of worship were Phlious and Sicyon, where she was called Ganymeda and Dia. -Hebe was sometimes identified with the Roman deity Juventas. -She served nectar and ambrosia to the Olympians and later married Heracles, with whom she had two children, Alexiares and Anicetus. -Her name comes from the Greek word for youth, and it was believed that she had the ability to restore youth. -When Iolaus, Heracles' charioteer, was about to fight against Eurystheus, he asked Hebe to become young again for one day. Hebe was reluctant initially, but Themis, the goddess of justice, told her that it would be fair to do it. Thus, Iolaus' wish was granted and he emerged victorious. -She lost her job as a cupbearer of the gods, when she tripped and her dress came undone, thus exposing her breasts. Apollo fired her and she was replaced by Ganymede, Zeus' lover and protege.

Iphigenia

-eldest daughter of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae or Argos, and his wife Clytemnestra. -granddaughter of Leda and Tyndareus -her siblings were Electra, Orestes (with whom Electra killed her mother) and Chrysothemis -Her father had to sacrifice her to the goddess Artemis in order that the Achaean fleet, of which he was leader, might be delivered from the calm (or contrary winds) by which Artemis was detaining it at Aulis and proceed on its way to the siege of Troy. -she served as a key figure in certain Greek tragedies: in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, in the Electra of Sophocles, in Euripides' unfinished Iphigeneia in Aulis, and in his earlier play Iphigeneia in Tauris, in which she was saved by Artemis, who substituted a hind. Variants of her story are found in later authors. In some localities she was identified with Artemis, and some ancient writers claimed that Iphigeneia was originally the goddess Hecate. -Iphigeneia's story was also popular with later European dramatists, providing the plot of the Iphigénie by Racine and of the Iphigenie auf Tauris of Goethe. Racine's play was the basis for Gluck's opera Iphigénie en Aulide.

Lestrygonians

-fictional race of cannibalistic giants described in Book 10 of Homer's Odyssey. -When Odysseus and his men land on the island native to the Laestrygones, the giants pelt Odysseus's ships with boulders, sinking all but Odysseus's own ship. -their king is Antiphates

Bacchae (Maenad, G)

-followers of Bacchus, god of wine - Maenad, female follower of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus. -The word maenad comes from the Greek maenades, meaning "mad" or "demented." -During the orgiastic rites of Dionysus, maenads roamed the mountains and forests performing frenzied, ecstatic dances and were believed to be possessed by the god. -While under his influence they were supposed to have unusual strength, including the ability to tear animals or people to pieces (the fate met by the mythical hero and poet Orpheus). -In Roman religion, Dionysus's counterpart was Bacchus, and his female followers were called bacchantes. -play by Euripides, In Bacchae the god Dionysus arrives in Greece from Asia intending to introduce his orgiastic worship there. He is disguised as a charismatic young Asian holy man and is accompanied by his women votaries, who make up the play's chorus. He expects to be accepted first in Thebes, but the Thebans reject his divinity and refuse to worship him, and the city's young king, Pentheus, tries to arrest him. In the end Dionysus drives Pentheus insane and leads him to the mountains, where Pentheus's own mother, Agave, and the women of Thebes in a bacchic frenzy tear him to pieces. -Orpheus' death vary in different accounts, but the earliest known, that of Aeschylus, says that they were Maenads urged by Dionysus to tear him to pieces in a Bacchic orgy because he preferred the worship of the rival god Apollo. His head, still singing, with his lyre, floated to Lesbos, where an oracle of Orpheus was established. The head prophesied until the oracle became more famous than that of Apollo at Delphi, at which time Apollo himself bade the Orphic oracle stop. The dismembered limbs of Orpheus were gathered up and buried by the Muses. His lyre they had placed in the heavens as a constellation.

Hecate (Trivia, R)

-goddess accepted at an early date into Greek religion but probably derived from the Carians in southwest Asia Minor. -In Hesiod she is the daughter of the Titan Perses and the nymph Asteria and has power over heaven, earth, and sea; hence, she bestows wealth and all the blessings of daily life. -Hecate was the chief goddess presiding over magic and spells. She witnessed the abduction of Demeter's daughter Persephone to the underworld and, torch in hand, assisted in the search for her. Thus, pillars called Hecataea stood at crossroads and doorways, perhaps to keep away evil spirits. -Hecate was represented as single-formed, clad in a long robe, holding burning torches; in later representations she was triple-formed, with three bodies standing back-to-back, probably so that she could look in all directions at once from the crossroads. She was accompanied by packs of barking dogs.

Fortuna

-goddess of chance or lot who became identified with the Greek Tyche -the original Italian deity was probably regarded as the bearer of prosperity and increase. -As such she resembles a fertility deity, hence her association with the bounty of the soil and the fruitfulness of women. -Frequently she was an oracular goddess consulted in various ways regarding the future. Fortuna was worshiped extensively in Italy from the earliest times. -At Praeneste her shrine was a well-known oracular seat, as was her shrine at Antium. -Fortuna is often represented bearing a cornucopia as the giver of abundance and a rudder as controller of destinies, or standing on a ball to indicate the uncertainty of fortune.

Charybdis

-immortal and irresistible monster who beset the narrow waters traversed by the hero Odysseus in his wanderings described in Homer's Odyssey, Book XII. -localized in the Strait of Messina. -lurked under a fig tree a bowshot away on the opposite shore, drank down and belched forth the waters thrice a day and was fatal to shipping. -Her character was most likely the personification of a whirlpool. -The shipwrecked Odysseus barely escaped her clutches by clinging to a tree until the improvised raft that she swallowed floated to the surface again after many hours. -gave poetic expression to the dangers confronting Greek mariners when they first ventured into the uncharted waters of the western Mediterranean. -To be "between Scylla and Charybdis" means to be caught between two equally unpleasant alternatives.

Aeolus

-in Odyssey, controller of the winds and ruler of the floating island of Aeolia. -father of Alcyone, who, in Metamorphoses, was transformed into a halcyon bird so that she could forever mourn her drowned husband, Ceyx. The gods took pity and transformed him into a bird as well. Aeolus now protects them both from the harsh winds on the sea, mating and nesting only on calm seas. -Because his children met no one outside their own family, he allowed them to mate with one another, to the relief of Canace and Macareus, who were already lovers. -he made the brothers draw lots for the sisters; in some accounts—possibly confusing him with King Macar—Macareus drew the wrong sister, so that he left home and founded Lesbos. -In the Odyssey, he gave Odysseus a favourable wind and a bag in which the unfavourable winds were confined. Odysseus' companions opened the bag; the winds escaped and drove them back to the island. -Although he appears as a human in Homer, he later was described as a minor god. -The island of Aeolia is identified with present-day Lipari, off the coast of Sicily.

Dis Pater (Latin), Pluto (G), Hades (R)

-in Roman religion, god of the infernal regions -he was believed to be the brother of Jupiter and was greatly feared. -His wife, Proserpina (a Roman corruption of the Greek Persephone), was identified with vegetation, being regarded as a goddess of death during her annual sojourn in the underworld and of abundance during her term in the upper regions. -god of the underworld. Hades was a son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and brother of the deities Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera, and Hestia. -After Cronus was overthrown by his sons, his kingdom was divided among them, and the underworld fell by lot to Hades. There he ruled with his queen, Persephone, over the infernal powers and over the dead in what was often called "the house of Hades," or simply Hades. -He was aided by the dog Cerberus. -Though he supervised the trial and punishment of the wicked after death, he was not normally one of the judges in the underworld, nor did he personally torture the guilty, a task assigned to the Furies (Erinyes). -He was depicted as stern and pitiless, unmoved by prayer or sacrifice (like death itself). -Forbidding and aloof, he never quite emerges as a distinct personality from the shadowy darkness of his realm, not even in the myth of his abduction of Persephone. -Those dark and unknowable aspects were complemented by an opposite and beneficial aspect. The god of the underworld was usually worshipped under a euphemistic epithet such as Clymenus ("the Renowned") or Eubouleus ("Good Counsellor"). He was often called Zeus with the addition of a special title (e.g., chthonios, "chthonian Zeus"). -His title Pluto or Pluton ("Wealth") may have originated through Hades' partial amalgamation with a god of the earth's fertility or because he gathered all living things into his treasury at death. -In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the word Hades is used for Sheol, denoting a dark region of the dead. Tartarus, originally denoting an abyss far below Hades and the place of punishment in the lower world, later lost its distinctness and became almost a synonym for Hades. -In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Venus commands Cupid to strike Pluto with an arrow of love, since she argues he is the only one of the Gods to not be subject to the influence of love and it subdues their harsh judgement. Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, is then abducted by Pluto against her mother's will. Nymph Cyane, the most renowned nymph of all of Sicily, appears to Pluto to reprimand him, commanding him to return her to her mother, telling him that she should have been wooed not just abducted. Pluto ignores her and throws his staff into the pool to open a gate into the underworld. Ceres searches the whole world, until she finds Cyane who tells her of her daughter's fate. She goes to Jupiter to try and get her daughter back from Pluto, however, she can only come back if she has not eaten any of the food of the underworld. She finds Proserpine and discovers she has eaten seven pomegranate seeds. Therefore Jupiter rules that she has to spend half the year in the underworld and half the year with Ceres.

Mars (Ares, G)

-in importance second only to Jupiter. -It is clear that by historical times he had developed into a god of war; in Roman literature he was protector of Rome, a nation proud in war. Until the time of Augustus, Mars had only two temples at Rome. Under Augustus the worship of Mars at Rome gained a new impetus; not only was he traditional guardian of the military affairs of the Roman state but, as Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"), he became the personal guardian of the emperor in his role as avenger of Caesar. -In literature and art he is hardly distinguished from the Greek Ares. -There are several Roman myths about Mars. In one, Hera bore him, without Zeus, at the touch of a magic herb given her by Flora. -In another, he was the father of Romulus and Remus by Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin. -Ovid, in Fasti, tells of Mars's attempt to seduce Minerva. -In the only purely Roman myth, he is tricked into marrying the aged Anna Perenna. -Although most of the myths involving the god were borrowed from the Greek god of war Ares, Mars, nevertheless, had some features which were uniquely Roman. -Considered more level-headed than the often impulsive and disruptive Ares, Mars was also seen as a more virtuous figure by the more martial-oriented Romans. As a protector of Rome and the Roman way of life and as a defender of city borders and frontiers, important festivals connected to warfare were held in his honour and the god was also closely associated with the wolf and woodpecker. -Mars was considered the father of Romulus and Remus, the mythical twin founders of Rome. According to the story, their mother, the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, was raped by Mars while she slept, and in her dreams she had a vision where she dropped a hairpin to the ground, and from which there sprang two twin trees. Over time one of the trees grew so large that it covered the entire world with its shade, a reference to the ultimate success of Romulus and the growth of the huge Roman Empire. -Unlike his Roman counterpart, Mars (q.v.), he was never very popular, and his worship was not extensive in Greece. -He represented the distasteful aspects of brutal warfare and slaughter. -From at least the time of Homer, who established him as the son of the chief god, Zeus, and Hera, his consort, Ares was one of the Olympian deities; his fellow gods and even his parents, however, were not fond of him (Iliad v, 889 ff.). Nonetheless, he was accompanied in battle, by his sister Eris (Strife) and his sons (by Aphrodite) Phobos and Deimos (Panic and Rout). The mythology surrounding the figure of Ares is not extensive. He was associated with Aphrodite from earliest times; in fact, Aphrodite was known locally (e.g., at Sparta) as a war goddess, apparently an early facet of her character. Occasionally, Aphrodite was Ares' legitimate wife, and by her he fathered Deimos, Phobos (who accompanied him into battle), Harmonia, and—as first told by Simonides in the 6th century BC— Eros, god of love. By Aglauros, the daughter of Cecrops, he was the father of Alcippe. He was the sire of at least three of Heracles' adversaries: Cycnus, Lycaon, and Diomedes of Thrace.

