P RIMORDIAL B EINGS G ODS EREBUS The darkness. Son of Chaos. Father of Moros. Father (by Nyx) of Charon, Hypnos, Thanatos and the Hesperides. GAIA The earth. Daughter of Chaos. Mother of Ouranos and Pontus. Mother (by Ouranos) of the Cyclopes and the first generation of TITANS. Mother (by Ouranos’s blood and seed) of the Furies and the GIANTS. Mother (by Pontus) of Charybdis, Nereus and Phorcys and Ceto. Mother (by Poseidon) of Antaeus. Mother (by Tartarus) of Echidna and Typhon. Creator of the harpe sickle used to castrate Ouranos. NYX Night. Daughter of Chaos. Mother (by Erebus) of Charon, Hypnos, Thanatos and the Hesperides. OURANOS The sky. Son of Gaia. Father (by Gaia) of the Cyclopes and the first generation of TITANS. Castrated by Kronos. Progenitor from his blood and seed of Aphrodite and (by Gaia) the Furies and the GIANTS. TARTARUS The hidden deeps. Son of Chaos. Father (by Gaia) of Echidna and Typhon.
T ITANS (C HILDREN OF G AIA AND O URANOS ) KRONOS King of the Gods. Father (by Rhea) and consumer of OLYMPIAN GODS. Castrator of Ouranos. Overthrown by Zeus. OCEANUS God of the sea (‘the River of Ocean’). Father (by Tethys) of the Oceanids and of Achelous and Nilus. Grandfather of the Nereids, the numberless progeny of the Oceanids, and of Atlas, Prometheus and Zeus. RHEA Wife of Kronos. Mother of OLYMPIAN GODS. Conceals the existence of Zeus from Kronos so that he can overthrow his father and free his siblings. TETHYS Goddess of the sea. Mother (by Oceanus) of the Oceanids and of Achelous and Nilus. Grandmother of the Nereids and of Atlas, Geryon, Prometheus and Zeus.
T ITANS (L ater G ENERATIONS ) ACHELOUS River god. Son of Oceanus and Tethys. Brother of Nilus and the Oceanids. Father (by the Muse Melpomene) of the Sirens. Wrestles Heracles for Deianira’s hand, and loses. Gives Heracles the Horn of Plenty. ATLAS Supporter of the heavens. Son of Iapetus and Clymene. Brother of Prometheus. Father of the Pleiades. Outwitted by Heracles. HECATE Goddess of witchcraft and enchantments. Daughter of Perses and Asteria. Thought by some to be mother of Scylla. Venerated by Medea. HELIOS God of the sun. Son of Hyperion and Theia. Brother of Selene. Father of Aeëtes, Circe and Pasiphae (by the Oceanid Perseis), and Augeas. Grandfather (with Gaia) of Theophane. Possessor of Ocean-going cup and herd of magnificent cattle. Abettor of Heracles. Theft of his cattle by Alcyoneus sparks the Gigantomachy. NILUS God of the River Nile. Son of Oceanus and Tethys. Brother of Achelous and the Oceanids. Forebear of Andromeda, Cadmus, Minos and Perseus. PROMETHEUS Creator and friend of humans. Son of Iapetus and Clymene. Brother of Atlas. Stealer of the divine fire. Freed from eternal punishment by Heracles. Accepted back onto Olympus by Zeus. Fights on the side of the OLYMPIAN GODS during the Gigantomachy. SELENE Goddess of the moon. Daughter of Hyperion and Theia. Sister of Helios. GIANTS (Offspring of Gaia and Ouranos) ALCYONEUS Brother of Porphyrion. Theft of Helios’s cattle sparks the Gigantomachy. Attempts to rape Hera. Buried by Heracles under Mount Vesuvius. ENCELADUS Most powerful of all the giants. Survives the Gigantomachy. Imprisoned by Athena under Mount Etna. EURYMEDON King of the Giants. Attempt to rape Hera during the Gigantomachy thwarted by Heracles. Stunned by Zeus’s thunderbolt and slain by Heracles. PORPHYRION Brother of Alcyoneus. Attempt to rape Hera during the Gigantomachy thwarted by Heracles. Stunned by Zeus’s thunderbolt and slain by Heracles.
O THER C HILDREN OF G AIA CYCLOPES Arges, Brontes and Steropes. One-eyed giants. Sons of Ouranos and Gaia. Brothers of the Furies, the GIANTS and the first generation of TITANS. Servants of Hephaestus. Forgers of the thunderbolts of Zeus. Slain by Apollo in revenge for the smiting of Asclepius. FURIES Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone. Daughters of Gaia and Ouranos’s blood and seed. Sisters of the Cyclopes, the GIANTS and the first generation of TITANS. Remorseless goddesses of retribution, especially against those guilty of blood crimes. Also known as the Erinyes or Eumenides. NEREUS Shape-shifting ‘Old man of the Sea’. Son of Gaia and Pontus. Brother of Charybdis and Phorcys and Ceto. Father (by the Oceanid Doris) of the Nereids. Wrestling partner of Heracles. PHORCYS AND CETO Gods of the sea. Children of Gaia and Pontus. Siblings of Charybdis and Nereus. Parents of the Gorgons and the Graeae. PYTHON Giant serpentine guardian of the Omphalos at Delphi. Slain by Apollo, who establishes the oracle of the Pythia in atonement. Offspring of Erebus and Nyx CHARON Ferryman of the underworld, who transports dead souls across the River Styx. Charmed by the music of Orpheus. HESPERIDES The three nymphs of the evening. Keen gardeners; producers of immortality-bestowing apples. HYPNOS Sleep. Father of Morpheus. MOIRAI The three Fates: Clotho, who spins the thread of life; Lachesis, who measures its length; and Atropos, who cuts it. Agree with Apollo not to cut the thread of Admetus’s life if another volunteers to die in his place. Foretell Meleager’s life will be the duration of a flaming brand. MOROS Doom or Destiny. All-powerful, all-knowing controller of the cosmos. Most feared entity in creation, even by immortals. MORPHEUS God of dreams. Son of Hypnos. THANATOS Death. Servant of Hades and psychopomp. Wrestles Heracles for the soul of Alcestis (and loses).
O THER I MMORTALS ARISTAEUS Minor god of rustic matters. Son of Apollo and Cyrene. Immortal brother of Idmon, and half-brother of Apollo’s other progeny. Husband of Autonoë. Father of Actaeon. Tragically besotted with Eurydice. CHIRON Greatest and wisest of centaurs. Son of Kronos and the Oceanid Phylira. Grandfather of Peleus and Telamon. Healer. Tutor of heroes, including Achilles, Asclepius, Jason and Thessalus. Tends to Pegasus’s Chimera burns. Possible victim of Lernaean Hydra blood. Catasterized as Sagittarius. CYBELE Phrygian mother goddess, often associated by the Greeks with Gaia, Rhea (the mother, by Kronos, of OLYMPIAN GODS) or Artemis. Punisher of Atalanta and Hippomenes. EILEITHYIA Goddess of childbirth. Daughter of Zeus and Hera. Half-sister of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Fails to prevent birth of Heracles. EROS Youthful god of sexual desire. Son of Ares and Aphrodite. Brother of Phobos. Leader of the Erotes. Possessor of devastating bow and arrows. GLAUCUS Former fisherman turned god of distressed seamen. Prophecies prevent the Argonauts from turning back after they abandoned Heracles and Polyphemus. In later traditions, member of a tragically romantic love triangle with Circe and Scylla. GRAEAE Dino, Enyo and Pemphredo. Also known as the Phorcides. Daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. Sisters of the Gorgons. Cousins of Iris and the Graeae. Joint possessors of a single eye and tooth, information of value to Perseus, and seemingly not much else. HEBE Cupbearer of Hera and goddess of youth. Daughter of Zeus and Hera. Half-sister of Zeus’s plethora of progeny, not least Heracles; his wife after his apotheosis. HYMEN Also known as Hymenaios. Youthful god of wedding ceremonies; one of Eros’s retinue of Erotes. Son of Apollo and the muse Urania. Half-brother of Apollo’s other progeny. Cousin of the Sirens. Spoils his half-brother Orpheus’s wedding to Eurydice. IRIS Goddess of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. Daughter of the sea god Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra. Sister of the Harpies. Cousin of the Gorgons and the Graeae. Protects her sisters from attack by Calais and Zetes. MUSES Nine daughters of Zeus and the TITANESS Mnemosyne (Memory). Goddesses of poetry, song and dance, and learning. Half-sisters of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. They include: Calliope, Muse of epic poetry, and mother (by Apollo) of Linus and Orpheus; Melpomene, Muse of tragedy, and mother (by Achelous) of the Sirens; Terpsichore, Muse of dance; Thalia, Muse of comedy; and Urania, Muse of astronomy, and mother (by Apollo) of Hymen. NEPHELE Cloud goddess and goddess of xenia. Created by Zeus to decoy Ixion from Hera. Forebear (with Ixion) of the centaurs. Wife of Athamas. Mother of Phrixus and Helle. Sends golden ram to rescue them from Ino’s murderous plot. NEREIDS Sea nymphs. Daughters of Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. Cousins of Poseidon, and share his palace. Givers of gifts and hospitality, some say, to Theseus. OCEANIDS Sea nymphs. Daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. Sisters of Achelous and Nilus. Cousins of Poseidon. They include: Callirrhoë, mother (by Chrysaor) of Geryon; Doris, mother (by Nereus) of the Nereids; Electra, mother (by Thaumas) of Iris and the Harpies; Idyia, mother (by her nephew Aeëtes) of Absyrtus, Chalciope and Medea; Metis, mother (by Zeus) of Athena; Perseis, mother (by Helios) of Aeëtes, Circe and Pasiphae; Pleione, mother (by Atlas) of the Pleiades. PERSEPHONE Also known as Kore. Queen of the Underworld and goddess of spring. Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Half-sister of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Abducted and married by Hades, with whom she spends six months of every year. Persuades him to allow Orpheus the chance to bring Eurydice back from the dead. Target of unsuccessful kidnapping plot by Pirithous and Theseus. Worshipped in the Eleusinian Mysteries. PHOBOS Terror. Son of Ares and Aphrodite. Brother of Eros. Likely to be present at encounters between ordinary mortals and the heroes, gods and monsters of this book. PLEIADES Seven heavenly daughters of Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione. They include: Electra, mother (by Zeus) of Dardanus and Harmonia; Maia, mother (by Zeus) of Hermes; Merope, mother (by Sisyphus) of Glaucus of Corinth; Sterope, mother (by Oenomaus) of Hippodamia. Taygeta, ancestor (with Zeus) of Tyndareus.
M ONSTERS P RIMORDIAL M ONSTERS CHARYBDIS Monstrous creator of an inescapable whirlpool. Daughter of Gaia and Pontus. Sister of Nereus and Phorcys and Ceto. Believed by some to have been the mother of Scylla, from whom she is generally inseparable in myth. Avoided by Jason.fn2 ECHIDNA Daughter of Gaia and Tartarus. Sister of Typhon. Half woman, half water snake. GORGONS Stheno and Euryale. Daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. Sisters of the Graeae. Cousins of Iris and the Harpies. Companions of Medusa. Possessors of boar-like tusks, brass claws and snaky hair. HARPIES Aello and Ocypete. Daughters of the sea god Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra. Sisters of Iris. Cousins of the Gorgons and the Graeae. Ravenous birdwomen sent by Zeus to torment Phineus of Salmydessus. Driven away by Calais and Zetes during the quest for the Golden Fleece. Protected by Iris. TYPHON Giant serpentine son of Gaia and Tartarus. Brother of Echidna. First and worst of all monsters.
O FFSPRING OF T YPHON AND E CHIDNA CAUCASIAN EAGLE Sent by Zeus to tear out Prometheus’s liver. Slain by Heracles. CERBERUS Tricephalic canine guardian of the gates of hell. Borrowed by Heracles. Charmed by Orpheus. CHIMERA Fire-breathing snaky-tailed lion–goat hybrid. Slain by Bellerophon. COLCHIAN DRAGON Sleepless guardian of the Golden Fleece. Mesmerized by Medea. CROMMYONIAN SOW Also known as Phaea. Said by some to be the mother of the Calydonian Boar. Slain and eaten by Theseus. LADON Hundred-headed draconian guardian of the Apples of the Hesperides. Slain by Heracles.fn3 LERNAEAN HYDRA Polycephalic self-regenerative venomous-blooded serpentine guardian of the gates of hell. Slain by Heracles with the assistance of Iolaus. Blood involved in the deaths of the GIANTS and of Eurytion, Geryon, Nessus, Pholus and Heracles. NEMEAN LION Slain, skinned and worn by Heracles. ORTHRUS Bicephalic canine guardian of Geryon’s cattle. Slain by Heracles. SCYLLA Six-headed sea monster. Believed by some to have been the daughter of Charybdis or Hecate. In later traditions, member of a tragically romantic love triangle with Circe and the sea god Glaucus. Generally inseparable in myth from Charybdis. Avoided by Jason.fn4 SPHINX Woman’s-headed lion-bodied bird-winged monster with limited sense of humour. Sent by Hera to punish Thebes in fulfilment of Pelops’s curse on Laius and his line. Fatally outsmarted by Oedipus.
