Ap Literature/Greek Mythology

Prometheus

A Titan in Greek mythology, best known as the deity in Greek mythology who was the creator of mankind and its greatest benefactor, who stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind.

Narcissus

A beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool. Because he was unable to tear himself away from the image, he wasted away and died.

Halcyon

A bird which had the power to calm the rough ocean waves every December so she could nest. Like those calm waters, halcyon has come to mean a sense of peace or tranquility.

Pandora's Box

A box given to pandora which contained all the evils of the world.

Centaur

A creature with the head, arms, and torso of a man and the body and legs of a horse.

Lethos

A daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, the sister of Asteria, and the mother, by Zeus, of Apollo and Artemis

River Styx

A deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld (the domain often called Hades, which also is the name of its ruler.

Chimera

A fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.

Jason

A hero, the leader of the Argonauts, who at the request of his uncle Pelias retrieved the Golden Fleece from King Aeëtes of Colchis with the help of Medea.

Trojan Horse

A hollow wooden statue of a horse in which the Greeks concealed themselves in order to enter Troy.

Pygmalion

A king of Cyprus who carved and then fell in love with a statue of a woman, which Aphrodite brought to life as Galatea.

King Midas

A king who was granted one wish by the god Dionysus. Greedy for riches, Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold.

Atlantis

A legendary island in the Atlantic Ocean west of Gibraltar, said by Plato to have sunk beneath the sea during an earthquake.

Sisyphus

A legendary king of Corinth condemned eternally to repeatedly roll a heavy rock up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again as it nears the top.

Hydra

A many-headed serpent or monster that was slain by Hercules and each head of which when cut off was replaced by two others.

Argus

A monster with a hundred eyes, used by Hera to watch over Io. He was killed by Hermes, and Hera then used his eyes to deck the peacock's tail.

Oedipus

A son of Laius and Jocasta, who was abandoned at birth and unwittingly killed his father and then married his mother.

Perseus

A son of Zeus and Danaë and slayer of Medusa.

Medea

A sorceress from Colchis who helped Jason gain the Golden Fleece. They were married, but eventually Jason left her for another woman. For revenge Medea slew Jason's new lover and also had her own children by Jason killed.

Leda and the Swan

A story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda.

Phoenix

A unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.

Pegasus

A winged divine stallion also known as a horse usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa.

Icarus

A youth who attempted to escape from Crete with wings of wax and feathers but flew so high that his wings melted from the heat of the sun, and he plunged to his death in the sea

Deadalus

An Athenian architect who built the labyrinth for Minos and made wings for himself and his son Icarus to escape from Crete.

Odyssey

An ancient Greek epic by Homer that recounts the adventures of Odysseus during his return from the war in Troy to his home in the Greek island of Ithaca.

Antigone

Antigone was the daughter 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, Antigone and her sister Ismene served as Oedipus' guides, following him from Thebes into exile until his death near Athens.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.

Apollo

Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto and the twin of Artemis. He was the god of prophecy, medicine, music, art, law, beauty, and wisdom.

Gorgon

Each of three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, with snakes for hair, who had the power to turn anyone who looked at them to stone

Eros

Eros was the son of Aphrodite. As the Greek god of love he excited erotic love in gods and mortals with his arrows and torches.

Helen of Troy

Helen of Troy was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. her abduction by Paris was the cause of the Trojan war.

Mnemonics

Meaning "of memory, or relating to memory" and is related to Mnemosyne ("remembrance"), the name of the goddess of memory.

Hector

One of the Trojan champions who fought against the Greeks

Orpheus and Eurydice

Orpheus was Eurydice's husband and when Eurydice died, Orpheus went to the underworld and made a deal with Hades to get her back. he could take her back as long as he did not look at her on the way out. He looked at her at the last moment and lost her forever.

Cupid and Psyche

Psyche was a beautiful girl who Venus grew envious of, so she sent Cupid to make her fall in love with the most vile man but Cupid saw her beauty and shot himself with the arrow and fell in love with psyche.

Phyrrhic Victory

Pyrrhus, who defeated the Romans at Asculum in 279 bc but suffered heavy losses.

Aeolian

Relating to or arising from the action of the wind.

Tantalus

Son of Zeus or Tmolus (a ruler of Lydia) and Pluto (daughter of Cronus and Rhea) and the father of Niobe and Pelops. He was the king of Sipylus in Lydia (or of Phrygia) and was the intimate friend of the gods, to whose table he was admitted.

Morpheus

The God of Dreams, the one with the amazing ability of appearing in dreams of mortals in any form.

Muse

The Greek goddesses of inspiration in literature, science and the arts. They were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (the personification of memory), and they were also considered water nymphs.

Electra

The daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who incited her brother Orestes to kill Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

Mount Olympus

The dwelling of the Olympian Gods and it was created after the Titanomachy, the battle during which the Olympians defeated their predecessors, the Titans.

Golden Fleece

The fleece of the gold-hair winged ram, which was held in Colchis. The fleece is a symbol of authority and kingship.

Furies

The furies were a spirit of punishment, often represented as one of three goddesses who executed the curses pronounced upon criminals, tortured the guilty with stings of conscience, and inflicted famines and pestilences

Vulcan

The god of fire including the fire of volcanoes, metalworking, and the forge in ancient Roman religion and myth. Vulcan is often depicted with a blacksmith's hammer.

Mercury/Hermes

The messenger of the Greek and Roman gods.

Theseus

The mythical king of Athens and was the son of Aethra by two fathers: Aegeus and Poseidon.

Neptune

The name that ancient Romans gave to the Greek god of the sea and earthquakes, Poseidon. He was the brother of Jupiter (Zeus) and of Pluto (Hades).

Athena

The patron goddess of Athens, worshiped as the goddess of wisdom, handicrafts, and warfare. She is often allegorized into a personification of wisdom. Also called Pallas.

Hercules

The son of Zeus and Alcmene, possessing exceptional strength: among his many adventures were the twelve labors for his cousin Eurystheus, performed in order to gain immortality.

Zeus

The supreme deity of the ancient Greeks, a son of Cronus and Rhea, brother of Demeter, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Poseidon, and father of a number of gods, demigods, and mortals; the god of the heavens, identified by the Romans with Jupiter.

Titans

Titans were a race of gods.

Pyramus and Thisbe

Two star crossed lovers who decided to run away together but instead ended up committing suicide.

Bacchus

the Greek god of wine —called also Dionysus.

Calliope

the muse who presides over eloquence and epic poetry; so called from the ecstatic harmony of her voice. She is spoken of by Ovid as the "Chief of all Muses."