Agamemnon

-king of Mycenae or Argos. -son (or grandson) of Atreus, king of Mycenae, and Atrius' wife Aërope and was the brother of Menelaus. -After Atreus was murdered by his nephew Aegisthus (son of Thyestes), Agamemnon and Menelaus took refuge with Tyndareus, king of Sparta, whose daughters, Clytemnestra and Helen, they respectively married. -By Clytemnestra, Agamemnon had a son, Orestes, and three daughters, Iphigeneia (Iphianassa), Electra (Laodice), and Chrysothemis. Menelaus succeeded Tyndareus, and Agamemnon recovered his father's kingdom. -When Paris (Alexandros), son of King Priam of Troy, carried off Helen, Agamemnon called on the princes of the country to unite in a war of revenge against the Trojans. He himself furnished 100 ships and was chosen commander in chief of the combined forces. The fleet assembled at the port of Aulis in Boeotia but was prevented from sailing by calms or contrary winds that were sent by the goddess Artemis because Agamemnon had in some way offended her. -To appease the wrath of Artemis, Agamemnon was forced to sacrifice his own daughter Iphigeneia. -After the capture of Troy, Cassandra, Priam's daughter, fell to Agamemnon's lot in the distribution of the prizes of war. -On his return he landed in Argolis, where Aegisthus, who in the interval had seduced Agamemnon's wife, treacherously carried out the murders of Agamemnon, his comrades, and Cassandra. -In Agamemnon, by the Greek poet and dramatist Aeschylus, however, Clytemnestra was made to do the killing. The murder was avenged by Orestes, who returned to slay both his mother and her paramour.

Menelaus

-king of Sparta and younger son of Atreus, king of Mycenae -the abduction of his wife, Helen, led to the Trojan War. -During the war Menelaus served under his elder brother Agamemnon, the commander in chief of the Greek forces. -When Phrontis, one of his crewmen, was killed, Menelaus delayed his voyage until the man had been buried, thus giving evidence of his strength of character. -After the fall of Troy, Menelaus recovered Helen and brought her home. -Menelaus was a prominent figure in the Iliad and the Odyssey, where he was promised a place in Elysium after his death because he was married to a daughter of Zeus. The poet Stesichorus (flourished 6th century BCE) introduced a refinement to the story that was used by Euripides in his play Helen: it was a phantom that was taken to Troy, while the real Helen went to Egypt, from where she was rescued by Menelaus after he had been wrecked on his way home from Troy and the phantom Helen had disappeared.

Jason

-leader of the Argonauts and son of Aeson, king of Iolcos in Thessaly. -His father's half-brother Pelias seized Iolcos, and thus for safety Jason was sent away to the Centaur Chiron. Returning as a young man, he was promised his inheritance if he fetched the Golden Fleece for Pelias, a seemingly impossible task. -After many adventures (see Argonaut) Jason abstracted the fleece with the help of the enchantress Medea, whom he married. -On their return Medea murdered Pelias, but they were driven out by Pelias' son and had to take refuge with King Creon of Corinth. -Later he deserted Medea for Creon's other daughter, Glauce; this desertion and its consequences formed the subject of Euripides' Medea. It ends in the death of her children, her father and her sister (and his new bride) Glauce -golden fleece: his uncle Athamas had had two children, Phrixus and Helle, by his first wife, Nephele, the cloud goddess. Ino, his second wife, hated the children of Nephele and persuaded Athamas to sacrifice Phrixus as the only means of alleviating a famine. But before the sacrifice, Nephele appeared to Phrixus, bringing a ram with a golden fleece on which he and his sister Helle tried to escape over the sea. Helle fell off and was drowned in the strait that after her was called the Hellespont. Phrixus safely reached the other side, and, proceeding to Colchis on the farther shore of the Euxine (Black) Sea, he sacrificed the ram and hung up its fleece in the grove of Ares, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon. -(...) having undertaken the quest of the fleece, called upon the noblest heroes of Greece to take part in the expedition. According to the original story, the crew consisted of the chief members of his own race, the Minyans; later, other and better-known heroes, such as Castor and Polydeuces, were added to their number. -The Argonauts arrived at Lemnos, which was occupied only by women, and remained there several months. Proceeding up the Hellespont, they sailed to the country of the Doliones, by whose king, Cyzicus, they were hospitably received. -After their departure, however, they were driven back to the same place by a storm and were attacked by the Doliones, who did not recognize them, and in the ensuing battle he killed Cyzicus. On reaching the country of the Bebryces, the Argonauts were challenged by the king Amycus, who forced all passing travelers to box with him in the hope of killing them. Polydeuces accepted the challenge and slew him. At the entrance to the Euxine Sea the Argonauts met Phineus, the blind and aged king whose food was constantly polluted by the Harpies. After being freed by the winged sons of Boreas, Phineus told them the course to Colchis and how to pass through the Symplegades, or Cyanean rocks—two cliffs that moved on their bases and crushed whatever sought to pass. Following his advice, he sent ahead a dove that was damaged between the rocks, but thanks to Athena the Argo slipped through while the rocks were rebounding. From that time the rocks became fixed and never closed again. When the Argonauts finally reached Colchis, they found that the king, Aeëtes, would not give up the fleece until he yoked the king's fire-snorting bulls to a plow and plowed the field of Ares. That accomplished, the field was to be sown with dragon's teeth from which armed men were to spring. Aeëtes' daughter, the sorceress Medea, who had fallen in love with him, gave him a salve that protected him from the bulls' fire and advised him to cast a stone at the newborn warriors to cause them to fight to the death among themselves. After these tasks were accomplished, Aeëtes still refused to give over the fleece. Medea, however, put the dragon to sleep, and Jason was able to abscond with the fleece and Medea. Various accounts are given of the homeward course; eventually the Argo reached Iolcos and was placed in a grove sacred to Poseidon in the Isthmus of Corinth. -The story of the expedition of the Argonauts is mentioned by Homer (Odyssey, Book XII), and the wandering of Odysseus may have been partly founded on it. The lyric poet Pindar (5th century BCE) gives an account, but the fullest version is Argonautica, a 3rd-century-BCE epic by Apollonius of Rhodes. In the 1st century AD the Latin poet Valerius Flaccus began an epic (incomplete) also called Argonautica. In ancient times the expedition was regarded as a historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the Black Sea to Greek commerce and colonization.

Lucretia

-legendary heroine of ancient Rome. -According to tradition, she was the beautiful and virtuous wife of the nobleman Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. -Her tragedy began when she was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the tyrannical Etruscan king of Rome. -After exacting an oath of vengeance against the Tarquins from her father and her husband, she stabbed herself to death. -Lucius Junius Brutus then led the enraged populace in a rebellion that drove the Tarquins from Rome. The event (traditionally dated 509 BCE) marks the foundation of the Roman Republic. -The story is first found in the work of the earliest Roman historian, Fabius Pictor (late 3rd century BCE). Its classic form is Livy's version (late 1st century BCE). Lucretia's story is also recounted in Shakespeare's narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece.

Anchises

-member of the junior branch of the royal family of Troy -While he was tending his sheep on Mount Ida, the goddess Aphrodite met him and, enamoured of his beauty, bore him Aeneas. -Aeneas's father, and a symbol of Aeneas's Trojan heritage. -For revealing the name of the child's mother, he was killed or struck blind by lightning. -In later legend and in Virgil's Aeneid, he was conveyed out of Troy on the shoulders of his son Aeneas, whose descendants founded Rome, and he died in Sicily. -This moment is referred to by Cassius in the opening act of Julius Caesar - 'upon his shoulder/Did he the old (...) bear', making him a symbol of weakness in powerful men. -seen in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is an old man, -In the Aeneid, he dies during the journey from Troy to Italy, but he continues in spirit to help his son fulfill fate's decrees, especially by guiding Aeneas through the underworld and showing him what fate has in store for his descendants.

Cerberus

-the monstrous watchdog of the underworld. -He was usually said to have three heads, such as in Metamorphoses, though the poet Hesiod (flourished 7th century BCE) said he had 50. -Heads of snakes grew from his back, and he had a serpent's tail. -He devoured anyone who tried to escape the kingdom of Hades, the lord of the underworld, and he refused entrance to living humans -mythic hero Orpheus gained passage by charming him with music. One of the labours of the warrior Heracles was to bring Cerberus up to the land of the living; after succeeding, he returned the creature to Hades. -according to Ovid, the foam from Cerberus' mouth became poisonous when it mixed with the soil, becoming aconites +++

Hippolytus

-minor divinity in Greek religion. At Athens he was associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love; at Troezen, girls just before marrying dedicated to him a lock of their hair. -To the Greeks his name might suggest that he was destroyed by horses. -In Euripides' tragedy Hippolytus, he was son of Theseus, king of Athens, and the Amazon Hippolyte. -Theseus' queen, Phaedra, fell in love with Hippolytus. When Phaedra's passion was revealed to him, he reacted with such revulsion that she killed herself, leaving a note accusing Hippolytus of having tried to rape her. -Theseus, refusing to believe Hippolytus' protestations of innocence, banished him and called down upon him one of the three curses the sea god Poseidon had given to him. -Poseidon sent a sea monster that frightened Hippolytus' horses until he could no longer control them. They smashed the chariot and dragged their master to death.