O THER M ONSTERS AND C REATURES ANTAEUS North African half-giant and wrestling aficionado. Son of Gaia and Poseidon. Half-brother of Gaia’s and Poseidon’s respective progenies Slain by Heracles. CALYDONIAN BOAR Giant baby-eating bane of Aetolia. Said by some to be offspring of the Crommyonian Sow. Sent by Artemis to punish the family of Oeneus for neglecting her worship in favour of Dionysus. Hunted by heroes including Admetus, Asclepius, the Dioscuri, Jason, Nestor, Peleus, Pirithous, Telamon, Theseus and the Thestiades. Slayer of Alcon, Enaesimus, Hippasus, Hyleus and Pelagon. Slain by Atalanta and Meleager. CERYNEIAN HIND Golden-horned, brass-footed deer. Sacred to Artemis. Briefly captured by Heracles. CETUS Sea dragon. Sent by Poseidon to punish Ethiopia and devour Andromeda. Slain by Perseus. CHRYSAOR Golden youth. Offspring of Medusa (by Poseidon). Brother of Pegasus; half-brother of the rest of Poseidon’s progeny. Father (by the Oceanid Callirrhoë) of Geryon. CRETAN BULL Also known as the Marathonian Bull, or the Bull from the Sea. Creature of Poseidon sent in answer to the prayers of Minos II. Father (by Pasiphae) of the Minotaur. Tamed by Heracles, brought to mainland Greece and released. Tamed and sacrificed by Theseus. Athenian tribute to the Minotaur compensation for Aegeus’s role in the bull’s slaying of (his half-uncle) Androgeus. ERYMANTHIAN BOAR Giant suidian terror of Arcadia. Popular with pot painters. Captured by Heracles. EURYTION Giant son of Ares. Herdsman of Geryon. Slain by Heracles. EURYTION Thessalian centaur. His drunken overtures to Pirithous’s wife at their wedding responsible for the Centauromachy. GERYON Three-bodied vicious-tempered cattle-breeder of Erytheia. Son of Chrysaor and the Oceanid Callirrhoë. Master of Eurytion and Orthrus. Slain by Heracles. GOLDEN RAM Bearer of the Golden Fleece. Offspring of Poseidon and Theophane. Half-brother of Poseidon’s other progeny, including Pelias. Sent by Nephele to rescue Phrixus and Helle from Ino’s murderous plot. Bears Phrixus to Colchis. Sacrificed by Phrixus to Zeus, who catasterizes him as Aries. His Golden Fleece sacred to Hera, but presented to Aeëtes. Stolen and returned to Greece by Jason and Medea with the assistance of the Argonauts Acastus, Ancaeus, Argus, Augeas, Butes, Calais and Zetes, the Dioscuri, Euphemus, Euryton, Heracles, Hylas, Idmon, Meleager, Nestor, Orpheus, Peleus, Philoctetes, the Phrixides, Pirithous, Polyphemus, Telamon and Tiphys. KHALKOTAUROI Two fire-breathing bronze-hoofed bulls. Created by Hephaestus. Kept by Aeëtes. Tamed and yoked by Jason. MARES OF DIOMEDES Dinos, Lampon, Podargos and Xanthus. Insane anthropophagous fire-breathing equines. Devour Abderus. Fed their owner Diomedes by Heracles, who tames them. Ancestors of Bucephalus. MEDUSA Gorgon. Daughter of Poseidon. Possessor of snaky hair and petrifying stare. Slain by Perseus. Progenitor of Chrysaor and Pegasus. Posthumous petrifier of Cetus, Phineus and Polydectes. Head transformed into the Aegis of Athena. MINOTAUR True name Asterion. Takes after both his parents: the Cretan Bull and Pasiphae. Half-brother of Androgeus, Ariadne, Deucalion and Phaedra. Imprisoned in the labyrinth of Daedalus. Recipient of the Athenian tribute demanded by his stepfather Minos II for the slaying of his half-brother Androgeus by his father the Cretan Bull. Unsurprising identity issues resolved (terminally) by Theseus. NESSUS Arcadian centaur. Survivor of the massacre by Heracles at Pholus’s cave. Later killed by Heracles when he molests Deianira. Posthumously obtains his revenge thanks to his shirt. PEGASUS Winged white horse. Offspring of Medusa (by Poseidon). Brother of Chrysaor; half-brother of the rest of Poseidon’s progeny, including Bellerophon. Aids Bellerophon in slaying the Chimera and in subduing the Amazons, the Solymi and Cheimarrhus. Healed by Chiron of his Chimera burns. Tries (and fails) to carry Bellerophon up to Olympus. Catasterized. PHAEA Terrorizer of travellers on the Isthmus. Alter ego, or keeper, of the Crommyonian Sow. PHOLUS Arcadian centaur. Friend and host of Heracles. Accidentally poisoned with Lernaean Hydra blood. SIRENS Birdwomen whose enchanting song lures sailors to their doom. Daughters of Achelous and the Muse Melpomene. Cousins of Hymen, Linus and Orpheus. Out-sung by Orpheus to give the Argonauts safe passage. TALOS Giant bronze automaton. Created by Daedalus or Hephaestus, or the offspring of the Meliae nymphs. Guardian of Crete. Encountered by the Argonauts. Mesmerized by Medea. Destroyed by Pirithous.
M ORTALS M EN ABDERUS Son of Hermes. Page and lover of Heracles. Devoured by the Mares of Diomedes. City of Abdera founded by Heracles in his honour. ABSYRTUS Son of Aeëtes and Idyia. Brother of Chalciope and Medea. Dismembered by Medea to delay Aeëtes pursuit of the Argonauts. ACAMAS AND DEMOPHON Sons of Theseus and Phaedra. Rescuers of Aethra during the fall of Troy. ACASTUS Son of Pelias. Brother of the Peliades. Possibly one of the Argonauts. Holds magnificent funeral games to honour Pelias. Succeeds to the throne of Iolcos after turning its people against Jason and Medea. Tricked by his wife Astydameia into trying to murder Peleus. Overthrown by Jason (at Peleus’s instigation). ACRISIUS King of Argos. Brother of Proetus. Father of Danaë. Distant cousin of Aegyptus, Cepheus and Phineus. Accidentally slain by his grandson Perseus. ADMETUS King of Pherae. Son of Pheres. Famed for his hospitality and kindness to strangers. Master and lover of Apollo. Husband of Alcestis. Their wedding night spoiled by Artemis’s snakes in their bed. Accepts Alcestis’s offer to die on his behalf and fulfil Apollo’s scheme to make him immortal, until Heracles brings her back from death. Hunter of the Calydonian Boar. AEACUS King of Aegina. Son of Zeus and Aegina. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Husband of Chiron’s daughter. Father of Peleus and Telamon. With his half-brothers Minos I and Rhadamanthus, one of the three Judges of the Underworld. Charmed by the music of Orpheus. AEËTES King of Colchis. Son of Helios and the Oceanid Perseis. Brother of Circe and Pasiphae. Husband of (his aunt) the Oceanid Idyia. Father of Absyrtus, Chalciope and Medea. Distrustful grandfather of the Phrixides. Custodian of the Golden Fleece. Owner of the Colchian Dragon and the Khalkotauroi. Sets Jason tasks to fulfil in order to acquire it. AEGYPTUS Grandson of Libya and Poseidon. Brother of Cepheus and Phineus. Father of Busiris. AEGEUS King of Athens. Husband of Medea. Father (by Aethra) of Theseus, and (by Medea) of Medus. Uncle of the Pallantidae. Employs the Cretan Bull to rid him of Androgeus. Tries the same with Theseus, then Medea’s poison, before recognizing his son. Sends Theseus as part of the tribute demanded by Minos II for his role in the death of Androgeus. Fatal victim of filial forgetfulness. Site of his death named ‘Aegean Sea’ after him. AESON Rightful king of Iolcos. Son of Cretheus and Tyro. Brother of Pheres; half-brother of Neleus and Pelias. Husband of Alcimede. Father of Jason and Promachus. Deposed and imprisoned (with Alcimede) by Pelias. Entrusts Jason to Chiron. Either murdered by Pelias, or driven to murder-suicide with Alcimede and Promachus by Pelias, while Jason absent on the quest for the Golden Fleece. ALCINOUS King of the Phaeacians. Husband (and uncle) of Arete. Kind-hearted and protective host of Jason, Medea and the Argonauts. ALCON Spartan prince. Son of Ares and Hippocöon of Amykles. Slain (messily) by the Calydonian Boar. AMPHION AND ZETHUS Usurper kings of Thebes. Twin sons of Zeus and Antiope (sister-in-law of Polydorus). Half-brothers of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Assist Cadmus in constructing the walls and citadel of Thebes. Overthrow their kinsman Labdacus and rule in his place. AMPHITRYON Grandson of Perseus and Andromeda. Husband of Alcmene. Exiled to Thebes for killing his uncle/father-in-law Electryon. Father of Iphicles and Laonome. ANCAEUS King of Samos. Son of Lycurgus of Arcadia. Brother of Iasus. Possible uncle of Atalanta. Joins the Argonaut. Succeeds Tiphys as helmsman of the Argo. Navigates the Wandering Rocks. ANDROGEUS Cretan prince. Son of Minos II and Pasiphae. Brother of Ariadne, Deucalion and Phaedra. Half-brother of the Minotaur. While guest of Aegeus, slain by (his half-uncle) the Cretan Bull. Athenian tribute to the Minotaur compensation for his death. ANTIMEDES Trusted servant and facilitator of Laius. At his command exposes the infant Oedipus. Later discloses to Oedipus vital clues as to his true identity. ARGUS Prince of Argos and shipwright. Joins the Argonauts. Aided by Athena in constructing the Argo (named in his honour). ASCLEPIUS Master of healing. Son of Apollo and Coronis. Half-brother of Apollo’s other progeny. Kinsman of Caenis and Polyphemus. Raised by Chiron. Temporarily slain by Zeus for his hubris in resurrecting the dead. Hunter of the Calydonian Boar. Later immortalized. Catasterized as Ophiuchus. ATHAMAS King of Boeotia. Grandson of Hellen. Brother of Cretheus, Salmoneus and Sisyphus. Husband of Nephele, Ino and Themisto. Father of Phrixus and Helle (by Nephele); of Learchus and Melicertes (by Ino); and of Schoeneus (by Themisto). Tricked by Ino into attempting to sacrifice Phrixus and Helle. Kills Learchus and drives Ino and Melicertes to suicide. ATREUS Son of Pelops and Hippodamia. Brother of Nicippe, Pittheus and Thyestes; half-brother (and, some think, murderer) of Chrysippus. Installed as King of Mycenae by Hyllus and the Heraclides. Father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Scion and forebear of much-cursed houses. AUGEAS King of Elis. Son of Helios. Father of Phyleus. Uncle of Eurytus and Cteatus. Kinsman of Tiphys. Possessor of immortal cattle and filthy stables. Tricks Heracles; later slain by him in revenge. One of the Argonauts. AUTOLYCUS Light-fingered son of Hermes. Father of Eumolus (musical supply teacher of Heracles). Grandfather of Odysseus. BELLEROPHON ‘The slayer of monsters’. Son of Eurynome and either Glaucus of Corinth or Poseidon. (Half-)brother of Deliades, whom he fatally mistakes for a boar. Possible half-brother of Poseidon’s other progeny, including Pegasus, whom he tames with Athena’s golden bridle. Cousin of Jason. Briefly betrothed to Aethra. Fitted up by Proetus and Stheneboea. Slayer of the Chimera. Subduer of the Amazons, Solymi and Cheimarrhus. Repelled from Xanthus by its womenfolk’s buttocks. Settles differences with Iobates, receiving the hand of Philonoë and the succession to his kingdom. Crippled by Zeus for his hubris in trying to enter Olympus. BUSIRIS King of Egypt. Son of Aegyptus. Cousin of Heracles. Enthusiastic practitioner of human sacrifice. Slain by Heracles and his capital renamed Thebes. BUTES Sicilian king and expert apiarist. One of the Argonauts. Goes overboard in his admiration for the Sirens. Rescued by Aphrodite, who becomes his lover. Father (by Aphrodite) of Eryx. CADMUS Often known as ‘the First Hero’. Founder king of Thebes. Grandson of Poseidon and Libya and of Nilus and Nephele. Brother of Europa. Husband of Harmonia. Father of Agave, Autonoë, Ino, Polydorus and Semele. Forebear of a much-cursed house. CAENEUS Lapith hero. Formerly Caenis, until granted gender reassignment (and invulnerable skin) by Poseidon. Buried alive by centaurs at Pirithous’s wedding. CALAIS AND ZETES Also known as the Boreads. Quasi-immortal flying sons of Boreas (the North Wind) and Orithyia, daughter of Erechtheus. Brothers-in-law of Phineus of Salmydessus. Join the Argonauts. Free Phineus from the Harpies. Slain by Heracles in revenge for abandoning him during the quest for the Golden Fleece. CECROPS Founder king of Attica. Responsible for giving Athens its name and its divine protector, Athena. CEPHEUS King of Ethiopia. Grandson of Libya and Poseidon. Brother of Aegyptus and Phineus. Husband of Cassiopeia. Father of Andromeda. CERCYON Big-boned King of Eleusis and wrestling aficionado. Son of Hephaestus or Poseidon. As such, half-brother possibly of Periphetes or of Poseidon’s other progeny, including Procrustes, Sciron and Sinis. Slain by (his half-brother?) Theseus and his kingdom wrested from him; later returned to his son Hippothoön. CEYX King of Trachis. Husband of Alcyone. Father of Hylas. Friend and host of Heracles. CHEIMARRHUS Fearsome Lycian pirate. Subdued by Bellerophon. Thought by Euhemerists to be the Chimera. CHRYSIPPUS Illegitimate son of Pelops. Half-brother of Atreus, Nicippe, Pittheus and Thyestes. Groomed by Laius; then kills himself from shame (or, as some think, is murdered by Atreus and Thyestes). Pelops curses Laius and his line in revenge for his death. COCALUS King of Kamikos in Sicily. Patron and protector of Daedalus. Daughters responsible for unfortunate bath-time incident involving Minos II. CREON King of Corinth. Probably a