Jocasta

-mother of Oedipus who entered into an incestuous marriage with him without knowing -she killed herself on realisation -IN Oedipus Rex, the eponymous character is the wise, happy, and beloved ruler of Thebes. Though hot-tempered, impatient, and arrogant at times of crisis, he otherwise seems to enjoy every good fortune. But Oedipus mistakenly believes that he is the son of King Polybus of Corinth and his queen. He became the ruler of Thebes because he rescued the city from the Sphinx by answering its riddle correctly, and so was awarded the city's widowed queen, (...). -Before overcoming the Sphinx, Oedipus left Corinth forever because the Delphic oracle had prophesied to him that he would kill his father and marry his mother. While journeying to Thebes from Corinth, Oedipus encountered at a crossroads an old man accompanied by five servants. Oedipus got into an argument with him and in a fit of arrogance and bad temper killed the old man and four of his servants. -The play opens with the city of Thebes stricken by a plague and its citizens begging Oedipus to find a remedy. He consults the Delphic oracle, which declares that the plague will cease only when the murderer of her first husband, King Laius, has been found and punished for his deed. Oedipus resolves to find Laius' killer, and much of the rest of the play centres upon the investigation he conducts in this regard. In a series of tense, gripping, and ominous scenes Oedipus' investigation turns into an obsessive reconstruction of his own hidden past as he begins to suspect that the old man he killed at the crossroads was none other than Laius. -Finally, Oedipus learns that he himself was abandoned to die as a baby by Laius and her because they feared a prophecy that their infant son would kill his father; that he survived and was adopted by the ruler of Corinth, but in his maturity he has unwittingly fulfilled the Delphic oracle's prophecy of him; that he has indeed killed his true father, married his own mother, and begot children who are also his own siblings. These siblings were Antigone, Polynices, Eteocles and Ismene. -Jocasta hangs herself when she sees this shameful web of incest, parricide, and attempted child murder, and the guilt-stricken Oedipus then sticks needles into his eyes, blinding himself. Sightless and alone, he is now blind to the world around him but finally cognizant of the terrible truth of his own life.

Daedalus

-mythical Greek inventor, architect, and sculptor, who was said to have built, among other things, the paradigmatic Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. -Ancient sources for the legends of (...) give varying accounts of his parentage. -It is reported that in a fit of envy he murdered his talented nephew and apprentice—named Perdix by some and Talos by Apollodorus—who is said to have created both the first compass (the type used in drafting) and the first saw. -he is said to have thrown the boy from the Acropolis, for which act he was banished from Athens. -Arriving in Crete, where his creative reputation preceded him, Daedalus was welcomed at the court of Minos and his wife, Pasiphae, and he quickly became embroiled in another messy situation. -Because Minos had kept a white bull given him by Poseidon (god of the sea) for the purpose of sacrifice, -Poseidon had caused Pasiphae to physically desire the bull. -She asked Daedalus to fashion a wooden cow in which she could hide and mate with the bull. -She thereby became pregnant and bore the Minotaur, a creature with a human body and a bull's head. -Minos too turned to Daedalus, requesting him to build a Labyrinth, from which the Minotaur could not escape. -When Theseus, a prince of Athens, went to Crete as a human sacrifice to the Minotaur, Ariadne (the daughter of Minos and Pasiphae) fell in love with him. Wanting him to live, she asked Daedalus how to master the secret of his Labyrinth. Because Daedalus suggested how Theseus might accomplish an escape—by securing a flaxen thread to the entrance of the Labyrinth and following that thread out again—Theseus was able to kill the Minotaur and escape the Labyrinth. He took Ariadne with him when he left Crete. -Needless to say, Minos was angry at that turn of events, and he shut Daedalus and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth. Pasiphae, however, released him. Unable to sail away, because Minos controlled the ships, Daedalus fashioned wings of wax and feathers for himself and for Icarus and escaped to Sicily using the wings. Icarus, however, flew too near the Sun, his wings melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned. The island on which his body was washed ashore was later named Icaria. -Minos pursued Daedalus to Sicily and was killed there by the daughters of Cocalus, the king of the Sicani, with whom Daedalus was staying. -The Greeks of the historic age attributed to Daedalus buildings and statues the origins of which were lost in the past. Later critics ascribed to him such innovations as representing humans in statues with their feet apart and their eyes open. A phase of early Greek art, Daedalic sculpture, is named for him.

Aeneus

-mythical hero of Troy and Rome -son of the goddess Aphrodite and Anchises. -member of the royal line at Troy and cousin of Hector. -played a prominent part in defending his city against the Greeks during the Trojan War, being second only to Hector in ability. -Homer implies that he did not like his subordinate position, and from that suggestion arose a later tradition that Aeneas helped to betray Troy to the Greeks. -more common version made Aeneas the leader of the Trojan survivors after Troy was taken by the Greeks. In any case, he survived the war, and his figure was thus available to compilers of Roman myth. Aeneid -Virgil, 1st century BCE, gave the various strands of legend related to him the form they have possessed ever since. -The family of Julius Caesar, and consequently of Virgil's patron Augustus, claimed descent from him, whose son Ascanius was also called Iulus. Incorporating these different traditions, Virgil created his masterpiece, the Aeneid, the Latin epic poem whose hero symbolized not only the course and aim of Roman history but also the career and policy of Augustus himself. In his journeying from Troy westward to Sicily, Carthage, and finally to the mouth of the Tiber in Italy, Virgil portrayed the qualities of persistence, self-denial, and obedience to the gods that, to the poet, built Rome. -(written c. 29-19 BCE) tells in 12 books of the legendary foundation of Lavinium (parent town of Alba Longa and of Rome) by him. -When Troy fell to the Greeks, Virgil recounts, (...), who had fought bravely to the last, was commanded by Hector in a vision to flee and to found a great city overseas. -He gathered his family and followers and took the household gods (small images) of Troy, but, in the confusion of leaving the burning city, his wife disappeared. Her ghost informed him that he was to go to a western land where the Tiber River flowed. He then embarked upon his long voyage, touching at Thrace, Crete, and Sicily and meeting with numerous adventures that culminated in shipwreck on the coast of Africa near Carthage. There he was received by Dido, the widowed queen, to whom he told his story. They fell in love, and he lingered there until he was sharply reminded by Mercury that Rome was his goal. Guilty and wretched, he immediately abandoned Dido, who committed suicide, and he sailed on until he finally reached the mouth of the Tiber. There he was well received by Latinus, the king of the region, but other Italians, notably Latinus's wife and Turnus, leader of the Rutuli, resented the arrival of the Trojans and the projected marriage alliance between him and Lavinia, Latinus's daughter. War broke out, but the Trojans were successful and Turnus was killed. He then married Lavinia and founded Lavinium. -His character as portrayed by Virgil is not only that of a heroic warrior. In addition, he guides his life by obedience to divine command, to which he sacrifices his own natural inclinations. It is in this sense that the Latin epithet 'pius', so frequently applied to him in the Aeneid, is to be understood. -death described by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Fallen in battle against the Rutuli, his body could not be found, and he was thereafter worshiped as a local god.

Graces

-one of a group of goddesses of fertility. -The name refers to the "pleasing" or "charming" appearance of a fertile field or garden. -The number of Graces varied in different legends, but usually there were three: Aglaia (Brightness), Euphrosyne (Joyfulness), and Thalia (Bloom). -They are said to be daughters of Zeus and Hera (or Eurynome, daughter of Oceanus) or of Helios and Aegle, a daughter of Zeus. -Frequently, the Graces were taken as goddesses of charm or beauty in general and hence were associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love; Peitho, her attendant; and Hermes, a fertility and messenger god. -In works of art, they were represented in early times draped, later as nude female figures. -Their chief cult centres were at Orchomenus in Boeotia, Athens, Sparta, and Paphos. -The singular Gratia or Charis is sometimes used to denote the personification of grace and beauty.

Hercules (Heracles, G)

-one of the most famous Greco-Roman legendary heroes. Traditionally, Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene, granddaughter of Perseus. -Alcmene refused to consummate her marriage with Amphitryon until he had avenged the death of her brothers, all of whom except one had fallen in battle against the Taphians and Teleboans. On Amphitryon's return to Thebes he married Alcmene. During Amphitryon's absence, Alcmene became pregnant by Zeus, who, disguised as her husband, visited her; she became pregnant again by her real husband upon his return. Of these unions were born twin boys, of whom Iphicles was the son of Amphitryon, Heracles the son of Zeus. -Zeus swore that the next son born of the Perseid house should become ruler of Greece, but—by a trick of Zeus's jealous wife, Hera—another child, the sickly Eurystheus, was born first and became king. -When Heracles grew up, he had to serve Eurystheus and also suffer the vengeful persecution of Hera; his first exploit was the strangling of two serpents that she had sent to kill him in his cradle. -Heracles waged a victorious war against the kingdom of Orchomenus in Boeotia and married Megara, daughter of Creon, king of Thebes, but he killed her and their children in a fit of madness sent by Hera and, consequently, was obliged to become the servant of Eurystheus. -It was Eurystheus who imposed upon Heracles the famous Labours, later arranged in a cycle of 12, usually as follows: (1) the slaying of the Nemean lion, whose skin he thereafter wore; (2) the slaying of the nine-headed Hydra of Lerna; (3) the capture of the elusive hind (or stag) of Arcadia; (4) the capture of the wild boar of Mount Erymanthus; (5) the cleansing, in a single day, of the cattle stables of King Augeas of Elis; (6) the shooting of the monstrous man-eating birds of the Stymphalian marshes; (7) the capture of the mad bull that terrorized the island of Crete; (8) the capture of the man-eating mares of King Diomedes of the Bistones; (9) the taking of the girdle of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons; (10) the seizing of the cattle of the three-bodied giant Geryon, who ruled the island Erytheia (meaning red) in the far west; (11) the bringing back of the golden apples kept at the world's end by the Hesperides; and (12) the fetching up from the underworld of the triple-headed dog Cerberus, guardian of its gates. -Having completed the Labours, Heracles undertook further enterprises, including warlike campaigns. -He also successfully fought the river god Achelous for the hand of Deianeira. -As he was taking her home, the Centaur Nessus tried to violate her, and Heracles shot him with one of his poisoned arrows. -The Centaur, dying, told Deianeira to preserve the blood from his wound, for if Heracles wore a garment rubbed with it he would love none but her forever. -Several years later Heracles fell in love with Iole, daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia. Deianeira, realizing that Iole was a dangerous rival, sent Heracles a garment smeared with the blood of Nessus. -The blood proved to be a powerful poison, and Heracles died. -His body was placed on a pyre on Mount Oeta (Modern Greek Oíti), his mortal part was consumed, and his divine part ascended to heaven. There he was reconciled to Hera and married Hebe. -In Italy he was worshipped as a god of merchants and traders, although others also prayed to him for his characteristic gifts of good luck or rescue from danger.

amazons

-originated as a variant of a tale recurrent in many cultures, that of a distant land organized oppositely from one's own. -The ascribed habitat necessarily became more remote as Greek geographic knowledge developed. -When the Black Sea region was colonized by Greeks, it was first said to be the (...) district, but when no (...) were found there, it was necessary to explain what had become of them. -Traditionally, one of the labours required of the Greek hero Heracles (Hercules) was leading an expedition to obtain the girdle of Hippolyte, their queen, during which he was said to have conquered and expelled them from their district. -Penthesilea led an army of (...) to fight for Troy against the Greeks, but she was killed by Achilles, who later mourned her. -Subsidiary tales grew up to explain why, if the whole nation consisted of women, it did not die out in a generation. The most common explanation was that they mated with men of another people, kept the resulting female children, and sent the male children away to their fathers. -In another tale, Theseus attacked them either with Heracles or independently. They, in turn, invaded Attica but were finally defeated, and at some point Theseus married one of them, Antiope. -In Hellenistic times they were associated with Dionysus (the god of wine), either as his allies or, more commonly, as his opponents. -Ancient Greek works of art often depicted combats between (...) and Greeks, and the confrontation between Theseus and (...) was a particular favourite. -As portrayed in these works, they were similar in model to the goddess Athena, and their arms were the bow, spear, light double ax, a half-shield, and, in early art, a helmet. In later art they were more like the goddess Artemis and wore a thin dress, girded high for speed; on the later painted vases their dress is often peculiarly Persian. -According to some accounts, the Amazon River was so named by the 16th-century Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana for the fighting women he claimed to have encountered on what was previously known as the Marañon River.