descendant of Sisyphus. Father of Creusa. Provides sanctuary to Jason and Medea. Arranges marriage between Jason and Creusa. Agonizingly poisoned by Medea. CREON Ruler of Thebes. Grandson of Pentheus. Brother of Jocasta; brother-in-law of Laius and Oedipus. Husband of Eurydice. Father of Haemon. Scion of a much-cursed house. Father of Megara; father-in-law of Heracles. Provides sanctuary to Amphitryon and Alcmene. Regent following Laius’s death; resigns in favour of Oedipus. Resumes regency after Oedipus vacates the throne. Becomes king in own right after deaths of Eteocles and Polynices. Sentences Antigone to death for defying his laws. Eurydice and Haemon commit suicide in protest at his actions. CRETHEUS King of Iolcos. Grandson of Hellen. Brother of Athamas, Salmoneus and Sisyphus. Husband of Tyro and Sidero. Father (by Tyro) of Aeson and Pheres. CYZICUS King of the Dolionians. Husband of Clite. Accidentally slain by Jason in night-time battle with the Argonauts. DAEDALUS Inventor, artificer and architect of genius. Descendant of Cecrops. Uncle, master and murderer of Perdix. Takes refuge in Crete, where employed by Minos II. Facilitator of the coupling between Pasiphae and the Cretan Bull. Creator of the labyrinth of Knossos and (some believe) Talos. Originator of manned flight. Takes refuge in Sicily, where employed by Cocalus. His bathroom designs to die for. DELIADES Also known as Alcimedes or Peiren. Son of Glaucus of Corinth and Eurynome. (Half-brother) of Bellerophon; mistaken by him for a boar and accidentally slain. DEUCALION King of Crete. Son of Minos II and Pasiphae. Brother of Androgeus, Ariadne and Phaedra. Half-brother of the Minotaur. Forwards marriage of Ariadne and Theseus. DICTYS Fisherman. Brother of Polydectes. Husband of Danaë. Foster father of Perseus. DIOMEDES King of Thrace. Son of Ares. Fed to his own Mares by Heracles. DIOSCURI The twin ‘boys of Zeus’: Castor (son of Leda and Tyndareus) and Polydeuces or Pollux (son of Leda and Zeus). Brothers of Clytemnestra and Helen. Half-brothers of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Cousins of Deianira and Meleager. Heracles’ combat training conducted by Castor. Join the Argonauts; Polydeuces their champion boxer. Hunters of the Calydonian Boar. Rescue Helen from the unwanted attentions of Pirithous and Theseus; provide her with Aethra as companion. Jointly catasterized as Gemini. ERYX Sicilian king and boxing champion. Son of Butes and Aphrodite. Knocked dead by Heracles. ETEOCLES Joint king of Thebes. Son of Oedipus and Jocasta. Brother of Antigone, Ismene and Polynices. Scion of a much-cursed house. Incapable of ruling in tandem with Polynices. Kill each other in battle. EUPHEMUS Son of Poseidon. Grandson of the GIANT Tityus. Able to walk on water. Joins the Argonauts. Becomes relief helmsman after the death of Tiphys. EURYSTHEUS King of Argolis. Son of Sthenelus and Nicippe. Cousin of Heracles. Commands him to perform Labours to expiate his murder of Megara. Slain by Hyllus. EURYTON King of Phthia. One of the Argonauts. Hunter of the Calydonian Boar. Accidentally slain by his son-in-law Peleus, who coincidentally inherits his kingdom. EURYTUS King of Oechalia. Grandson of Apollo. Father of Iole and Iphitus. Archery tutor of Heracles. Refuses to let Heracles marry Iole. Refuses his offer of expiation for slaying Iphitus and stealing cattle. Eventually slain by Heracles in revenge for these slights. EURYTUS AND CTEATUS Also known as the Molionides. Conjoined twins. Sons of Poseidon and Molione. Half-brothers of Poseidon’s other progeny. Nephews of Augeas. Slayers of Iphicles. Split in two by Heracles. GANYMEDE Cupbearer and beloved of Zeus. Son of Tros. Brother of Ilos. Uncle of Laomedon. Abducted by Zeus. Immortalized. Catasterized as Aquarius. GLAUCUS King of Corinth. Son of Sisyphus and the Pleiad Merope. Husband of Eurynome. Possible father of Bellerophon. After being eaten by his own chariot horses returned as a ghost known as ‘the Horse-Scarer’. HERACLES ‘Hera’s glory’. Named Alcides at birth. Son of Zeus and Alcmene. Zeus’s favourite human son. Half-twin of Iphicles. Half-brother of Laonome and of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Cousin of Busiris, Eurystheus and Theseus. Brother-in-law of Polyphemus. Persecuted by Hera; later her son in law. Favoured by Apollo, Athena, Hephaestus, Hermes and Poseidon. Married to Megara (whom he kills), Deianira (who kills him), and his half-sister Hebe (with whom he spends half eternity). Father of numberless Heraclides, including Hyllus (by Deianira). Lover of Abderus, Hippolyta, Hylas, Iolaus and Omphale. Infant herpetocide. Performs Labours for Eurystheus to expiate his murder of Megara. Joins the Argonauts. Abandoned by them when searching for Hylas. Wrestles Thanatos for the soul of Alcestis. Liberator of Prometheus. Temporary supporter of the heavens. Rescuer of Theseus from the underworld. Threatens the Pythia with violence. Serves Omphale to expiate his murder of Iphitus, learning the joys of cross-dressing. Founder of the Olympic Games. Victor of the Gigantomachy. Wins Horn of Plenty from Achelous. Bane of Amazons, centaurs, Gegeneis, GIANTS, the OFFSPRING OF TYPHON AND ECHIDNA, Antaeus, the Cithaeronian Lion, Eurytion and Geryon, and the Trojan Sea Monster. Tamer of Cerberus, the Ceryneian Hind, the Cretan Bull, the Erymanthian Boar and the Mares of Diomedes. Sacker of Troy. Slayer of Augeas, Busiris, Calais and Zetes, Diomedes, Eurytus, Eurytus and Cteatus, Eryx, Hippocoön, Hippolyta, Iphitus, Laomedon, Linus and Neleus. Fatally wounded by Nessus’s shirt soaked in Lernaean Hydra blood. Immolated by Philoctetes. Immortalized and catasterized by Zeus. HIPPOCOÖN King of Sparta. Brother of Tyndareus, whom he ousted from the throne. Slain by Heracles for aiding Neleus against him. HIPPOLYTUS Son of Theseus and Antiope. Half-brother of Acamas and Demophon. Grandson of Poseidon. Punished by Aphrodite for his devotion to Artemis, by having his stepmother Phaedra driven mad by desire for him. Killed by the bull sent by Poseidon in answer to Theseus’s curse. HIPPOMENES Megaran prince. Son of Megareus, grandson of Poseidon. Aided by Aphrodite to outsmart Atalanta and win her hand. Father (by Atalanta) of Parthenopaeus. With Atalanta, punished by Aphrodite for ingratitude, then transformed into a lion by Cybele for involuntarily profaning her temple. HYLAS Son of Ceyx. Page and lover of Heracles. Joins the Argonauts. Surrenders to the attractions of water nymphs. HYLLUS Son of Heracles and Deianira. Witnesses deaths of his parents. Leader of the Heraclides. Slayer of Eurystheus. Installs Atreus as King of Mycenae. IASUS Arcadian king. Son of Lycurgus. Brother of Ancaeus. Possibly husband of Clymene and father of Atalanta, whom he exposes as an infant. ICARUS Son of Daedalus. Pioneer of aviation. Flies too close to the sun. IDMON Seer of Argos. Son of Apollo and Cyrene. Mortal brother of Aristaeus, and half-brother of Apollo’s other progeny. Joins the Argonauts, despite prophesying his own demise on their quest. Gored to death by wild boar. IOBATES King of Lycia. Father of Philonoë and Stheneboea. Sets Bellerophon deadly tasks. Settles differences with him by offering the hand of Philonoë and the succession to his kingdom. IOLAUS Son of Iphicles. Nephew, page and lover of Heracles. Devises plan to defeat the Lernaean Hydra. Witnesses the death of Heracles from Lernaean Hydra blood. IPHICLES Son of Amphitryon and Alcmene. Half-twin of Heracles. Brother of Laonome. Brother-in-law of Polyphemus. Father of Iolaus. Slain by Eurytus and Cteatus. IPHITUS Son of Eurytus. Brother of Iole. Slain by Heracles while his guest. IXION King of the Lapiths. Husband of Dia. Stepfather of Pirithous. Condemned to eternal torment in Tartarus for attempting to ravish Hera. Forebear (with Nephele) of the centaurs. JASON ‘The healer’. Rightful heir to the throne of Iolcos. Son of Aeson and Alcimede. Brother of Promachus. (Half-)nephew of Neleus and Pelias. Cousin of Bellerophon, Hellen, Phrixus and Schoeneus. Kinsman of Atalanta and the Phrixides. Father (by Medea) of Mermerus, Pheres and Thessalus. Raised by Chiron. Favoured by Athena and Hera. By Pelias set the task of recovering the Golden Fleece. Leads the Argonauts. Lover of Hypsipyle (whom he abandons). Father of Euneus and Thoas (by Hypsipyle). Slayer of Cyzicus. With the aid of Medea’s magic, tames the Khalkotauroi, defeats the Spartoi, overpowers the Colchian Dragon and take the Golden Fleece. Evades Aeëtes, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, the Wandering Rocks and Talos to return in triumph to Iolcos. Holds Pelias responsible for the deaths of Aeson, Alcimede and Promachus in his absence. Held responsible (with Medea) by the Iolcians for the death of Pelias. Takes refuge with Medea in Corinth. Planned wedding to Creusa spoiled by Medea murdering his bride, his father-in-law Glaucus, and their sons Mermerus and Pheres. Hunter of the Calydonian Boar. Reclaims throne of Iolcos from Acastus. Slain in a shipyard accident involving the Argo. LABDACUS King of Thebes. Son of Polydorus and Nicteis. Cousin of Dionysus and Pentheus. Father of Laius. Scion of a much-cursed house. Overthrown by his kinsmen Amphion and Zethus. LAIUS King of Thebes with poor impulse control. Son of Labdacus. Cousin of Creon and Jocasta. Husband of Jocasta. Father of Oedipus. Scion and forebear of a much-cursed house. After his father overthrown by Amphion and Zethus, raised in exile by Pelops. Repays that trust by grooming Chrysippus. Cursed by Pelops for role in Chrysippus’s death, causing Hera to send the Sphinx to Thebes. Reclaims throne. Exposes the infant Oedipus to avoid an oracle of the Pythia. Victim of unfortunate road rage incident. LAOMEDON King of Troy. Son of Ilos. Grandson of Tros. Tricks Apollo and Poseidon out of payment for building Troy’s walls; then Heracles when rescues Hesione from Poseidon’s sea monster. Later slain by Heracles in revenge. LICHAS Servant of Heracles. Helps him put on the shirt of Nessus. Slain by Heracles for his pains. LINUS Son of the Muse Calliope and Apollo (or possibly Oeagrus). Brother of Orpheus; half-brother of Apollo’s other progeny; possibly stepbrother of Marsyas. Cousin of the Sirens. Short-tempered music teacher, slain by his pupil Heracles. LYCOMEDES King of Skyros. Son of Apollo and Parthenope. Half-brother of Apollo’s other progeny. Host of the exiled Theseus, then slayer of him in a clifftop quarrel. MEDUS Son of Aegeus and Medea. Half-brother of Theseus. Accompanies his mother when she flees Athens after failing to secure the succession of the Athenian throne in his favour. Gives his name to the Medes. MELEAGER Son of Althaea and Oeneus (or Ares). Brother of Deianira and the other Meleagrids. Nephew of the Thestiades. Cousin of the Dioscuri. Neglectful husband of Cleopatra. Cursed with a life the duration of a flaming brand. One of the Argonauts. Smitten by Atalanta. Leads the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Awards Atalanta the trophy for slaying the boar; then slays the Thestiades for protesting; and is slain by Althaea in revenge, fulfilling his natal prophecy. Posthumous matchmaker between Deianira and Heracles. MELICERTES Son of Athamas and Ino. Half-brother of Helle, Phrixus and Schoeneus. Cousin of Jason. Killed during his mother’s suicide. Transformed by his cousin Dionysus into the dolphin-riding deity Palaemon. MINOS I King of Crete. Son of Zeus and Europa. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Grandfather of Minos II. With his brother Rhadamanthus and half-brother Aeacus, one of the three Judges of the Underworld. Charmed by the music of Orpheus. MINOS II King of Crete. Grandson of Minos I. Husband of Pasiphae. Father of Androgeus, Ariadne, Deucalion and Phaedra. Defies Poseidon by not sacrificing the Cretan Bull. Demands Athenian tribute for the Minotaur in compensation for Aegeus’s role in the Cretan Bull’s slaying of Androgeus. Patron, then persecutor, of Daedalus; boiled alive in a bath designed by him. NELEUS King of Pylos. Son of Poseidon and Tyro. Brother of Pelias; half-brother of Aeson and Pheres, and of Poseidon’s other progeny. Father of twelve sons, including Nestor. (Half-)uncle of Jason. With Pelias earns Hera’s enmity for slaying their stepmother Sidero. Aids Pelias in seizing Iolcos from Aeson. Refuses to purify Heracles for the slaying of Iphitus; later slain by Heracles in revenge. NESTOR Youngest son of Neleus. Nephew of Pelias. Grandson of Poseidon. Inherits throne of Pylos after Heracles slays his father and eleven elder brothers. One of the wisest and longest-lived of kings. Joins the Argonauts. Advises Jason to take the long way home from Colchis. Hunter of the Calydonian Boar. Counsellor of the Greeks during the Trojan War. OEAGRUS King of Thrace. Thought by some to be father of Linus, Marsyas and Orpheus. OEDIPUS ‘The swollen footed’. King of Thebes. Son of Laius (whom unwittingly murders) and Jocasta (whom unwittingly marries). Father of Antigone, Eteocles, Ismene and Polynices. Scion and forebear of a much-cursed house. Exposed as an infant by Antimedes at the command of Laius. Rescued by Phorbas and Straton. Fostered by Polybus and Merope, who raise him as their own son. Flees Corinth thinking to escape the Pythia’s prophecy. Fatally outwits the Sphinx, earning first a hero’s welcome then a royal one in Thebes. Blinds and exiles himself after discovering his unnatural, prophesied crimes. OENEUS King of Calydon. Husband of Althaea. Father of Deianira and the other Meleagrids, and probably of Meleager. His neglect of Artemis in favour of Dionysus punished by the Calydonian Boar. OENOMAUS King of Pisa. Thought by some to be son of Ares. Husband of the Pleiad Sterope. Father of Hippodamia. Slain by Pelops in chariot race to win Hippodamia’s hand in marriage. ORPHEUS ‘The obscure’. Greatest of all musicians. Son of the Muse Calliope and Apollo (or possibly Oeagrus). Brother of Linus; half-brother of Apollo’s other progeny; possibly stepbrother of Marsyas. Husband of Eurydice. Favoured by Apollo with music lessons, a golden lyre and strings braided from the god’s golden hair. Charms denizens of the underworld with his music. Fails in quest to bring Eurydice back to life. Joins the Argonauts. Out-sings his cousins the Sirens. Torn apart by the women of Thrace. Severed head serves as an oracle on Lesbos. Finally reunited in death with Eurydice. His golden lyre catasterized. PALLANTIDAE The fifty sons of Pallas, brother of Aegeus. Cousins of Medus and Theseus, and rivals with them for the throne of Athens. Slain in battle by Theseus. PELEUS Thessalian king. Son of Aeacus and Chiron’s daughter. Brother of Telamon. Comrade of Heracles. One of the Argonauts. Hunter of the Calydonian Boar; accidentally slays his then father-in-law Euryton, whose kingdom coincidentally he inherits. Falsely accused by Acastus’s wife of dishonouring her. Reciprocates by persuading Jason to reclaim Iolcos from Acastus. Slayer of Amazons. Sacker of Troy. Father (by the Nereid Thetis) of Achilles. PELIAS Usurper king of Iolcos. Son of Poseidon and Tyro. Brother of Neleus; half-brother of Aeson and Pheres, and of Poseidon’s other progeny (including the golden ram). Father of Acastus and the Peliades. Uncle of Nestor; (half-)uncle of Jason. With Neleus earns Hera’s enmity for slaying their stepmother Sidero. Promises his daughter Alcestis to whomever harnesses a boar and a lion to a chariot. Seizes throne of Iolcos from Aeson. Sets Jason the task of recovering the Golden Fleece. Either murders, or drives to murder-suicide, Aeson, Alcimede and Promachus in Jason’s absence. Slain by the Peliades in unfortunate kitchen mishap instigated by Medea. PELOPS Son of Tantalus, King of Lydia, and Dione. Made a gods’ dinner of by his father; then resurrected by Zeus.fn5 Winner, in a chariot race, of the hand of Hippodamia and her father Oenomaus’s kingdom of Pisa. Father of Atreus, Nicippe, Pittheus and Thyestes (by Hippodamia), and Chrysippus. Fosters Laius; then curses him and his house for the death of Chrysippus, causing Hera to send the Sphinx to Thebes. Southern Greece known as his ‘island’ (Peloponnesos) because ruled by his progeny. Scion and forebear of much-cursed houses. PENTHEUS King of Thebes. Son of Agave and Echion (one of the founding lords of Thebesfn6). Nephew of Autonoë, Ino, Polydorus and Semele. Cousin of Dionysus and Labdacus. Grandfather of Creon and Jocasta. Scion of a much-cursed house. Torn apart by followers of Dionysus (including Agave and Autonoë) for failing to honour the god. PERDIX Ingenious inventor of craftsmen’s essential tools. Murdered out of jealousy by his master and uncle Daedalus. His spirit transformed into a partridge by Athena. PERIPHETES Also known as Corynetes. One-eyed giant. Self-proclaimed son of Hephaestus. As such, possibly half-brother of Cercyon. No relation of the Cyclopes. Robber of travellers on the Isthmus. Slain by Theseus. PERSEUS ‘The destroyer’. Son of Zeus and Danaë. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Saviour and husband of Andromeda. Father of Alcaeus, Electryon and Perses. Great-grandfather of Heracles. Slayer of Acrisius, Cetus, Medusa, Phineus and Polydectes. Founder king of Mycenae. Catasterized. PHERES Former King of Pherae. Son of Cretheus and Tyro. Brother of Aeson; half-brother of Neleus and Pelias. Father of Admetus. Refuses to die so that his son becomes immortal. PHILOCTETES Comrade of Heracles. One of the Argonauts. Immolates Heracles to end his torment from the Lernaean Hydra’s blood. Inherits his bow and Hydra-venom-tipped arrows. PHINEUS Blind seer and King of Salmydessus. Brother-in-law of Calais and Zetes. Tormented by the Harpies as punishment by Zeus for abusing his prophetic powers. Freed from them by Calais and Zetes. Advises the Argonauts how to navigate the Clashing Rocks. PHINEUS Grandson of Libya and Poseidon. Brother of Aegyptus and Cepheus. Slain by Perseus. PHORBAS Theban shepherd. Rescues the infant Oedipus from exposure. Passes him to Straton for safekeeping. PHRIXIDES Argos, Cytoros, Melos and Phrontis. Sons of Phrixus and Chalciope. Kinsmen of Jason. Flee Colchis after their grandfather Aeëtes threatens to kill them. Join forces with the Argonauts. PHRIXUS Son of Athamas and Nephele. Twin brother of Helle. Half-brother of Melicertes and Schoeneus. Cousin of Jason. Rescued from his stepmother Ino’s murderous plot by the golden ram. Takes sanctuary with Aeëtes, to whom he presents the Golden Fleece. Husband of Chalciope. Father of the Phrixides, who implicate Aeëtes in his death. PHYLEUS Son of Augeas. Exiled to Dulichium for admiring Heracles. Installed as King of Elis by Heracles after the latter slew Augeas. PIRITHOUS King of the Lapiths. Son of Zeus and Dia. Stepson of Ixion. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Cousin of the centaurs. One of the Argonauts. Destroyer of Talos. Hunter of the Calydonian Boar. Wedding to Hippodamia spoiled by centaurs. Bosom friend and bad influence on Theseus. Together, succeed in abducting Antiope and Helen; fail in abducting Persephone. Heracles unable to free from the underworld. Ultimate fate uncertain. PITTHEUS King of Troezen. Son of Pelops and Hippodamia. Brother of Atreus, Nicippe and Thyestes; half-brother of Chrysippus. Scion of a much-cursed house. Father of Aethra. Grandfather of Theseus, and possibly of Sciron or Sinis. POLYBUS King of Corinth. Childless husband of Merope. Together they foster Oedipus and raise him as if their own son. Dies of old age. POLYDECTES King of Seriphos. Brother of Dictys. Enamoured of Danaë. Slain by Perseus. POLYDORUS King of Thebes. Son of Cadmus and Harmonia. Brother of Agave, Autonöe, Ino and Semele. Uncle of Dionysus. Scion of a much-cursed house. Husband of Nycteis (aunt of Amphion and Zethus). Father of Labdacus. Grandfather of Laius. POLYIDUS Seer of Corinth. Reveals Bellerophon’s feelings for Pegasus. POLYNICES Joint king of Thebes. Son of Oedipus and Jocasta. Brother of Antigone, Eteocles and Ismene. Scion of a much-cursed house. Incapable of ruling in tandem with Eteocles. Kill each other in battle. Antigone sentenced to death for trying to bury him. POLYPHEMUS Son of the Lapith chieftain Elatus. Brother of Caenis. Husband of Laonome. Brother-in-law of Heracles and Iphicles. Kinsman of Asclepius. One of the Argonauts. Abandoned by them when searching for Hylas. Founds the city of Cius. Dies while trying to rejoin his former comrades. PRIAM King of Troy. Youngest son of Laomedon. Brother of Hesione. Spared during Heracles’ sack of Troy. PROCRUSTES Possibly the son of Poseidon or the father of Sinis. Possible half-brother of the rest of Poseidon’s progeny, including Cercyon and Sciron. Robber of travellers on the Isthmus. Unlicensed practitioner of extreme osteopathy. Terminally cut down to size by (his half-brother?) Theseus. PROETUS King of Mycenae. Brother of Acrisius. Husband of Stheneboea. Unwitting accomplice to her attempted revenge on Bellerophon. PROMACHUS Son of Aeson and Alcimede. Brother of Jason. Born while his parents imprisoned by Pelias. Deemed too young to join the Argonauts. Either murdered by Pelias, or driven to murder-suicide with Alcimede and Promachus by Pelias, while Jason absent on the quest for the Golden Fleece. RHADAMANTHUS King of Aegean islands. Son of Zeus and Europa. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Second husband of Alcmene. With his brother Minos I and half-brother Aeacus, one of the three Judges of the Underworld. Charmed by the music of Orpheus. SALMONEUS King of Elis. Grandson of Hellen. Brother of Athamas, Cretheus and Sisyphus. Father of Tyro. Thunderstruck by Zeus for his hubris. SCHOENEUS Arcadian king. Son of Athamas and Themisto. Half-brother of Helle, Melicertes and Phrixus. Cousin of Jason. Probably husband of Clymene and father of Atalanta, whom he exposes as an infant, then acknowledges once she is famous. SCIRON Possibly the son of Poseidon, or the grandson of Pittheus. Possible half-brother of Poseidon’s other progeny, including Cercyon and Sciron. Robber of travellers on the Isthmus and psychopathic foot fetishist. Enjoys symbiotic relationship with giant anthropophagous turtle. Slain by (his half-brother? cousin?) Theseus. SINIS PITYOCAMPTES Possibly the son of Poseidon or Procrustes, or the grandson of Pittheus. Possible half-brother of Poseidon’s other progeny, including Cercyon. Robber of travellers on the Isthmus. Hoist on his own bent pinewood petard by (his half-brother?) Theseus. SISYPHUS King of Corinth. Grandson of Hellen. Brother of Athamas, Cretheus and Salmoneus. Husband of the Pleiad Merope. Father of Glaucus of Corinth; grandfather of Bellerophon. Probably a forebear of Creon of Corinth. Condemned to eternal torment in Tartarus. STHENELUS King of Mycenae. Grandson of Perseus and Andromeda. Husband of Nicippe. Father of Eurystheus. Uncle of Heracles. STRATON Corinthian shepherd. Receives the infant Oedipus from Phorbas. Hands him to Polybus and Merope for fostering. Later discloses to Oedipus vital clues as to his true identity. TELAMON King of Salamis. Son of Aeacus and Chiron’s daughter. Brother of Peleus. Comrade of Heracles. One of the Argonauts. Feuds with Calais and Zetes. Hunter of the Calydonian Boar. Slayer of Amazons. Sacker of Troy. Husband of Periboea and Hesione. Father of Ajax (by Periboea) and Teucer (by Hesione). THESEUS ‘The founder’. King of Athens. Son of Aethra and Aegeus and Poseidon. Stepson of Medea. Half-brother of Poseidon’s progeny and of Medus. Cousin of the Pallantidae. Kinsman of Atreus and Heracles. Husband of Antiope and Phaedra. Father of Hippolytus (by Antiope) and Acamas and Demophon (by Phaedra). Slayer of Cercyon, Molpadia, the Pallantidae, Periphetes, Procrustes, Sciron and Sinis. Expert and ruthless livestock wrangler: slaughterer (and eater) of the Crommyonian Sow; tamer (and sacrificer) of the Cretan Bull; slayer of the Minotaur; hunter of the Calydonian Boar; bane of centaurs. Smitten by Ariadne; then abandons her at the command of Dionysus. Shameful filial forgetfulness causes death of Aegeus. Bosom friend of Pirithous. Together, succeed in abducting Antiope and Helen; fail in abducting Persephone. Rescued from the underworld by Heracles. Exiled for his role in the deaths of Hippolytus and Phaedra. Killed by Lycomedes in a clifftop quarrel. Inventor of the pankration and bull-leaping; proficient in deep-sea diving. Unifier of Attica, laying the foundations of Athens’s historical greatness. THESSALUS Son of Jason and Medea. Brother of Mermerus and Pheres. Tutored by Chiron. Escapes maternal bloodbath that claims his brothers. Becomes ruler of Thessaly, the region named in his honour. THESTIADES Eurypylus, Evippus, Plexippus and Toxeus. Sons of Thestios. Brothers of Althaea, Hypermnestra and Leda. Uncles of Deianira and Meleager. Hunters of the Calydonian Boar. Slain by Meleager for their hopelessly regressive sexual politics. TIPHYS Son of Hagnias of Thespiae. Kinsman of Augeas. Joins the Argonauts. Helmsman of the Argo (succeeded by Ancaeus). Inventor of the sliding rowing seat. Navigates the Clashing Rocks. Succumbs to fever. TIRESIAS Aged seer of Thebes. Father of Historis. Gender temporarily reassigned by Hera, then permanently blinded by her. Bestowed with gift of prophecy by Zeus. Foretells fates of Heracles and Oedipus. TROS Founder king of Troy. Son of Dardanus. Grandson of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra. Father of Ganymede and Ilos. Grandfather of Laomedon. Recipient of magical horses from Zeus. TYNDAREUS King of Sparta. Brother of Hippocoön. Husband of Leda. Father of the Dioscuros Castor and Clytemnestra. Ousted from his throne by Hippocoön; later restored to it by Heracles.