Dido (Elissa)

-queen of carthage, the reputed founder of Carthage, daughter of the Tyrian king Mutto (or Belus), and wife of Sychaeus (or Acerbas). -Her husband having been slain by her brother Pygmalion, Dido fled to the coast of Africa where she purchased from a local chieftain, Iarbas, a piece of land on which she founded Carthage. -The city soon prospered, and Iarbas sought Dido's hand in marriage. -To escape from him, Dido constructed a funeral pyre, on which she stabbed herself before the people. -Virgil, however, in his Aeneid, reshaped this story to make Dido a contemporary of Aeneas, whose descendants founded Rome. -Dido fell in love with Aeneas after his landing in Africa, and Virgil attributes her suicide to her abandonment by him at the command of Jupiter. -Her dying curse on the Trojans provides a mythical origin for the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. Dido has been identified by modern scholars with the Virgo Caelestis; i.e., Tanit, the tutelary goddess of Carthage. -Referred to in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Shakespeare 'and by that fire which burned the Carthage queen' by Hermia when professing her love and promise to Lysander

Hippolyta

-queen of the Amazons -The Amazons were the descendants of Ares, God of War. They were well known for their courage, strength, and pride, even to the furthest limits of the known world at the time. -Ares gave Hippolyta a gift of a magical belt that would grant her the title of Queen of the Amazons in the city of Themiskyra, near the Black Sea. In time, the Amazons found themselves, through their queen Hippolyta, involved in conflicts with Heracles, Theseus, and Bellerophon. -Zeus and Hera brought Ares into the world, and he became the God of War. -While the exact origin of the Amazons is not known, what is known is that they are associated with Ares, and that Hippolyta found favor in Ares' eyes as his daughter. -Her race formed an independent kingdom and her influence spread to several outlying cities and towns. -The intermarriage of Amazons and men from other tribes was allowed, but any male children born were often killed, sent back to their fathers, or left to fend for themselves in the wilderness. -The family of Hippolyta, therefore, consisted mostly of women of her own tribe, who accepted her as their leader. -Hippolyta was involved in several important battles and trials, the most well known of all involving Heracles and Theseus. -The 9th Labor of Heracles. Heracles, in a fit of madness caused by Hera, had slain his own children. His crimes would not go unpunished, and in order to be purified, he was given a series of tasks to perform. One of his tasks was to retrieve the belt of Ares from Hippolyta. -The belt didn't seem to be spectacular - at first glance it seemed like nothing more than an intricately carved leather belt - but it held magical properties that were granted to Hippolyta as she wore it. It also represented her authority over her people, much in the same way that a crown signified a king's power. -Hippolyta was informed by her warriors that a ship had appeared on the horizon. The Amazons had never had visitors to their homeland before, and both she and her people were curious about these newcomers to their lands. The ship moored at the dock, and out emerged a magnificent warrior who seemed to have an unnatural, godlike strength to him. His name was Heracles, and he asked to meet with her in private, to be away from the possible influence of Hera, who harbored such vindictive passions towards him. Hippolyta agreed to meet with Heracles upon the ship. -In the candlelight, Hippolyta listened, concealing her pity and feelings, to Heracles' story. Heracles never intended to be born from the union of Zeus and Alcemene, never intended to cause so much anger and grief to Hera, Zeus' wife. But he had been tormented by Hera and driven to madness, for the simple crime of existing as the son of Zeus. In his insanity, he had murdered his beloved wife and all of his children. She tried to hold back her tears and couldn't. Heracles did understand the full horror of his crimes, and was willing to atone for them. King Eurystheus had given him a set of 12 tasks to complete, one of which was to retrieve the cherished belt she had been given as a child by Ares. Heracles had endured so many trials before this one, including slaying or capturing several powerful creatures. He did not want to cause her or her people harm, and knew that she had to make the choice to give him the belt and could only hope he had been persuasive enough with his honesty to Hippolyta. -Hippolyta was torn, because she knew what the belt symbolized to herself as well as to her people. But she was not heartless, and felt great pity, compassion and sorrow upon hearing Heracles' account of what had happened. -Reluctantly, Hippolyta agreed to give him the belt so that he could finish this 9th task. But although they met in secret, Hera still managed to learn about what had transpired between Hippolyta and Heracles. -Hera was not pleased at all. She had been trying to foil and curse Heracles at every opportunity for years. She disguised herself as an Amazon warrior, and told the other Amazons that Heracles had tricked them and would kidnap Hippolyta. Furious and enraged, they swarmed upon the ship ready for battle. Hippolyta didn't understand what had happened and tried to calm her people, but they were too angered to listen. Heracles knew that he didn't have much time before his ship would be completely overrun. He kissed Hippolyta lightly on the cheek, gently lifted her onto the dock, and with the belt in his grasp, set sail... leaving Hippolyta to ponder her decision to give up her treasured belt. -A long time had passed since the last visit of strange men to her home. Upon the shores of her kingdom, Hippolyta stood with a small company of her female guards once again. She would be meeting with Theseus, a mortal man who was rumored to have slain the minotaur. As the ship came into view, she had mixed feelings about the whole affair. The last time someone had visited her shores, she had lost the magical belt that had been given to her by Ares. Well, she thought... maybe 'lost' wasn't the best way to put it. She did have sympathy for Heracles, and did after all agree to give it to him. Despite what happened later on that night with her warriors' attack and Heracles' sudden departure, Hippolyta had her honor and her word was her bond. -A strong and beautiful woman, Hippolyta remained hopeful that no harm would come to her people from this meeting. She brought gifts, and held a great feast in honor of her guests with all of the Amazons attending and celebrating with wine, music, food, and dancing. -The next morning, Hippolyta boarded the Athenian ship with the best of intentions and met with Theseus. At first, it seemed that the two would be able to work together harmoniously. Theseus became enamored with her, finding her lovely and a possible perfect bride for himself. Without thinking, he proposed that they unite in marriage, and pledged to make her the queen of Athens, with all of the glory and riches the title would bring. But Hippolyta didn't welcome this idea. She had an obligation to her own people, the Amazons, as well as her own responsibilities. -Although flattered, she refused his offer. As she walked away, she did not hear the whispers of Theseus and his crew, nor was she aware that the ship had left the docks. As soon as the ship set sail and was no longer within sight of the shores of the Amazon's homeland, Theseus immediately claimed Hippolyta as his bride, stealing her away and hoisting the sails for a swifter journey to Athens. -Word of the kidnapping reached Queen Hippolyta's Amazons, who were infuriated at this brazen act of treachery. They gathered in great numbers and stealthily set sail for Athens in their own ships, in pursuit of those who were forcing their queen into marriage. Theseus had begun planning a massive celebration and festival in honor of his wedding, unaware of the battle plans that were brewing across the sea. -The Amazon women were seasoned warriors and knew that their best hope of rescuing their queen would be launching their attack at night. They planned out their attack on the rocky ground at the camp in Attica. As the people slept in their beds, the Amazons arrived in the darkness and at once mounted an attack on Theseus' palace. They only had until dawn, when the wedding would take place, and managed to rescue Hippolyta just in time. That morning, Theseus awoke and waited for his bride to appear as the great wedding celebration began, but he would wait in vain. -Hippolyta had been spirited away back to her homeland, where she and her people would become ever more cautious and wary of visitors in the future.

Arcadia

-region in modern-day Greece -also a place of reference in ancient Greek mythology. It was located in the Peloponnese, and was considered to be a wilderness in which the god Pan resided, along with dryads, nymphs and other spirits. -It was believed that it was a utopic place, where inhuman creatures dwelled. -Hermes, the god of thievery and the messenger of the other gods, would be seen roaming in the region, while Atalanta, a mythical heroine who participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar and managed to kill it, was the daughter of the king of Arcadia.

Leda

-seduced by Zeus in the form of a swam -usually believed to be the daughter of Thestius, king of Aetolia, and wife of Tyndareus, king of Lacedaemon. -Some ancient writers thought she was the mother by Tyndareus of Clytemnestra, wife of King Agamemnon, and of Castor, one of the Heavenly Twins. She was also believed to have been the mother (by Zeus, who had approached and seduced her in the form of a swan) of the other twin, Pollux, and of Helen, both of whom hatched from eggs. -Variant legends gave divine parentage to both the twins and possibly also to Clytemnestra, with all three of them having hatched from the eggs of Leda, while yet other legends say that Leda bore the twins to her mortal husband, Tyndareus. -Still other variants say that Leda may have hatched out Helen from an egg laid by the goddess Nemesis, who was similarly approached by Zeus in the form of a swan.

Ixion

-son either of the god Ares or of Phlegyas, king of the Lapiths in Thessaly. -He murdered his father-in-law and could find no one to purify him until Zeus did so and admitted him as a guest to Olympus. -Ixion abused his pardon by trying to seduce Zeus's wife, Hera. -Zeus substituted for her a cloud, by which Ixion became the father of Centaurus, who fathered the Centaurs by the mares of Mount Pelion. -Zeus, to punish him, bound him on a fiery wheel, which rolled unceasingly through the air or, according to the more common tradition, in the underworld.

Ajax

-son of Telamon, king of Salamis, described in the Iliad as being of great stature and colossal frame, second only to the Greek hero Achilles in strength and bravery. -He engaged Hector (the chief Trojan warrior) in single combat and later, with the aid of the goddess Athena, rescued the body of Achilles from the hands of the Trojans. -He competed with the Greek hero Odysseus for the armour of Achilles but lost, which so enraged him that it caused his death. According to a later story, Ajax's disappointment drove him mad. On coming to his senses, he slew himself with the sword that he had received as a present from Hector. -raped Priam and Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, in the sacking of Troy on an altar to Athena -The legend has it that from his blood sprang a red flower that bore on its leaves the initial letters of his name, AI, letters that are also expressive of lament. -Ajax was the tutelary hero of the island of Salamis, where he had a temple and an image and where a festival called Aianteia was celebrated in his honour.