W OMEN ADMETE Teenage daughter of Eurystheus with a passion for Amazons. AETHRA Daughter of Pittheus. Briefly betrothed to Bellerophon. Mother of Theseus (by Aegeus and Poseidon). Carried off the Dioscuri in revenge for Theseus’s abduction of Helen. Freed after long service to Helen by Acamas and Demophon. AGAVE Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Sister of Autonoë, Ino, Polydorus and Semele. Aunt of Dionysus. Scion of a much-cursed house. Wife of Echion (one of the founding lords of Thebes). Mother of Pentheus. Driven mad by Dionysus; unwittingly helps tear apart Pentheus. ALCESTIS Daughter of Pelias. Sister of Acastus and the Peliades. Abets her sisters in mistakenly casseroling their father. Wife of Admetus. Their wedding night spoiled by Artemis’s snakes in their bed. Willingly dies to fulfil Apollo’s scheme to make Admetus immortal. Brought back from death by Heracles. ALCIMEDE Also known as Polymede. Granddaughter of Minyas. Cousin of Atalanta. Wife of Aeson. Mother of Jason and Promachus. Imprisoned with Aeson by Pelias. Either murdered by Pelias, or driven to murder-suicide with Aeson and Promachus by Pelias, while Jason absent on the quest for the Golden Fleece. ALCMENE Granddaughter of Perseus and Andromeda. Wife of Amphitryon, accidental slayer of her father Electryon. Later wife of Rhadamanthus. Mother of Heracles (by Zeus), and of Iphicles and Laonome (by Amphitryon). ALTHAEA Daughter of Thestios. Sister of Hypermnestra, Leda and the Thestiades. Wife of Oeneus. Mother of Meleager (perhaps by Ares) and of Deianira and the other Meleagrids. Attempts to forestall the future foretold for Meleager by the Fates. Ends up fulfilling the prophecy when she kills Meleager in revenge for his slaying the Thestiades, then hangs herself out of grief. ANDROMEDA Daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Offering to Cetus. Rescued and married by Perseus. Mother of Alcaeus, Electryon and Perses. Great-grandmother of Heracles. Catasterized. ANTIGONE Daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta. Sister of Eteocles, Ismene and Polynices. Scion of a much-cursed house. Accompanies Oedipus into exile. After his death returns to Thebes. Sentenced to death by Creon for trying to bury Polynices after he is killed fighting Eteocles. Hangs herself, causing her fiancé Haemon (son of Creon) to commit suicide. ANTIOPE Amazon princess. Daughter of Ares. Sister of Hippolyta. Abducted by Theseus and Pirithous. Becomes former’s wife and mother of his son Hippolytus. Slain by Amazons for betraying their way of life. ARETE Wife (and niece) of Alcinous. Kind-hearted and protective host of Jason, Medea and the Argonauts. ARIADNE Daughter of Minos II and Pasiphae. Sister of Androgeus, Deucalion and Phaedra. Half-sister of the Minotaur. Provides Theseus with the key to the labyrinth. Surrendered by him to Dionysus. Married to Dionysus, mother of his children. Restored to life by him and brought to live with her mother-in-law Semele on Olympus. Her wedding diadem catasterized as the Corona Borealis. ATLANTA ‘The coequal’. Daughter of Clymene and Schoeneus (or possibly Iasus). Cousin of Alcimede. Possibly niece of Ancaeus and kinsman of Jason. Exposed by an infant. Fostered by a she-bear; later raised by hunters. Votary (and devastating tool) of Artemis. Too much of a girl, in Jason’s view, to be an Argonaut. Too amazing, in Meleager’s view, not to be a Calydonian Boar hunter. Awarded the trophy for slaying the boar, with fatal consequences for the Thestiades and Meleager. Resists Schoeneus’s efforts to marry her off, before being outsmarted by Hippomenes. Mother (by Hippomenes) of Parthenopaeus. With Hippomenes, punished by Aphrodite for ingratitude, then transformed into a lioness by Cybele for involuntarily profaning her temple. AUTONOË Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Sister of Agave, Ino, Polydorus and Semele. Aunt of Dionysus and Pentheus. Scion of a much-cursed house. Wife of Aristaeus. Mother of Actaeon. Driven mad by Dionysus; helps unwittingly tear apart Pentheus. CAENIS Daughter of the Lapith chieftain Elatus. Sister of Polyphemus. Kinswoman of Asclepius. Violated by Poseidon. Transformed by him at her request into Caeneus. CASSIOPEIA Wife of Cepheus. Boastful mother of Andromeda. Catasterized. CHALCIOPE Daughter of Aeëtes and Idyia. Sister of Absyrtus and Medea. Wife of Phrixus. Mother of the Phrixides. CIRCE Enchantress with a penchant for making pets out of passing sailors. Daughter of Helios and the Oceanid Perseis. Sister of Aeëtes and Pasiphae. Curses Medea for murdering Absyrtus. In later traditions, member of a tragically romantic love triangle with the sea god Glaucus and Scylla. CLITE Wife of Cyzicus. Hangs herself in grief after Cyzicus is accidentally killed by Jason in night-time battle with the Argonauts. CLYMENE Daughter of Minyas. Wife of Schoeneus (or possibly Iasus). Mother of Atalanta, whom she allows her husband to expose as an infant. CREUSA Daughter of Creon of Corinth. Attracts the amorous attentions of Jason, who wishes to marry her. Attracts the murderous attentions of Medea, who agonizingly poisons her. DANAË Daughter of Acrisius. Mother (by Zeus) of Perseus. Wife of Dictys. DEIANIRA Daughter of Oeneus and Althaea. Sister of the other Meleagrids and Meleager. Niece of the Thestiades. Cousin of the Dioscuri. Saved from the attentions of Achelous by Heracles, whom she marries. Mother of five of his Heraclides, including Hyllus. Molested by Nessus. Out of jealousy of Iole, accidentally kills Heracles by making him wear Nessus’s shirt without washing the Lernaean Hydra blood out first. Kills herself with Heracles’s sword. ERIBOIA Athenian maiden. One of the tribute sent by Aegeus to the Minotaur. Defended from Minos’s lust by Theseus. EUROPA Granddaughter of Poseidon and Libya and of Nilus and Nephele. Sister of Cadmus. Mother (by Zeus) of Minos I and Rhadamanthus. EURYDICE Beloved wife of Orpheus. Killed while trying to avoid the attentions of Aristaeus. Orpheus fails in his attempt to bring her back from the dead. Finally reunited with him after his death. EURYNOME Daughter of King Nisus of Megara. Favoured by Athena. Fancied by Hesiod. Husband of Glaucus of Corinth. Mother of Bellerophon and Deliades. GALANTHIS Friend and attendant of Alcmene. Turned into a weasel by Hera. HELEN Daughter of Zeus and Leda. Sister of the Dioscuros Polydeuces. Half-sister of the Dioscuros Castor and Clytemnestra, and of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Abducted by Pirithous and Theseus. Rescued by the Dioscuri, who carry off Aethra to be her long-serving companion. Grows up to be a real man-killer. HELLE Daughter of Athamas and Nephele. Twin sister of Phrixus. Half-sister of Melicertes and Schoeneus. Cousin of Jason. Rescued from her stepmother Ino’s murderous plot by the golden ram. Tumbles from his back and drowns in the strait named the Hellespont after her. HESIONE Daughter of Laomedon. Brother of Priam. Offering to the Trojan Sea Monster. Rescued by Heracles. Spared during Heracles’ sack of Troy and given to Telamon. Mother (by Telamon) of Teucer. HIPPODAMIA Daughter of Oenomaus and the Pleiad Sterope. First prize in chariot race won by Pelops. Mother of Atreus, Nicippe, Pittheus and Thyestes. Forebear of a much-cursed house. HIPPOLYTA Queen of the Amazons. Daughter of Ares. Sister of Antiope. Possessor of marvellous jewelled girdle. Lover of Heracles and slain by him. HISTORIS Friend and attendant of Alcmene. Daughter of Tiresias. HYPSIPYLE Queen of Lemnos. Thought by some to be granddaughter of Dionysus and Ariadne. Lover of Jason, and mother of his sons Euneus and Thoas. After discovery she had spared her father from the massacre of Lemnian menfolk, fled the island with her sons. Captured by pirates and sold into slavery. INO Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Sister of Agave, Autonoë, Polydorus and Semele. Scion of a much-cursed house. Suckler of her infant nephew Dionysus. Wife of Athamas. Mother of Learchus and Melicertes. Attempts to murder her stepchildren Phrixus and Helle. Commits suicide. Transformed by Dionysus into the sea goddess Leucothea. IO First mortal woman beloved by Zeus. Transformed by him into a cow. Persecuted by the gadfly of Hera. Gives name to the Bosporus (Cow-Crossing). IOLE Daughter of Eurytus. Sister of Iphitus. First prize in an archery contest. Forbidden from marrying Heracles. Later enslaved by Heracles, igniting Deianira’s fatal jealousy. JOCASTA Granddaughter of Pentheus. Brother of Creon. Scion and forebear of a much-cursed house. Wife of Laius and (unwittingly) Oedipus. Mother (by Laius) of Oedipus, and (by Oedipus) of Antigone, Eteocles, Ismene and Polyneices. LEDA Daughter of Thestios. Sister of Althaea, Hypermnestra and the Thestiades. Wife of Tyndareus. Mother (by Tyndareus) of the Dioscuros Castor and Clytemnestra, and (by Zeus) of the Dioscuros Polydeuces and Helen. MEDEA Enchantress. Daughter of Aeëtes and Idyia. Granddaughter of Helios. Sister of Absyrtus and Chalciope. Mother (by Jason) of Mermerus, Pheres and Thessalus. Husband of Aegeus; mother (by him) of Medus; stepmother of Theseus. Devotee of Hecate. As punishment for neglecting Aphrodite struck with desire for Jason. Magically aids Jason to tame the Khalkotauroi, defeat the Spartoi, overpower the Colchian Dragon and take the Golden Fleece. Dismembers Absyrtus to delay Aeëtes’ of the Argonauts. Cursed by Circe. Mesmerizes Talos. Tricks the Peliades into killing Pelias. Takes refuge with Jason in Corinth. In jealous rage kills Creon of Corinth, Creusa, Mermerus and Pheres. Escapes retribution in Helios’s chariot. Takes refuge in Athens. Fails to secure the Athenian succession on Medus. Makes her escape in Helios’s chariot again. Believed to have returned to Colchis. MEGARA Daughter of Creon of Thebes. Wife of Heracles. Killed, along with her children, by him in fit of delusive rage. His Labours expiation for this crime. MELEAGRIDS Deianira, Eurymede, Gorge, Melanippe, Mothone and Perimede. Daughters of Oeneus and Althaea. Sisters of Meleager. Except for Deianira and Gorge, transformed into guinea fowl by Artemis. MEROPE Queen of Corinth. Childless wife of Polybus. Together they foster Oedipus and raise him as if their own son. After Polybus’s death, sends Straton to offer Oedipus the throne of Corinth. MOLPADIA Amazon. Merciful slayer of Antiope. Mercilessly slain by Theseus. NICIPPE Daughter of Pelops and Hippodamia. Sister of Atreus, Pittheus and Thyestes; half-sister of Chrysippus. Scion of a much-cursed house. Wife of Sthenelus. Mother of Eurystheus. OMPHALE Queen of Lydia. Widow of the mountain god Tmolus. Served by Heracles in expiation of his murder of Iphitus. Cross-dresser with, and lover of, Heracles. PASIPHAE Daughter of Helios and the Oceanid Perseis. Sister of Aeëtes and Circe. Wife of Minos II. Mother by him of Androgeus, Ariadne, Deucalion and Phaedra. Enamoured of the Cretan Bull. Mother by him of the Minotaur. PELIADES Alcestis, Alcimede, Antinoë, Asteropeia, Evadne, Hippothoë, Pelias, Pelopia and Pisidice. Gullible but doting daughters of Pelias. Tricked by Medea into casseroling their father. PHAEDRA Daughter of Minos II and Pasiphae. Sister of Androgeus, Ariadne and Deucalion. Half-sister of the Minotaur. Wife of Theseus. Mother of Acamas and Demophon. Driven mad (by Aphrodite) with desire for her stepson Hippolytus; then madder with revenge when rejected. Kills herself after actions lead to death of Hippolytus. PHILONOË Daughter of Iobates. Sister of Stheneboea. Develops crush on Bellerophon; later his wife. PYTHIA Also known as the Sibyl. Priestess and oracle of Apollo at Delphi: riddling but always right in the end. Consulted by Acrisius, Aegeus, Creon, Heracles, Laius, Oedipus, Oenomaus, Perseus. Falsified by Ino and Pelias. SEMELE Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Sister of Agave, Autonoë and Ino. Mother (by Zeus) of Dionysus. Scion of a much-cursed house. Slain (explosively) by Zeus. Restored to life by Dionysus and brought to live with her daughter-in-law Ariadne on Olympus. SIDERO Second wife of Cretheus. Stepmother of Neleus and Pelias and of Aeson and Pheres. Killed by Neleus and Peleus for mistreating their mother Tyro. STHENEBOEA Also known as Anteia. Daughter of Iobates. Sister of Philonoë. Wife of Proetus. Seeks revenge on Bellerophon for rejecting her advances. Kills herself out of fear of exposure after plot fails. THEOPHANE Daughter of Bisaltes. Granddaughter of Gaia and Helios. Mother (by Poseidon) of the golden ram. TYRO Daughter of Salmoneus. Wife of her uncles Cretheus and Sisyphus. Mother of Neleus and Pelias (by Poseidon), and of Aeson and Pheres (by Cretheus).