Hylas

-son of Theiodamas (king of the Dryopians in Thessaly), favourite and companion of Heracles on the Argonautic expedition. -Having gone ashore at Cios in Mysia to fetch water, he was dragged down by the nymphs of the spring in which he dipped his pitcher. -Heracles sought him in vain; afterward, in memory of Heracles' threat to ravage the land if Hylas was not found, the inhabitants of Cios each year on a stated day roamed the mountains, shouting aloud for Hylas.

Icarus

-son of the architect and inventor Daedalus -they were both imprisoned in the Labyrinth, Pasiphae, however, released him. Unable to sail away, because Minos controlled the ships, Daedalus fashioned wings of wax and feathers for himself and for Icarus and escaped to Sicily using the wings. -Icarus was warned not to fly too low, as the waves would make his feathers too heavy, or too high, as the wax that bound his wings would melt. -Icarus, however, flew too near the Sun, his wings melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned. The island on which his body was washed ashore was later named Icaria. -In Ovid's Metamorphoses, he is presented as a care-free boy, dearly loved by Daedalus.

Ascanius

-son of the hero Aeneas and the traditional founder of Alba Longa, probably the site of the modern Castel Gandolfo, near Rome. -In different versions, Ascanius is placed variously in time. The usual account, found in Virgil's Aeneid, makes the Trojan Creusa his mother. After the fall of Troy, Ascanius and Aeneas escaped to Italy. Ascanius set off a war between the Trojans and the Latins by wounding the pet stag of Silvia, the daughter of the royal herdsman. Aeneas won the war, slew the Latin commander, Turnus, and married Lavinia, the daughter of King Latinus. Aeneas subsequently founded Lavinium, the parent city of Alba Longa and Rome. -Ascanius became king of Lavinium after his father's death. Thirty years after Lavinium was built, Ascanius founded Alba Longa and ruled it until he died. -In the Roman historian Livy's account, however, Ascanius was born after the founding of Lavinium and was the son of Aeneas and Lavinia. Ascanius was also called Iulus, and through him by that name the gens Julia (including the family of Julius Caesar) traced its descent.

Actaeon

-son of the minor god Aristaeus and Autonoë (daughter of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes in Boeotia) -Boeotian hero and hunter. -Metamorphoses, he accidentally saw Artemis (goddess of wild animals, vegetation, and childbirth) while she was bathing on Mount Cithaeron; for this reason he was changed by her into a stag and was pursued and killed by his own 50 hounds. -In another version, he offended Artemis by boasting that his skill as a hunter surpassed hers. -Callimachus= accidentally saw Artemis naked, while she was bathing in the woods; amazed at her beauty, he was spotted by the goddess, who told him not to speak again or he would change into a deer. Upon hearing his hunting dogs, however, Actaeon called them and immediately transformed into a deer. -In another version, he tries to rape her.

Achilles

-son of the mortal Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, and the Nereid, or sea nymph, Thetis. -the bravest, handsomest, and greatest warrior of the army of Agamemnon in the Trojan War. -'swift footed' -Homer=was brought up by his mother at Phthia with his cousin and inseparable companion Patroclus. -non-Homeric=Thetis dipped the child in the waters of the River Styx, by which means he became invulnerable, except for the part of his heel by which she held him -The later mythographers related that Peleus, having received an oracle that his son would die fighting at Troy, sent him to the court of Lycomedes on Scyros, where he was dressed as a girl and kept among the king's daughters (one of whom, Deïdamia, bore him Neoptolemus). Hearing from the soothsayer Calchas that Troy could not be taken without him, the Greeks searched for and found him. -During the first nine years of the war, he ravaged the country around Troy and took 12 cities. -In the 10th year a quarrel with Agamemnon occurred when he insisted that Agamemnon restore Chryseis, his prize of war, to her father, a priest of Apollo, so as to appease the wrath of Apollo, who had decimated the camp with a pestilence. -An irate Agamemnon recouped his loss by depriving him of his favourite slave, Briseis. -he refused further service, and consequently the Greeks floundered so badly that at last he allowed Patroclus to impersonate him, lending him his chariot and armour. Hector (the eldest son of King Priam of Troy) slew Patroclus, and (he), having finally reconciled with Agamemnon, obtained new armour from the god Hephaestus and slew Hector. After dragging Hector's body behind his chariot, (he) gave it to Priam at his earnest entreaty. -No mention of his death, though the Odyssey mentions his funeral.

Deucalion

-the Greek equivalent of Noah, the son of Prometheus (the creator of humankind), king of Phthia in Thessaly, and husband of Pyrrha; he was also the father of Hellen, the mythical ancestor of the Hellenic race. -When Zeus, the king of the gods, resolved to destroy all humanity by a flood, Deucalion constructed an ark in which, according to one version, he and his wife rode out the flood and landed on Mount Parnassus. -According to a story found first in the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book I, upon offering a sacrifice and inquiring how to renew the human race, they were ordered to cast behind them the bones of their mother. -The couple correctly interpreted this to mean they should throw behind them the stones of the hillside ("mother earth"), and they did so. -Those stones thrown by Deucalion became men, while those thrown by Pyrrha became women. -In early Greek versions Hermes told the couple directly to cast stones behind them.

Janus

-the animistic spirit of doorways (januae) and archways (jani). -him and the nymph Camasene were the parents of Tiberinus, whose death in or by the river Albula caused it to be renamed Tiber. -The worship of him traditionally dated back to Romulus and a period even before the actual founding of the city of Rome. -There were many jani (i.e., ceremonial gateways) in Rome; these were usually freestanding structures that were used for symbolically auspicious entrances or exits. -Particular superstition was attached to the departure of a Roman army, for which there were lucky and unlucky ways to march through a (...). -The most famous (...) in Rome was the (...) Geminus, which was actually a shrine of him at the north side of the Forum. It was a simple rectangular bronze structure with double doors at each end. Traditionally, the doors of this shrine were left open in time of war and were kept closed when Rome was at peace. According to the Roman historian Livy, the gates were closed only twice in all the long period between Numa Pompilius (7th century BC) and Augustus (1st century BC). Some scholars regard him as the god of all beginnings and believe that his association with doorways is derivative. He was invoked as the first of any gods in regular liturgies. The beginning of the day, month, and year, both calendrical and agricultural, were sacred to him. The month of January is named for him, and his festival took place on January 9, the Agonium. Janus was represented by a double-faced head, and he was represented in art either with or without a beard. Occasionally he was depicted as four-faced—as the spirit of the four-way arch.

Eumenides (Erinyes, G) (Furies, R)

-the chthonic goddesses of vengeance. -They were probably personified curses, but possibly they were originally conceived of as ghosts of the murdered. -According to the Greek poet Hesiod, they were the daughters of Gaea (Earth) and sprang from the blood of her mutilated spouse Uranus. -In the plays of Aeschylus, they were the daughters of Nyx; in those of Sophocles, they were the daughters of Darkness and of Gaea. -Euripides was the first to speak of them as three in number. Later writers named them Allecto ("Unceasing in Anger"), Tisiphone ("Avenger of Murder"), and Megaera ("Jealous"). -They lived in the underworld and ascended to earth to pursue the wicked. -Being deities of the underworld, they were often identified with spirits of the fertility of the earth. -Because the Greeks feared to utter the dreaded name Erinyes, the goddesses were often addressed by euphemistic names, such as Eumenides ("Kindly") in Sicyon or Semnai ("August") in Athens.

Athena (Minerva, R)

-the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. -She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. -she was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. Yet the Greek economy, unlike that of the Minoans, was largely military, so that she, while retaining her earlier domestic functions, became a goddess of war. -She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. There was an alternative story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena, so that Athena finally emerged from Zeus. Being the favourite child of Zeus, she had great power. -Athena's association with the acropolises of various Greek cities probably stemmed from the location of the kings' palaces there. She was thought to have had neither consort nor offspring. She may not have been described as a virgin originally, but virginity was attributed to her very early and was the basis for the interpretation of her epithets Pallas and Parthenos. -As a war goddess Athena could not be dominated by other goddesses, such as Aphrodite, and as a palace goddess she could not be violated. In Homer's Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes; her aid was synonymous with military prowess. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigned the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. -Athena's moral and military superiority to Ares derived in part from the fact that she represented the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represented mere blood lust. Her superiority also derived in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and from the patriotism of Homer's predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. In the Iliad, Athena was the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personified excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. The qualities that led to victory were found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wore when she went to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. Athena appears in Homer's Odyssey as the tutelary deity of Odysseus, and myths from later sources portray her similarly as helper of Perseus and Heracles (Hercules). As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, of prudent restraint and practical insight, as well as of war. In post-Mycenaean times the city, especially its citadel, replaced the palace as Athena's domain. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name. Her emergence there as city goddess, Athena Polias ("Athena, Guardian of the City"), accompanied the ancient city-state's transition from monarchy to democracy. She was associated with birds, particularly the owl, which became famous as the city's own symbol, and with the snake. Her birth and her contest with Poseidon, the sea god, for the suzerainty of the city were depicted on the pediments of the Parthenon, and the great festival of the Panathenaea, in July, was a celebration of her birthday. She was also worshipped in many other cities, notably in Sparta. Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. She was particularly known as the patroness of spinning and weaving. That she ultimately became allegorized to personify wisdom and righteousness was a natural development of her patronage of skill. Athena was customarily portrayed wearing body armour and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. Two Athenians, the sculptor Phidias and the playwright Aeschylus, contributed significantly to the cultural dissemination of Athena's image. She inspired three of Phidias' sculptural masterpieces, including the massive chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena Parthenos housed in the Parthenon; and in Aeschylus' dramatic tragedy Eumenides she founded the Areopagus (Athens' aristocratic council), and, by breaking a deadlock of the judges in favour of Orestes, the defendant, she set the precedent that a tied vote signified acquittal.