Acknowledgements I have first to thank Tim Carroll, the Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. We first became friends in 2013 when he directed me in a production of Twelfth Night in London and New York. Aside from being a distinguished and acclaimed theatre director, Tim Carroll is a man who reads Homer in the original Greek for pleasure. He was naturally the first person I thought of as a collaborator when I hit upon the idea of presenting on stage Mythos, the book on Greek myths I had written in 2017. We met and talked and somehow out of our discussions came the notion of not one show, but three. The first would cover the same ground as Mythos (the primordial deities and Titans, the birth of the gods, the creation of mankind and some of the earlier myths in which gods and mortals mingle), the second would be dedicated to the Heroes (the book you have now in your hand, on your screen or in your ears) and the third would follow the story of the Trojan War and its aftermath. We presented the Mythos trilogy at the Shaw Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake in the early summer of 2018. The heroes who featured in the second show were Perseus, Heracles and Theseus. For this book I have added Bellerophon, Jason, Atalanta, Orpheus and Oedipus. I owe Tim a huge amount: his instinctive, intelligent and imaginative grasp of story-telling, chronology and point-of-view taught me a great deal about theatrical narrative. Much of what I learnt from him has found its way, one way or another, into the book. Naturally he cannot be held accountable for infelicities, but you may take it on trust that his benign influence has helped the book enormously and for that and for his friendship, wisdom, wit and breathtaking cacolalia, I thank him. Other thanks go to all at Michael Joseph, the imprint of Penguin Random House that publishes my books, and most especially Managing Director Louise Moore and editor Jillian Taylor. Without their warmth and passion, enthusiasm and encouragement, diligence and support this book could never have been come into being. Particularly deserving of thanks and acknowledgement is the brilliant and wise Kit Shepherd, copy-editor of this book and its predecessor. His knowledge and fearsome eye for narrative inconsistency have been of immeasurable value. If there are chronological, source or historical errors here, they exist because I have chosen to ignore or override his suggestions for the sake of my own wild preferences. A special word of thanks to Roy McMillan, the director, actor, producer and sound engineer who makes the recording of audiobooks so pleasurable. His deep knowledge, patience and surefire instincts are beyond price. Anthony Goff of David Higham Associates brings authors and publishers together in amity and mutual respect like no other literary agent and I always benefit from his wisdom and experience. Nothing can happen in my life without the wonderful work of Jo Crocker who knows me better than I know myself. And of course I owe all things always to my beloved husband and hero of heroes, Elliott.
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MICHAEL JOSEPH UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia India | New Zealand | South Africa Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com First published 2018 Copyright © Stephen Fry, 2018 For picture credits The moral right of the author has been asserted Jacket figure illustrations: © Sarah Young Author photo © Claire Newman Williams ISBN: 978-1-405-94038-2
PERSEUS fn1 One of the most important of all Greek city states. The name given to its people, the Argives, was often used by Homer simply to mean ‘Greek’. Philip II and his son Alexander the Great, although Macedonian, were said to originate from Argos. fn2 Often rendered as Danaë, so it should, I suppose, be pronounced ‘Danaye’. fn3 The Roman poet Horace, in his Odes, changed the bronze room to a bronze tower, and thenceforward it has often been portrayed as just such a fairytale Rapunzel-like minaret. The earlier sources insist, however, that it was a room, with slits in the roof to let in light and air. fn4 We do not know whether or not Danaë enjoyed the experience. There are those, it is said, for whom the prospect of a golden shower is actually rather … well … quite. fn5 Which simply means ‘net’. fn6 Not the Italian Pisa of the Leaning Tower, but a city state in the northwestern Peloponnese. The quest for the hand of Hippodamia had repercussions that sounded down to the end of the mythic era and the aftermath of the Trojan War. But their details are for another time and place. fn7 The description of the Gorgons in Mythos omits the idea of Medusa’s separate creation as a mortal Gorgon. There are, of course, many different accounts. The story Danaë tells Perseus is perhaps the most popular. fn8 In later times a ‘consultation tax’ would have to be paid to the priestess, as well as the cost of the requisite sacrifices. fn9 The priestess, known as the PYTHIA, would hold on to a sacred tripod that connected her to the ground. She would receive her messages from clouds of sulphurous steam that rose (and still do) from under the earth at Delphi. fn10 By our standards at least. For a Greek he was more than usually clothed … fn11 The Graeae’s names, as so often in Greek myth, have meanings. Pemphredo is ‘she who guides the way’, Enyo ‘warlike’ and Dino ‘terrible’ (as in dinosaur, which means ‘terrible lizard’). Dino was sometimes called Persis ‘the destroyer’. I’ve avoided that name on account of its similarity to Perseus. But it shows that Perseus and all the Pers- names carry ‘destructive’ meanings. fn12 The two main (and multitudinous) families of sea nymphs, the Oceanids and Nereids were daughters and grand-daughters respectively of the sea Titans OCEANUS and TETHYS. As such they were cousins of Poseidon. See the first volume of Mythos (page 10). fn13 Not to be confused with Ceto, mother of the two immortal Gorgons. Although the sea goddess does lend her name to all such sea monsters and, through them, our cetaceans. fn14 Nilus was one of the more important of the river gods, the potamoi – his descendants bred with Aegyptus, Libya and Ethiopia. As with Asia and Europa, the names of these deities, demigods and mortals can still be found on our maps today. fn15 Andromeda, like many mortals now, seems to show a distaste for incest. The gods are never so fussy. fn16 Herms or hermai were square columns used as good-luck boundary markers and signposts. They had a carved head, typically of the god Hermes (though usually uncharacteristically bearded) on top and male genitals lower down, which were thought to bring good luck when stroked in … a certain way. fn17 Strictly speaking the Peloponnese hadn’t yet earned its name, which was taken from that of King PELOPS, whom we shall encounter later on.
HERACLES fn1 A daughter of Pelops and Hippodamia. It was Pelops who won the chariot race and the hand of Hippodamia that Polydectes had pretended he was going to try for. That story has to be told, but not just yet. fn2 Similar to a well-known episode in Arthurian legend. Merlin disguises Uther Pendragon as Gorlois, husband of Igraine, and in that form he sleeps with her and fathers Arthur … fn3 ‘Even though the sound of it produces consternation,’ as Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney-sweep might sing. fn4 Also ‘Ilithyia’. I pronounce her name, probably wrongly, like ‘Alicia’ said with a lisp. Eileithyia was depicted as a woman wielding a torch, representing the burning pains of childbirth, or with her arms raised in the air to bring the child to the light. The Romans called her Lucina or Natio. fn5 Eurystheus means ‘broad-shouldered’, which might suggest that his delivery gave Nicippe a twinge of pain as he emerged. fn6 Historis somehow escaped her wrath. Perhaps she was smart enough to hide. fn7 ‘Iphi-’ means ‘strong’ or ‘mighty’ (cf. Iphigenia, the ‘strong-born’) and ‘cles’ means ‘pride’ or ‘glory’. Apparently an ‘iphi’ is also a smallish Egyptian unit of dry measurement, familiar to the Greeks, and corresponding roughly to 1–1½ gallons. Perhaps he was dubbed ‘the Glorious Half-Pint’. fn8 It would be pleasing to think that they were rattlesnakes and that this remarkable incident initiated the custom of giving newborn babies rattles to wave, but sadly there is no evidence that the species ever existed outside the Americas. fn9 Sounds silly, but it is true. The Milky Way is a galaxy and the word galaxy is derived from the ancient Greek word gala, meaning ‘milk’. Hence galactic and, perhaps, Galaxy milk chocolate. fn10 Hera, who was herself a mother, would have had breast milk; Athena, a virgin goddess, would not have been able to feed the baby. fn11 While he was Hercules to the Romans and to many of us in everyday speech today, it has become the convention these days to render him Heracles. fn12 See Mythos, Vol. I, for further information about Autolycus, rascally son of Hermes. fn13 We will find out more of these twins, known as the Dioscuri, a little later on. fn14 For nature and fate, the Greeks might have said physis and moira. fn15 Variously an individual mountain and a mountain range. Sacred to Dionysus, it was here that Pentheus was torn to pieces by his mother and aunts, and Actaeon by his own hounds (see Mythos, Vol. I). Cithaeron will go on to play a vital role, as we shall see, in the life and tragic destiny of Oedipus. fn16 Not to be confused with the historical Thespis, Greece’s first actor. fn17 We will meet Creon again when we tell the story of Oedipus. fn18 A practice of self-mortification that still goes on. I have seen with my own eyes penitents arriving on their knees at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. Some of them have kneel-walked hundreds of miles to get there. Far from being Herculean, they are usually ancient and diminutive old ladies. fn19 Enthusiasm meant, originally, possession by a god. The verb ‘enthuse’ was a later American English back-formation.
THE LABOURS OF HERACLES fn1 In Greek they were variously called the erga or more commonly the athloi of Heracles. The word ergon simply means ‘work’ while athlos means more than labour, it carries a sense of ‘test’. Our words athlete and athletic derive from it. fn2 At the risk of sending you mad by going over the family tree again, his father was Sthelenus, making Eurystheus a great-grandson of Perseus. As was Heracles, whose parents Alcmene and Amphityron were cousins and each a grandchild of Perseus. But of course Zeus was really Heracles’ father, as he was Perseus’s. Therefore Perseus was both Heracles’ great-grandfather and half-brother. Those Greeks, eh? fn3 For more about this beast, see the chapter devoted to the adventures of Bellerophon. fn4 Greek ceramic representations of the Hydra tend to show a kind of upside-down octopus: a round, sometimes doughnut shaped body out of which extend nine snakes. Popular comic book art makes the creature more like a nine-headed dragon. fn5 Pronounced ‘Serry-nay-uh’ I think. Ceryneia, or Keryneia, today lies in the north west of the Peloponnese in the region known as Achaea. ‘Achaean’ is the name Homer most commonly gave the Greek forces in the Trojan War. fn6 What’s the difference between a hind and a doe? Your guess is as good as mine. fn7 For the fraught circumstances of their birth see Mythos, Vol. I. fn8 See Mythos, Vol. I, for the story of Ixion. There is more to come on Nephele and Chiron in Jason’s story, and we will meet the centaurs again with Theseus. fn9 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn10 In some versions of this episode, Chiron himself was accidentally scratched by one of Heracles’ arrows and suffered the most appalling agony. He alone amongst his race, being a son of Kronos, was immortal. The prospect of living eternally in such pain was insupportable to him. He begged the gods to be released into death and Zeus granted his wish, casting him into the heavens as the constellation Sagittarius, the man-horse archer. This is an egregious example of timeline inconsistency since Chiron was later tutor to ACHILLES who was yet to be born. fn11 Was this Greek satire against the gods? A way of suggesting that the immortals were more full of shit than mortals? fn12 The southern Adriatic. Confusing because the name ‘Ionia’ refers to parts of Asia Minor, today’s Turkey, far to the other side of Greece. fn13 Perhaps inspiring the phrase ‘to take the bull by the horns’. fn14 See Mythos, Vol. I, Twice Born. fn15 We will see more of Pelias in the story of Jason, where he is an important figure. Alcestis was one of the daughters who would make that unfortunate mistake with their father and the cooking pot. fn16 See Mythos, Vol. I, pages 309 and 315. fn17 Loosely taken from the fifth-century Athenian dramatist Euripides’ version of this story, Alcestis. fn18 Also the name of the philosopher SOCRATES’ legendarily shrewish wife. Really Xanthos is yellow with a tinge of red, so perhaps it means ‘bay’ in the equine sense. Strange that although they are mares, all the sources give names with male endings. It should really be Podarge, not Podargos. fn19 Cf. dinosaur, the ‘terrible lizard’, as mentioned in realtion to the Graeae. fn20 Some sources claim they breathed fire, too. fn21 Heracles, like most classical Greeks, was as happy to dine at the man-trough as at the lady-buffet. Iolaus his nephew and Hylas, his page during the quest for the Golden Fleece, were another two male lovers or eromenoi. fn22 Abdera still stands and was notable in the great age of Greek philosophy for producing Democritus, whom some regard as the founder of the scientific method (I recommend the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli’s thoughts on him in his excellent book Reality Is Not What It Seems). The sophist Protagoras, famous for his dialogue with Socrates as recorded by Plato, was also born there. Earlier, in the sixth century BC, the lyric poet Anacreon found sanctuary there from the Persians. His life and work inspired the creation in eighteenth-century England of the Anacreontic Society of gentleman amateur musicians. The tune of the club’s song, ‘To Anacreon in Heaven’, was poached by the Americans in 1814 to fit the words of the poem ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, now their national anthem. Would that tune be heard at the start of every major sporting occasion in the United States if Abderus hadn’t been eaten by horses? Such speculations might well drive a person mad. fn23 The name Amazon means or may mean ‘breastless’, and while later artists and sculptors often depicted the women as being either without breasts or single-breasted, it is now thought that the name derived from their matchless skill at archery. In that to draw back a bow to its full extent, the breast has to be tucked out of the way … fn24 See under Atalanta, here. fn25 Now the River Terme in northern Turkey. fn26 An identical indignity to that suffered by Andromeda. The image of the helpless damsel tied to a rock awaiting her fate at the hands of a dragon is a pervasive one, not just in Greek myth and art. We can all, I dare say, offer interpretations according to our adherence to varying schools of psychology, gender politics and so on. fn27 Two generations earlier Zeus had Ganymede, the beautiful Trojan prince, to be his lover and cupbearer. He sent magical horses to Tros by way of compensation. fn28 The girdle of Hippolyta was successfully excavated from the ruins of the Temple of Hera at Mycenae by Dr Henry Walton ‘Indiana’ Jones Jnr., but currently languishes in a crate hidden in a vast US government warehouse along with the Ark of the Covenant and a copy of the board game Jumanji. fn29 The frequent appearances of bulls, cows, boars, sows, rams, ewes, stags, hinds and horses that feature in the heroic adventures are of course a reflection of the importance of these animals in ancient Greek economic, social and agricultural life. Their place in farming, commerce and civilisation contrasts with the threat to these elements of life posed by dragons, centaurs and other monsters. The class of mutant or savage boars and bulls might be said to represent a medial state between the tame and the monstrous. Snakes, sacred to Athena and Hera especially, might be said to exist in a class of their own. They can be lethal, they can be prophetic but they cannot be tame. fn30 Erytheia’s name means ‘red’, or ‘reddish’, because by the time the sun had travelled that far west it was close to its red, sunset colouring. Some Greek and later Roman writers placed Erytheia in the Balearics. Maybe it was Ibiza. Others located it further west; the volcanic island of Madeira is a possibility. Given the presence of the fabled dog Orthrus, perhaps it was one of the Canary Islands – the word ‘canary’ deriving, of course, not from a bird but from the Latin canus, meaning ‘dog’. Lanzarote would be the best candidate, since the ‘rote’ in its name means ‘red’; though dull, factually obsessed historians will tell you that this is a coincidence. fn31 India, most sources are agreed. fn32 Ireland? Britain? Portugal? There are many theories. fn33 Perhaps Helios’s western palace was in Wales and the bowl-shaped coracles that Welsh fisherman use are descendants of the Cup of Helios. fn34 A favourite torment. She had done the same to Zeus’s lover Io. The moon goddess Selene also sent one down to sting Ampelos, the beloved of Dionysus (see Mythos, Vol. I, for both stories). fn35 Perhaps the Rhine, possibly the Danube. Some even maintain that the river flowed in the legendary Cassiterides, the ‘Tin Islands’, which probably refer to the British Isles … If Heracles did visit Britain it is likely that in Cornwall he invented the sport of Tug of War. fn36 A title also given to the minor sea deity Proteus, who shared with Nereus the gifts of prophecy and shapeshifting. Hence ‘protean’. NEREUS is perhaps most familiar as the progenitor – along with his wife, the Oceanid DORIS – of the numerous friendly sea nymphs named Nereids in his honour. fn37 Tunisia and Algeria, we must suppose. fn38 Aegyptus, you will recall, was the grandson of Poseidon and Libya, and the uncle of Andromeda. Heracles’ descent from Perseus and Andromeda made Busiris a distant relative. fn39 The ruins of Thebes, Egypt, are contained within the cities of Luxor and Karnak. fn40 The Greeks usually called the Mediterranean just The Sea, or sometimes The Great Sea or Our Sea. fn41 Or a vulture. See Mythos, Vol. I, page 147. fn42 Ananke is the Greek personification of Necessity. Like Moros (Doom) and Dike (Justice) the laws of these gods are more powerful than the will of the gods. To call them personifications is perhaps stretching it a bit. They can be talked about as if they are deities, but in reality they are treated as ineluctable elements of fate. fn43 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn44 Another version says he went to Attica for the ceremony and that he needed to be made a citizen of Athens to undergo the ritual. This may be the people of Athens wishing to claim the greatest of all heroes, greater even than their beloved Theseus, as one of their own. fn45 Perhaps more familiar nowadays under its other name of Cape Matapan. fn46 The disgraceful adventures of Pirithous and Theseus are coming soon. fn47 The disturbing fate of Meleager will be revealed when we reach the story of Atalanta. fn48 Most accounts of the Twelfth Labour use this, later, name for Hades. Plouton became fused with the Roman PLUTO, the god of wealth. Precious metals and precious crops come from under the ground, so it was a natural elision. fn49 They say that where Cerberus’s drool fell aconite grew, the deadly poison sometimes called wolf’s bane. fn50 He seems to have forgotten his plan to bring his own wife back and, for the moment, his promise to seek out Meleager’s sister Deianira as a bride. fn51 Pronounced ‘Eekaylia’. fn52 See the ‘Rages of Heracles’ afterword for thoughts on this. fn53 We don’t know which gods. It seems a bit direct for Hera, so perhaps it was Zeus, for whom xenia was sacred. fn54 Neleus was the brother of King Pelias of Iolcos, and so the father of Alcestis. fn55 An especially apt name, given Heracles’ crime against xenia or guest friendship. Xenoclea is a name that glorifies the stranger or guest. fn56 Omphale’s name might be considered to be related to omphalos, meaning ‘navel’, it also can mean ‘button’ which plays into the cross-dressing narrative. It also means ‘boss’ which is apt enough – but the name had no such double meaning to the Greeks, of course. fn57 One of the judges in the musical competition between Pan and Apollo in which Midas made such an ass of himself. See Mythos, Vol. I, page 390. fn58 According to Herodotus, the ‘Father of History’, who lived in the fifth century BC, the descendants of this son (the name is variously given as AGELAUS or LAMAS), ruled Lydia for twenty-two generations. The most famous monarch of this dynasty was the sixth-century King CROESUS, who was as rich as … as rich as himself. fn59 Fine heroes in their own right, Peleus and Telamon also joined Heracles in the quest for the Golden Fleece, as we shall see. But they are now most remembered as the fathers of the two mightiest Greek heroes of the Trojan War: AJAX, son of Telamon, and Achilles, son of Peleus. The son of Telamon and Hesione was the legendary bowman TEUCER, who fought beside his half-brother Ajax at Troy. fn60 Some say it was in revenge for the abduction of his sister Hesione that, many years later, Priam sent his son PARIS to carry off Helen of Sparta, thus sparking the cataclysmic conflict which brought ruin upon both Greeks and Trojans. But that dreadful tale is for another day. fn61 Confusing, but not the same Eurytus whose son, Iphitus, Heracles threw from the walls of Tiryns. fn62 Not many words or names begin with ‘Ct-’, do they? The twins were sons of Poseidon and MOLIONE (hence their joint name of the MOLIONIDES). Molione was married to Augeas’s brother ACTOR, hence their loyalty to him. fn63 Presumably at the head of some sort of force or army: the mythographers aren’t very clear on this. Though such was his strength and temper that he certainly could do the work of one hundred armed men. fn64 Known to this day as Pylos-Nestoras (Navorino to the Italians across the Adriatic Sea). fn65 Consider, for instance, the stories told of Hermes and of his son Autolycus in Mythos, Vol. I, pages 101 and 268. Or, more recently, the quarrel of Eurytus and Heracles that we have just heard. fn66 As Odysseus and his men would discover to their cost one day. fn67 See Mythos, Vol. I, page 22. fn68 Thus ‘giant’ and ‘gigantic’ really mean ‘earthborn’ and have nothing to do with size, despite the way the words are now used and how the ‘giga-’ was taken from ‘gigantic’ to mean ‘huge’. fn69 The Greek word is pharmakon, as in ‘pharmacy’ and ‘pharmaceutical’. fn70 Pronounced ‘Die-an-era’. fn71 Like most water divinities he could change his shape at will – witness those Old Men of the Sea, Nereus, Proteus and later Thetis. fn72 At least so says Sophocles, the Athenian tragedian of the fifth century BC in his play Women of Trachis, which tells the story of Deianira and of the later life and death of Heracles. fn73 See Mythos, Vol. I, page 32. fn74 You meet one person whose name begins with ‘Ct’ and then another pops up ten minutes later. fn75 Pronunciation? Your guess is as good as mine. Kay-uhx perhaps, or maybe Cakes. I assume Alcyone is pronounced to rhyme with Hermione. fn76 In Philoctetes’ possession, the arrows of Heracles would play a crucial part in the climax of the Trojan War. The gods move in mysterious ways to achieve their ends. fn77 In The Odyssey, Homer places Heracles in Hades, a discrepancy that caused later mythographers to offer confusing and rather unconvincing explanations. His mortal shade went to the Underworld, they suggested, while the immortal one rose up to Olympus. There hadn’t been a suggestion before this, so far as I know, that anyone could be endowed with two souls, whether they had a divine parent or not. The Greeks, if the truth be told, were far too wise to have a consistent eschatology that presumed infallible knowledge of an afterlife. They had noted that no one ever returned from death and took the sane and sensible view that those who claimed to know what happened to a person after they died were either fools or liars. Thus there was no ‘system’ to Elysium, Tartarus, Erebus, the Fields of Asphodel and the Underworld. Nor is there any such consistent law of the afterlife in either testament of the Bible, come to that. All the threats of hell and punishment and promises of heaven and reward came much, much later in our history. fn78 Hebe would be Heracles’ half-sister of course, but that’s nothing. Perseus was simultaneously his great-grandfather and half-brother. fn79 Athenian exceptionalism at the height of the classical era was as unpopular with the rest of the world as British exceptionalism in the days of the Raj or American and Russian exceptionalism are today.