Antigone

-the daughter born of the unwittingly incestuous union of Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta. -After her father blinded himself upon discovering that Jocasta was his mother and that, also unwittingly, he had slain his father, (...) and her sister Ismene served as Oedipus' guides, following him from Thebes into exile until his death near Athens. -Returning to Thebes, they attempted to reconcile their quarreling brothers, Eteocles, who was defending the city and his crown, and Polyneices, who was attacking Thebes. -Both brothers, however, were killed, and their uncle Creon became king. -After performing an elaborate funeral service for Eteocles, he forbade the removal of the corpse of Polyneices, condemning it to lie unburied, declaring him to have been a traitor. His lack of burial would mean his soul would not continue to the afterlife. -moved by love for her brother and convinced of the injustice of the command, buried Polyneices secretly. -For that she was ordered by Creon to be executed and was immured in a cave, where she hanged herself. -Her beloved, Haemon, son of Creon, committed suicide. -According to another version of the story, Creon gave her to Haemon to kill, but he secretly married her and they had a son. When this son went to Thebes to compete in athletic contests, Creon recognized him and put him to death, whereupon his parents committed suicide. ++++++++

Europa

-the daughter either of Agenor, king of Phoenicia, in Ovid's Metamorphoses. -The beauty of Europa inspired the love of Zeus, who approached her in the form of a white bull and carried her away from Phoenicia to Crete. -Her father bade her brother, Cadmus, to go out into the world and find Europa and threatened him with exile if he failed. -Cadmus prayed to Apollo's oracle to help him find a new home after he searched the earth for Europa and could not find her and outwit Jove. He was told an untamed cow would help guide his way. He found his land, slew a deathly snake and planted the teeth to found his city. -There she bore Zeus three sons: Minos, ruler of Crete; Rhadamanthys, ruler of the Cyclades Islands; and, according to some legends, Sarpedon, ruler of Lycia. -She later married Asterius, the king of Crete, who adopted her sons, and she was worshipped under the name of Hellotis in Crete, where the festival Hellotia was held in her honour.

Electra

-the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who saved the life of her young brother Orestes by sending him away when their father was murdered. -When he later returned, she helped him to slay their mother and their mother's lover, Aegisthus. -Electra then married Orestes' friend Pylades. -The plays of the same name written by Sophocles and Euripides and the Choephoroi by Aeschylus vary the theme in detail. -Many later artistic interpretations of her life exist, including Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play Elektra (1903), later made into an opera by Richard Strauss (1906-08), and Eugene O'Neill's play Mourning Becomes Electra (1931).

Andromache

-the daughter of Eëtion (prince of Thebe in Mysia) and wife of Hector (son of King Priam of Troy). -All her relations perished when Troy was taken by Achilles. -When the captives were allotted, she fell to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, whom she accompanied to Epirus and to whom she bore three sons. (Her son Molossus was claimed as an ancestor by the kings of Molossia in historical times—until the demise of the monarchy in the 3rd century BCE.) -Neoptolemus was slain at Delphi, and he left her and the kingdom as well to Helenus, the brother of Hector. -After the death of Helenus, she returned to Asia Minor with her youngest son, Pergamus, who there founded a town named after himself. -in The Iliad, she is presented as Hector's loving wife, often not being given a name and only referred to by her status. -In the narrative, she begs Hector to withdraw from the war and save himself before the Achaeans kill him.

Arachne

-the daughter of Idmon of Colophon in Lydia, a dyer in purple. Low born. -Arachne was a weaver who acquired such skill in her art that she ventured to challenge Athena, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason. Athena wove a tapestry depicting the gods in majesty, while that of Arachne showed their amorous adventures. Enraged at the perfection of her rival's work (or, alternatively, offended by its subject matter), Athena tore it to pieces, and in despair Arachne hanged herself. But the goddess out of pity loosened the rope, which became a cobweb; Arachne herself was changed into a spider, whence the name of the zoological class to which spiders belong, Arachnida. -Ovid's Metamorphoses is the chief source of the story.

Cassandra

-the daughter of Priam, the last king of Troy, and his wife Hecuba. -In Homer's Iliad, she is the most beautiful of Priam's daughters but not a prophetess. -she was the concubine of Agamemnon, and foresaw Agamemnon's death at the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra. -According to Aeschylus's tragedy Agamemnon, Cassandra was loved by the god Apollo, who promised her the power of prophecy if she would comply with his desires. Cassandra accepted the proposal, received the gift, and then refused the god her favours. -Apollo revenged himself by ordaining that her prophecies should never be believed. She accurately predicted such events as the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, but her warnings went unheeded. -During the sack of Troy, Ajax the Lesser dragged Cassandra from the altar of Athena and raped her. For this impiety, Athena sent a storm that sank most of the Greek fleet as it returned home. -The rape of Cassandra by Ajax was a favourite scene in Greek art. In the distribution of the spoils after the capture of Troy, Cassandra fell to Agamemnon and was later murdered with him. She was worshipped, as Alexandra, with Agamemnon.

Calypso

-the daughter of the Titan Atlas (or Oceanus or Nereus), a nymph of the mythical island of Ogygia. -In Homer's Odyssey, Book V (also Books I and VII), she entertained the Greek hero Odysseus for seven years, but she could not overcome his longing for home even by promising him immortality. -In the Odyssey, the beautiful nymph, possessed by love for Odysseus, imprisoned him on her island, Ogygia. He longs to return to his wife and son, but he has no ship or crew to help him escape. While the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus debate Odysseus's future, Athena, Odysseus's strongest supporter among the gods, resolves to help Telemachus. Disguised as a friend of the prince's grandfather, Laertes, she convinces the prince to call a meeting of the assembly at which he reproaches the suitors. Athena also prepares him for a great journey to Pylos and Sparta, where the kings Nestor and Menelaus, Odysseus's companions during the war, inform him that Odysseus is alive and trapped on Calypso's island. On Mount Olympus, Zeus sends Hermes to rescue Odysseus from Calypso. Hermes persuades Calypso to let Odysseus build a ship and leave. -According to Hesiod's Theogony, she bore Odysseus twin sons, Nausithous and Nausinous.

Hephaistos

-the god of fire. -Originally a deity of Asia Minor and the adjoining islands (in particular Lemnos), Hephaestus had an important place of worship at the Lycian Olympus. -According to myth, Hephaestus was born lame and was cast from heaven in disgust by his mother, Hera, and again by his father, Zeus, after a family quarrel. -He was brought back to Olympus by Dionysus and was one of the only gods to have returned after exile. A blacksmith and craftsman, Hephaestus made weapons and military equipment for the gods and certain mortals, including a winged helmet and sandals for Hermes and armour for Achilles. -Traditionally, his ill-matched consort was Aphrodite, though Homer lists Charis, the personification of Grace, as Hephaestus's wife in the Iliad. -As god of fire, Hephaestus became the divine smith and patron of craftsmen; the natural volcanic or gaseous fires already connected with him were often considered to be his workshops. -In art Hephaestus was generally represented as a middle-aged bearded man, although occasionally a younger, beardless type is found. He usually wore a short sleeveless tunic and a round close-fitting cap on his unkempt hair.

Hymen

-the god of marriage, whose name derives from the refrain of an ancient marriage song. -Unknown to Homer, he was mentioned first by the 5th-century-BC lyric poet Pindar as the son of Apollo by one of the Muses. -Various Muses are mentioned as his mother: Calliope (ancient commentary on Pindar), Clio (Apollodorus), Terpsichore (Alciphron), and Urania (Catullus and Nonnus). -Other accounts made him the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, and as such he would have been a god of fruitfulness. -In Attic legend he was a beautiful youth who rescued a group of women, including the girl he loved, from a band of pirates. -As a reward he obtained the girl in marriage, and their happy life caused him ever afterward to be invoked in marriage songs.

Astraea

-the goddess of innocence in Greek mythology -daughter of the Titans Astraeus, god of dusk, and Eos, goddess of dawn. -Her name meant "star-maiden" and she was on the earth alongside humans during the Golden Age of Man. -When the Iron Age dawned, bringing along misery and wickedness, Astraea abandoned the earth and went to the skies where she transformed into the constellation Virgo. -She was closely linked to the goddess Dike, protector of fair judgment; this relationship was also identified on the sky, where Libra, the symbolic representation of Dike, lies nearby Virgo. -According to the myth, when Astraea returns to Earth one day, she will once again bring the utopia that was during the Golden Age, bringing an end to human suffering.

Flora

-the goddess of the flowering of plants. -Titus Tatius (according to tradition, the Sabine king who ruled with Romulus) is said to have introduced her cult to Rome; her temple stood near the Circus Maximus. -Her festival, called the Floralia, was instituted in 238 BC. -A representation of Flora's head, distinguished only by a floral crown, appeared on coins of the republic. -Her name survives in the botanical term for vegetation of a particular environment. +++

Helen

-the most beautiful woman of Greece and the indirect cause of the Trojan War. -She was daughter of Zeus, either by Leda or by Nemesis, and sister of the Dioscuri. -As a young girl she was carried off by Theseus, but she was rescued by her brothers. She was also the sister of Clytemnestra, who married Agamemnon. Her suitors came from all parts of Greece, and from among them she chose Menelaus, Agamemnon's younger brother. -During an absence of Menelaus, however, Helen fled to Troy with Paris, son of the Trojan king Priam; when Paris was slain, she married his brother Deiphobus, whom she betrayed to Menelaus when Troy was subsequently captured. -Menelaus and she then returned to Sparta, where they lived happily until their deaths. -According to a variant of the story, Helen, in widowhood, was driven out by her stepsons and fled to Rhodes, where she was hanged by the Rhodian queen Polyxo in revenge for the death of her husband, Tlepolemus, in the Trojan War. -The poet Stesichorus, however, related in his second version of her story that she and Paris were driven ashore on the coast of Egypt and that Helen was detained there by King Proteus. The Helen carried on to Troy was thus a phantom, and the real one was recovered by her husband from Egypt after the war. This version of the story was used by Euripides in his play Helen. -Helen was worshipped and had a festival at Therapnae in Laconia; she also had a temple at Rhodes, where she was worshipped as Dendritis (the tree goddess). Like her brothers, the Dioscuri, she was a patron deity of sailors. Her name is pre-Hellenic and in cult may go back to the pre-Greek periods.

Medusa

-the most famous of the monster figures known as Gorgons. -She was usually represented as a winged female creature having a head of hair consisting of snakes; unlike the Gorgons, she was sometimes represented as very beautiful. -Medusa was the only Gorgon who was mortal; hence her slayer, Perseus, was able to kill her by cutting off her head. -From the blood that spurted from her neck sprang Chrysaor and Pegasus, her two sons by Poseidon. The severed head, which had the power of turning into stone all who looked upon it, was given to Athena, who placed it in her shield; according to another account, Perseus buried it in the marketplace of Argos. -Heracles (Hercules) is said to have obtained a lock of Medusa's hair (which possessed the same powers as the head) from Athena and given it to Sterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection for the town of Tegea against attack; when exposed to view, the lock was supposed to bring on a storm, which put the enemy to flight. -she was the daughter of Phorkys and Keto, the children of Gaea (Earth) and Oceanus (Ocean). She had the face of an ugly woman with snakes instead of hair; anyone who looked into her eyes was immediately turned to stone. Her sisters were Sthenno and Euryale, but Medusa was the only mortal of the three. -She was originally a golden-haired, fair maiden, who, as a priestess of Athena, was devoted to a life of celibacy; however, after being wooed by Poseidon and falling for him, she forgot her vows and married him. -For this offence, she was punished by the goddess in a most terrible manner. Each wavy lock of the beautiful hair that had charmed her husband was changed into a venomous snake; her once gentle, love-inspiring eyes turned into blood-shot, furious orbs, which excited fear and disgust in the mind of the onlooker; whilst her former roseate hue and milk-white skin assumed a loathsome greenish tinge. -Seeing herself transformed into such a repulsive creature, Medusa fled her home, never to return. Wandering about, abhorred, dreaded, and shunned by the rest of the world, she turned into a character worthy of her outer appearance. -In her despair, she fled to Africa, where, while wandering restlessly from place to place, young snakes dropped from her hair; that is how, according to the ancient Greeks, Africa became a hotbed of venomous reptiles. -With the curse of Athena upon her, she turned into stone whomever she gazed upon, till at last, after a life of nameless misery, deliverance came to her in the shape of death, at the hands of Perseus. -Perseus and Medusa: Polydectes heard about Danae and asked her in marriage, but she rejected him. If it wasn't for Perseus, Polydectes would have married Danae by force; so the king decided to create a plan to get rid of the young man. -Polydectes pretended to marry the daughter of his friend. Everybody had to bring a wedding present, including Perseus. However, Perseus, being poor, had not brought anything, and Polydectes pretended to be furious. After a heated discussion, Perseus said he would bring him anything the king would ask; so Polydectes asked for the head of the Gorgon Medusa. -Perseus set forth on his adventure; he wandered for days, searching for the Gorgons lair. One night, in an unknown country he realized how hopeless things were. Medusa was a horrible creature, who had snakes growing out of her head instead of hair, and a terrifying gaze that literary petrified anyone who would look into her eyes. -In his despair, a tall woman and a young man with winged sandals appeared and introduced themselves as goddess Athena and god Hermes. -Hermes said that they were all siblings as Perseus was in fact the son of Zeus, so they would help him in his quest; so Hermes offered him his winged sandals and the sickle that was used by Cronus to castrate Uranus; while Athena gave him her shield, so that Perseus would not have to look straight into Medusa's eyes.

Creon

-the name of two figures in Greek legend. -The first, son of Lycaethus, was king of Corinth and father of Glauce or Creüsa, the second wife of Jason, for whom Jason abandoned Medea. Euripides recounted this legend in his tragedy Medea. -The second, the brother of Jocasta, was successor to Oedipus as king of Thebes. ++++++

Fama

-the personification of popular rumour. Pheme was more a poetic personification than a deified abstraction, although there was an altar in her honour at Athens. -The Greek poet Hesiod portrayed her as an evildoer, easily stirred up but impossible to quell. The Athenian orator Aeschines distinguished Popular Rumour (Pheme) from Slander (Sykophantia) and Malice (Diabole). -In Roman literature she was imaginatively conceived: Virgil described her (Aeneid, Book IV) as a swift, birdlike monster with as many eyes, lips, tongues, and ears as feathers, traveling on the ground but with her head in the clouds. -According to Ovid in the Metamorphoses, she inhabited a reverberating mountaintop palace of brass. +++++

Daphne

-the personification of the laurel, a tree whose leaves, formed into garlands, were particularly associated with Apollo (q.v.). -Traditionally, the special position of the laurel was connected with Apollo's love for her -the beautiful daughter of a river god (probably Ladon) who lived a pastoral existence in either Thessaly, the Peloponnese, or Syria. She is described as Peneus' child in Ovid's Metamorphoses -Peneus was a river god in Greek mythology, and one of the three thousand children of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. He was married to the nymph Creusa, with whom he had a son and three daughters. -At some point, Eros, the god of love, was angry at the god Apollo, who mocked him for his archery skills. So, he shot an arrow to Apollo, making him fall in love with Daphne, one of Peneus' daughters -Eros' plan was that Daphne would reject the god's love. -Daphne asked her father to help her, so Peneus changed her into a laurel tree, which became the sacred tree of god Apollo. -She rejected every lover, including Apollo. -When the god pursued her, she prayed to the Earth or to her father to rescue her, whereupon she was transformed into a laurel. -Apollo appropriated the laurel for poets and, in Rome, for triumphs. She was also loved by Leucippus, who was killed because of Apollo's jealousy

Boreas

-the personification of the north wind. -He carried off the beautiful Oreithyia, a daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens -they lived in Thrace as king and queen of the winds and had two sons, Calais and Zetes, and two daughters, Cleopatra and Chione. -Ovid tells us that the tow sons had their mother's looks until adolescence where they developed wings and became more like their father. -Calais and Zetes became part of the Argonauts with Jason. -To show friendliness toward the Athenians, Herodotus wrote, Boreas wrecked the fleet of the Persian king Xerxes off the beach Sepias in Thessaly; in return the Athenians built him a sanctuary or altar near the Ilissus and held a festival in his honour. -In works of art Boreas was represented as winged, bearded, and powerful; he wears a short, pleated tunic.

Iris

-the personification of the rainbow and (in Homer's Iliad, for example) a messenger of the gods. -According to the Greek poet Hesiod, she was the daughter of Thaumas and the ocean nymph Electra. -In Hesiod's works, at least, she had the additional duty of carrying water from the River Styx in a ewer whenever the gods had to take a solemn oath. -The water would render unconscious for one year any god or goddess who lied. -In art, Iris was normally portrayed with wings, and her attributes were the herald's staff and a vase. She was shown serving wine to the gods or escorting them to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.

Hecuba

-the principal wife of the Trojan king Priam, mother of Hector, and daughter, according to some accounts, of the Phrygian king Dymas. -When Troy was captured by the Greeks, Hecuba was taken prisoner. -Her fate was told in various ways, most of which connected her with the promontory Cynossema (Dog's Monument) on the Hellespont. -According to Euripides (in the Hecuba), her youngest son, Polydorus, had been placed under the care of Polymestor, king of Thrace. -When the Greeks reached the Thracian Chersonese on their way home, she discovered that her son had been murdered and in revenge put out the eyes of Polymestor and murdered his two sons. -Later, she was turned into a dog, and her grave became a mark for ships.

Ithaca

-the second smallest of the seven main Ionian Islands, in the nomós (department) of Kefallinía, Greece. (The smallest is Paxos.) -the island appears to be described in the Odyssey with considerable coincidence of topographic detail. The Homeric "Fountain of Arethusa" has been identified with a copious spring rising at the foot of a sea cliff at the island's southeastern extremity, and counterparts have been sought for such Homeric locales as Mount Neritos, Mount Neion, the harbour of Phorcys, the town and palace of Odysseus, and the cave of the Naiads. Some authorities place the Homeric town on an inlet on the northwestern coast of the island, others at Aëtós on the isthmus.

Charon

-the son of Erebus and Nyx (Night) -duty was to ferry over the Rivers Styx and Acheron those souls of the deceased who had received the rites of burial. -In payment he received the coin that was placed in the mouth of the corpse. -In art, where he was first depicted in an Attic vase dating from about 500 BCE, Charon was represented as a morose and grisly old man. -Charon appears in Aristophanes' comedy Frogs (406 BCE) -Virgil portrayed him in Aeneid, Book VI (1st century BCE) -he is a common character in the dialogues of Lucian (2nd century CE). -In Etruscan mythology he was known as Charun and appeared as a death demon, armed with a hammer. Eventually he came to be regarded as the image of death and of the world below. As such he survives in Charos, or Charontas, the angel of death in modern Greek folklore. +++

Calchas

-the son of Thestor (a priest of Apollo) and the most famous soothsayer among the Greeks at the time of the Trojan War. -played an important role in the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon that begins Homer's Iliad. -According to the lost poems of the Epic Cycle (a collection of at least 13 ancient Greek poems, many of them concerning the Trojan War), Calchas foretold the duration of the siege of Troy, demanded the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, daughter of Agamemnon (king of Mycenae), and advised the construction of the wooden horse with which the Greeks finally took Troy. -It had been predicted that he should die when he met his superior in divination; the prophecy was fulfilled when Calchas met Mopsus (who was the son of Apollo and Manto, the daughter of the blind Theban seer Tiresias), after the war, at Claros in Asia Minor or at Siris in Italy. -Beaten in a trial of soothsaying, Calchas died of chagrin or committed suicide.

Ganymede

-the son of Tros (or Laomedon), king of Troy. Also called Catamitus. -Because of his unusual beauty, he was carried off either by the gods or by Zeus, disguised as an eagle, or, according to a Cretan account, by Minos, to serve as cupbearer. -In compensation, Zeus gave his father a stud of immortal horses (or a golden vine). -The earliest forms of the myth have no erotic content, but by the 5th century BC it was believed that his kidnapper had a homosexual passion for him; his kidnapping was a popular topic on 5th-century Attic vases. -The English word catamite was derived from the popular Latin form of his name. -He was later identified with the constellation Aquarius. -In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ovid describes Jove falling in love with him, saying 'the King of Gods once was fired with love', Hera (Juno) was very jealous of the boy '(Though Juno frowns)'

Diomedes

-the son of Tydeus, the Aetolian hero who was one of the Seven Against Thebes. -Diomedes was the commander of 80 Argive ships and one of the most respected leaders in the Trojan War. His famous exploits include the wounding of Aphrodite, the slaughter of Rhesus and his Thracians, and seizure of the Trojan Palladium, the sacred image of the goddess Pallas Athena that protected Troy. -After the war Diomedes returned home to find that his wife had been unfaithful (Aphrodite's punishment for wounding her) and that his claim to the throne of Argos was disputed. -Aegiale was, in Greek mythology, a daughter of Adrastus and Amphithea, or of Aegialeus the son of Adrastus, whence she bears the surname of Adrastine. She was married to Diomedes, who, on his return from Troy, found her living in adultery with Cometes. The hero attributed this misfortune to the anger of Aphrodite, whom he had wounded in the war against Troy, but when Aegiale went so far as to threaten his life, he fled to Italy -Fleeing for his life, he sailed to Italy and founded Argyripa (later Arpi) in Apulia, eventually making peace with the Trojans. -He was worshipped as a hero in Argos and Metapontum. According to Roman sources, his companions were turned into birds by Aphrodite, and, hostile to all but Greeks, they lived on the Isles of Diomedes off Apulia. -Allegedly also the lover of Cressida, who abandoned Troilus for her love of him, and he was also the suitor of Helen

Artemis (Diana, R)

-the virginal goddess of wild animals, the hunt, and vegetation, and of chastity and childbirth -Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. -Among the rural populace, Artemis was the favourite goddess. -Dances of maidens representing tree nymphs (dryads) were especially common in Artemis' worship as goddess of the tree cult, a role especially popular in the Peloponnese. Throughout the Peloponnese, bearing such epithets as Limnaea and Limnatis (Lady of the Lake), Artemis supervised waters and lush wild growth, attended by nymphs of wells and springs (naiads). In parts of the peninsula her dances were wild and lascivious. -The poets after Homer, however, stressed Artemis' chastity and her delight in the hunt, dancing and music, shadowy groves, and the cities of just men. -The wrath of Artemis was proverbial, for to it myth attributed wild nature's hostility to humans. -born on the island of Ortygia (Delos), where Leto had found shelter after being hunted by the lawful wife of Zeus, Hera. -As soon as Artemis was born, she helped her mother give birth to her twin brother, thereby becoming the protector of childbirth and labour. She asked her father to grant her eternal chastity and virginity, and never gave in to any potential lovers; devoted to hunting and nature, she rejected marriage and love. -She was the protector of nature and the hunt; both wild and tame animals were under her protection. She also protected the agriculture and animal herding. -In the myth of Actaeon, he was a hunting companion of Artemis; at some point, he saw the goddess naked bathing in a spring. As a punishment, Artemis transformed him into a stag and his hounds killed him. In some versions Actaeon tries to rape Artemis. -In the myth of Orion which has various versions, Orion was also a hunting companion of Artemis and the only person to have won her heart. However, he was accidentally killed either by the goddess or by a scorpion which was sent by Gaea. -Callisto was one of the followers of Artemis and thus she had remained a virgin. Zeus, however, changing his form to resemble Artemis, managed to seduce and rape her, impregnating her. Callisto gave birth to Arcas, but later, she was transformed into a bear either by Hera or Artemis. Arcas almost killed his mother, but Zeus stopped him and placed Callisto in the heavens as a constellation. According to other sources, both Callisto and Arcas were turned into the Ursa Minor and the Ursa Major constellations. -In Roman art Diana usually appears as a huntress with bow and quiver, accompanied by a hound or deer.

Hippocrene

-was the name of a spring on Mount Helicon.[2] It was sacred to the Muses and was formed by the hooves of Pegasus. Its name literally translates as "Horse's Fountain". -The water is said to bring forth poetic inspiration when imbibed. -Hesiod refers to the Horse's Spring on Helicon in his poem, Theogony (ll. 1-25) And after they have washed their tender skin in Permessus or in the Horse's Spring or Olmeius, they perform choral dances on highest Helicon, beautiful, lovely ones, and move nimbly with their feet. -Keats also describes the Hippocrene in his poem, Ode to a Nightingale. O for a beaker full of warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, with beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, And leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into forest dim.

Atlantis

Atlantis, also spelled Atalantis or Atlantica, a legendary island in the Atlantic Ocean, lying west of the Straits of Gibraltar. The principal sources for the legend are two of Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. In the former, Plato describes how Egyptian priests, in conversation with the Athenian lawgiver Solon, described Atlantis as an island larger than Asia Minor and Libya combined, and situated just beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar). About 9,000 years before the birth of Solon, the priests said, Atlantis was a rich island whose powerful princes conquered many of the lands of the Mediterranean until they were finally defeated by the Athenians and the latter's allies. The Atlantians eventually became wicked and impious, and their island was swallowed up by the sea as a result of earthquakes. In the Critias, Plato supplied a history of the ideal commonwealth of the Atlantians. The text in the legend on the upper right, translated, states, "The site of Atlantis, now beneath the sea, according to the beliefs of the Egyptians and the description of Plato." Atlantis is probably a mere legend, but medieval European writers who received the tale from Arab geographers believed it to be true, and later writers tried to identify it with an actual country. After the Renaissance, for example, attempts were made to identify Atlantis with America, Scandinavia, and the Canary Islands. The story of Atlantis, if Plato did not invent it, may in fact reflect ancient Egyptian records of a volcanic eruption on the island of Thera about 1500 BCE. This eruption, one of the most stupendous of historical times, was accompanied by a series of earthquakes and tsunamis that shattered civilization on Crete, thereby perhaps giving rise to the legend of Atlantis.

Atlas

Atlas, in Greek mythology, son of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene (or Asia) and brother of Prometheus (creator of humankind). In Homer's Odyssey, Book I, Atlas seems to have been a marine creature who supported the pillars that held heaven and earth apart. These were thought to rest in the sea immediately beyond the most western horizon, but later the name of Atlas was transferred to a range of mountains in northwestern Africa. Atlas was subsequently represented as the king of that district, turned into a rocky mountain by the hero Perseus, who, to punish Atlas for his inhospitality, showed him the Gorgon's head, the sight of which turned men to stone. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Atlas was one of the Titans who took part in their war against Zeus, for which as a punishment he was condemned to hold aloft the heavens. In many works of art he was represented as carrying the heavens (in Classical art from the 6th century BCE) or the celestial globe (in Hellenistic and Roman art).

Aurora (Eos, G)

Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn. The Greeks called her Eos. She was the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and the sister of Helios (the sun god) and Selene (the moon goddess). Every morning, Aurora arose from the sea and rode in her horse-drawn chariot across the sky ahead of the sun, carrying a pitcher from which she sprinkled dew upon the earth. Titan one of a family of giants who ruled the earth until overthrown by the Greek gods of Olympus Aurora's first husband was the Titan Astraeus. They had several sons: the winds Boreas, Eurus, Notus, and Zephyrus as well as the morning star Eosphorus and the evening star Hesperus. Aurora's beauty caused Mars, the god of war, to take an interest in her. This angered Venus (Aphrodite) *, who caused Aurora to fall in love with a number of mortals. She married one of them, Tithonus, and begged Zeus * to make him immortal. Zeus granted her wish, but she had forgotten to ask for Tithonus's eternal youth too. As a result, he continued to age until he became decrepit and shriveled. Aurora shut him away in his room until the gods finally took pity on him and turned him into a cicada. Eos was also represented as the lover of the hunter Orion and of the youthful hunter Cephalus, by whom she was the mother of Phaethon (not the same as the son of Helios). Her most famous lover was the Trojan Tithonus, for whom she gained from Zeus the gift of immortality but forgot to ask for eternal youth. As a result, Tithonus grew ever older and weaker, but he could not die. In works of art Eos is represented as a young woman, usually winged, either walking fast with a youth in her arms or rising from the sea in a chariot drawn by winged horses; sometimes, as the goddess who dispenses the dews of the morning, she has a pitcher in each hand. Eos, (Greek), Roman Aurora, in Greco-Roman mythology, the personification of the dawn. According to the Greek poet Hesiod's Theogony, she was the daughter of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia and sister of Helios, the sun god, and Selene, the moon goddess. By the Titan Astraeus she was the mother of the winds Zephyrus, Notus, and Boreas, and of Hesperus (the Evening Star) and the other stars; by Tithonus of Assyria she was the mother of Memnon, king of the Ethiopians, who was slain by Achilles at Troy. She bears in Homer's works the epithet Rosy-Fingered. In Latin writings the name Aurora was used (e.g., by Virgil) for the east.

Hamadryads

Dryad, also called hamadryad, in Greek mythology, a nymph or nature spirit who lives in trees and takes the form of a beautiful young woman. Dryads were originally the spirits of oak trees (drys: "oak"), but the name was later applied to all tree nymphs. It was believed that they lived only as long as the trees they inhabited.

Gorgon

Homer spoke of a single Gorgon—a monster of the underworld. -The later Greek poet Hesiod increased the number of Gorgons to three—Stheno (the Mighty), Euryale (the Far Springer), and Medusa (the Queen)—and made them the daughters of the sea god Phorcys and of his sister-wife Ceto. -The Attic tradition regarded the Gorgon as a monster produced by Gaea, the personification of Earth, to aid her sons against the gods. -In early classical art the Gorgons were portrayed as winged female creatures; their hair consisted of snakes, and they were round-faced, flat-nosed, with tongues lolling out and with large projecting teeth. -Medusa—who in later art is depicted as beautiful although deadly—was the only one of the three who was mortal; hence, Perseus was able to kill her by cutting off her head. -From the blood that ran from her neck sprang Chrysaor and Pegasus, her two offspring by Poseidon. -Medusa's severed head had the power of turning all who looked upon it into stone. -The severed head, which had the power of turning into stone all who looked upon it, was given to Athena, who placed it in her shield -According to another account, Perseus buried it in the marketplace of Argos. -Heracles (Hercules) is said to have obtained a lock of Medusa's hair (which possessed the same powers as the head) from Athena and given it to Sterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection for the town of Tegea against attack; when exposed to view, the lock was supposed to bring on a storm, which put the enemy to flight. -Carved masks of the hideously grotesque type of the Gorgon's head were used as a protection against the evil eye.

Lotos Eaters

In the Odyssey, Book 9, it tells of a a storm sent by Zeus that sweeps Odysseus and his crew along for nine days before bringing them to the land of the Lotus-eaters, where the natives give some of Odysseus's men the intoxicating fruit of the lotus. As soon as they eat this fruit, they lose all thoughts of home and long for nothing more than to stay there eating more fruit. Only by dragging his men back to the ship and locking them up can Odysseus get them off the island. -Alfred Tennyson wrote a poem about it. The mariners are greeted by the "mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters," whose dark faces appear pale against the rosy sunset. These Lotos-eaters come bearing the flower and fruit of the lotos, which they offer to Odysseus's mariners. Those who eat the lotos feel as if they have fallen into a deep sleep; they sit down upon the yellow sand of the island and can hardly perceive their fellow mariners speaking to them, hearing only the music of their heartbeat in their ears. Although it has been sweet to dream of their homes in Ithaca, the lotos makes them weary of wandering, preferring to linger here. One who has eaten of the lotos fruit proclaims that he will "return no more," and all of the mariners begin to sing about this resolution to remain in the land of the Lotos-eaters. The rest of the poem consists of the eight numbered stanzas of the mariners' choric song, expressing their resolution to stay forever.

Melpomene

one of the nine Muses, patron of tragedy and lyre playing. In Greek art her attributes were the tragic mask and the club of Heracles. According to some traditions, the half-bird, half-woman Sirens were born from the union of Melpomene with the river god Achelous.

Leander

one of two lovers celebrated in Greek legend. Hero, virgin priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos, was seen at a festival by (...) of Abydos; they fell in love, and he swam the Hellespont at night to visit her, guided by a light from her tower. One stormy night the light was extinguished, and he was drowned; Hero, seeing his body, drowned herself likewise.

Iulus

son of the hero Aeneas and the traditional founder of Alba Longa, probably the site of the modern Castel Gandolfo, near Rome. In different versions, Ascanius is placed variously in time. The usual account, found in Virgil's Aeneid, makes the Trojan Creusa his mother. After the fall of Troy, Ascanius and Aeneas escaped to Italy. Ascanius set off a war between the Trojans and the Latins by wounding the pet stag of Silvia, the daughter of the royal herdsman. Aeneas won the war, slew the Latin commander, Turnus, and married Lavinia, the daughter of King Latinus. Aeneas subsequently founded Lavinium, the parent city of Alba Longa and Rome. Ascanius became king of Lavinium after his father's death. Thirty years after Lavinium was built, Ascanius founded Alba Longa and ruled it until he died. In the Roman historian Livy's account, however, Ascanius was born after the founding of Lavinium and was the son of Aeneas and Lavinia. Ascanius was also called Iulus, and through him by that name the gens Julia (including the family of Julius Caesar) traced its descent.