BELLEROPHON fn1 Usually pronounced with the emphasis on the second ‘e’ – ‘Bell-er-ophon’. The early Greeks tended to call him Bellerophontes. fn2 As we shall discover in due course, Theseus had a similarly problematic paternity. fn3 The poet Hesiod says of Eurynome, in a fragment from the eighth century BC: ‘A marvellous scent rose from her silvern raiment as she moved, and beauty was wafted from her eyes.’ No one has ever said anything as wonderful as that about me. fn4 Poseidon was a god not just of the wide oceans, but of springs and fountains too. His offspring Pegasus, after flying free from the severed neck of Medusa, made landfall first on Mount Helicon. He struck his hoof on the ground and water bubbled up to become the famous Hippocrene, which means horse fountain. Helicon, like Parnassus, was one of the places where the nine MUSES liked to live (see Mythos, Vol. I, page 46). To drink from the Hippocrene became a metaphor for poetic inspiration (as in Keats’s longing for ‘the true, the blushful Hippocrene’ in his Ode to a Nightingale). But Pegasus did not linger there, he flew on to Corinthian Pirene, another place sacred to the Muses. fn5 Pronounced Sthen-a-bee-a or perhaps Stheneebia. Up to you. The name means ‘strong cow’ – or, if one is feeling kinder, ‘one made strong through their possession of cows’. Earlier sources, like Homer, called her ANTEIA. fn6 A not uncommon mythic trope or ‘mytheme’. You may remember in the Bible (or the musical) that Potiphar’s wife made the same false accusation against Joseph after failing to seduce him. Achilles’ father Peleus was to suffer similarly at the hands of ASTYDAMEIA, wife of King ACASTUS, who – in just the same way that Proetus was purifying Bellerophon – was cleansing Peleus of the crime of accidental fratricide at the time. Make of these repetitions what you will. fn7 Often given the rather more handsome name Amphianax (pronounced ‘Amph-eye-an-ax’). fn8 When Homer has Bellerophon’s grandson GLAUCUS tell this story in the Iliad, the letter is actually not written but composed of ‘symbols’ or ‘murderous signs’ enclosed, not in a letter, but a ‘folding tablet’ … Homer pre-dated paper and alphabets (or at the most coincided with the very beginning of the Phoenician alphabet), but he would have been aware of the Linear B syllabary and other early scripts. The tablets would have been of clay. fn9 Usually pronounced ‘kai-meera’, though the Greeks say something closer to ‘heemera’, with a hissy opening ‘h’. fn10 Almost certainly a literal meandering. He was over Caria, through which the River Maeander, eponym of all wandering streams, still winds its lazy course. fn11 Home of the wise centaur Chiron, master of the healing arts. See the story of Jason (here, here). fn12 Cheimarrhus was said to sail in a ship with a lion’s figurehead for the prow and a serpent for the sternpost which, taken with the similarity of his name to that of the Chimera (both derive from a Greek word for ‘goat’), makes one wonder if he wasn’t just another version of the monster’s story. See the Afterword for a discussion of this kind of ‘Euhemerism’, or historical interpretation. fn13 Another version says that Bellerophon returned to Tiryns, made a show of forgiving Stheneboea and offered her a ride on Pegasus. Once they were far out at sea he pushed her off.
ORPHEUS fn1 Who would certainly have been father of Heracles’ unfortunate music teacher, Orpheus’s brother or half-brother Linus. fn2 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn3 Now Cape Matapan. fn4 The Asphodel Meadow was sometimes given as the place where ordinary, non-heroic mortals resided in the underworld. As I mentioned in a footnote on the death of Heracles, there is little consistency across the sources and poets as to what happened to the dead. An asphodel, incidentally, is a white heathland flowering plant. Homer’s Odyssey seems to have the first mention of such a flower carpeting the Elysian Fields of Hades, but it later entered the poetic language across Europe. William Carlos Williams’ poem ‘Asphodel, That Greeny Flower’ is a notable example. fn5 Charon liked to use old-fashioned words like ‘Avaunt’, ‘Nay’ and ‘Forsooth’. He believed they enhanced his dignity. fn6 The three judges were sons of Zeus, mortal kings famed for the righteousness of their rule, who determined on behalf of Hades the fates of the dead in the underworld. Heracles sensibly avoided them during his visit. See the first volume of Mythos (page 143). fn7 The Greeks even had a word for this Dionysian tearing apart, this frenzied dismemberment – they called it sparagmos.
JASON fn1 And are capitalised. fn2 Helios was also Gaia’s son, so she stood as both mother and grandmother to Bisaltes. This is nothing compared to the far more bizarre double and triple relationships of some. fn3 See Mythos, Vol. I, page 257. fn4 Usually pronounced ‘Bee-oh-shuh’. fn5 Although often called ‘the First Hero’, Cadmus more properly belongs in the first volume of Mythos, where you will find his story (page 210). fn6 The tragic effect that Euripides dramatised in his play The Bacchae, and the best known example of Dionysian sparagmos. fn7 In the Book of Genesis, you may remember, the patriarch Abraham was tested by God and told to sacrifice his son Isaac. Just as Abraham’s knife was descending God showed him a ram caught in a nearby thicket and told him to kill the animal in place of his son. One version of the story of Iphigenia and Agamemnon, which helped set in motion both the Trojan War and its tragic aftermath, is another example of this mytheme – but it is not yet time to hear that particular tale. fn8 Today the straits are known as the Dardanelles, which is another name derived from a figure of Greek myth – in this case DARDANUS, son of Zeus and ELECTRA (one of the seven heavenly sisters known as the PLEIADES). Dardanus was the father of Tros, the founder of Troy; it is because of him that Homer sometimes refers to the Trojans as ‘Dardanians’. fn9 Axeinos in Greek. Latterly, the Greeks gave it the wistfully optimistic name Euxinos – the ‘Euxine Sea’ – which means ‘hospitable’. In the same way the ‘Cape of Torments’ had its name changed to the ‘Cape of Good Hope’ by Portuguese navigators in the late fifteenth century. fn10 This backstory takes place before Heracles frees Prometheus of course. fn11 Yet another child of Typhon and Echidna, or (according to Apollonius Rhodus) of Gaia and Typhon. fn12 Some say that the madness that overtook him was sent by Hera, who never tired of punishing anyone who had anything to do with the raising, succouring and support of Dionysus, born of one of Zeus’s most brazen and outrageous affairs. It was enough for Hera that Athamas was married to Ino, and Ino had nursed the young Dionysus. fn13 Ino/Leucothea plays a key role generations later in the adventures of Odysseus. fn14 Athamas did have time to marry again: Themisto, his third wife, bore him four children, one of whom was Schoeneus, who went on to father (and abandon) Atalanta, whose story is told soon. fn15 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn16 We have already encountered both brothers, at a later stage in their careers, in the story of Heracles (here and here). fn17 Sometimes she is called Polymede. fn18 See Mythos, Vol. I, page 251. fn19 Not the same ARGUS PANOPTES whom Hera once turned into a peacock (see the first volume of Mythos, page 191), but Argus the Argive from Argos. His father Darnaus was king of Argos and (according to Apollodorus) the possessor of the first ship ever to set sail on the seas. fn20 Idmon did die, as we shall see. But he also achieved his prophesied fame – for here I am, thousands of years later, writing about him. fn21 It is generally held that, in historical ancient Greece, many grand families from Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes and all over the Greek world laid claim to Argonaut ancestors. Over the generations, poets and historians were paid to include such ancestors in ‘definitive’ accounts of the voyage in order to lend prestige to the pedigrees of the rich and powerful. For this reason there is no single, authoritative, universally recognised crew list or manifest for the Argo. fn22 Although all heroes are, of course, imperfect. fn23 Not to be confused with the Cyclops of the same name whom Odysseus encountered on his way home from the Trojan War. This Polyphemus was married to Heracles’ half-sister Laomene. He was a Lapith, and helped Theseus and Pirithous defeat the centaurs: see the story of Theseus (here). fn24 See the story of Atalanta (here). fn25 Pronounced ‘Calayiss’ and ‘Zee-tees’. fn26 Other versions of or references to the quest for the Golden Fleece have Atalanta playing an enthusiastic role in the voyage and its subsidiary adventures, but the main source on which I and most mythographers rely (the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius) tells that she was turned away. fn27 In some tellings he was accompanied by Theseus, but this messes too much with chronology, as the end of Jason’s story will show. fn28 At the inception and conclusion of which the sisters of the Dioscuri – Helen of Sparta and CLYTEMNESTRA, wife of Agamemnon – were to play such crucial roles. fn29 Pronounced ‘Hip-sipperly’. fn30 Hypsipyle’s father THOAS found his way to Tauris on the Crimean peninsula, where he was to play a part in the aftermath of the Trojan War and the fraught destiny of Agamemnon’s family. fn31 Unusual for Heracles, who was capable of spreading his seed far and wide, as the huge number of his descendants, the Heracleides, testifies. Perhaps it was because at this period in his life he had eyes only for Hylas. fn32 The kingdom which Heracles rid of its monstrous lion for his First Labour. fn33 A top score in Scrabble. He is pronounced ‘Sizzy-kuhss’ (while his wife Clite rhymes with ‘high tea’ rather than ‘bite’). fn34 The tribe who attacked them are often called the Gegeneis, but that is just another way of saying giants. The word has same root as ‘gigantic’. The -geneis means ‘birth’ or ‘born’ as in ‘genes’, ‘genesis’, ‘generation’, etc. The Ge- is like the geo- in ‘geography’ and ‘geology’ and derives from Gaia the earth. Thus ‘giant’, ‘gigantic’ and ‘Gegeneis’ really mean ‘earthborn’ or ‘chthonic’ and have nothing to do with size, despite the way the words are now used and how the ‘giga’ was taken from ‘gigantic’ to mean ‘huge’. fn35 Of course strictly speaking the Greeks didn’t have aitches, only the asper, or rough, ‘breathing’. fn36 This is how Apollonius Rhodius, a Greek poet of the third century BC, describes it in his Argonautica, the fullest surviving ancient narrative of the voyage of the Argo. In other sources Heracles joins Jason’s crew after the completion of his Labours. fn37 Telamon had his revenge though. On his return from the quest he told his friend Heracles of the twins’ insistence that they sail on and not turn back to pick him and Polyphemus up. Heracles never forgot the insult, and when he came upon the twins on the island of Tenos he didn’t think twice about killing them. He constructed two pillars to mark their graves, which were said to sway whenever their father the North Wind blew. fn38 The city of Cius became an important chain on the ancient Silk Road, but is now a ruin. fn39 See Mythos, Vol I, page 301. fn40 A scene beloved of artists ever since, most notably the post-Pre-Raphaelite (if that makes sense) J. W. Waterhouse. fn41 In Apollonius Rhodius’ version they first stopped off at the kingdom of the Bebryces, on the Asian shore, where Polydeuces defeated their king and champion AMYCUS in a boxing match. fn42 Not the Phineus of Egypt pertrified by Perseus, of course. fn43 Their names were Aello (‘storm’) and Ocypete (‘swift of flight’). Homer mentions a third, Podarge, (‘flashing foot’ – the same name as one of the Mares of Diomedes. Harpy itself means ‘snatcher’. fn44 Anyone who has observed the behaviour of seagulls in seaside towns will wonder if they were the inspiration for the story of the Harpies. They snatch ice-cream cones from children and their droppings cake the promenades and seafronts. fn45 Stamphani and Arpia, two of the seven Heptani, or Ionian Islands, west of mainland Greece. The Strophades remain important sites for birds to this day. fn46 Like Hermes, Iris was a messenger of the gods. Her colourful qualities give us the name of the iris of the eye and all words that refer to the iridescence of the rainbow – petrol in water, that sort of thing. Like the Harpies, she was a daughter of the Titaness Electra. fn47 The Black Sea to us. fn48 See Mythos, Vol. I, page 189. fn49 For that reason they were sometimes called the Cyanean Rocks. Of course, few questions are more moot, vexed and thorny than whether or not the Greeks really saw blue, had a word for blue, or even knew what blue was. Famously, Homer often refers to the sea as oinops pontos ‘the wine-looking sea’, usually translated as ‘wine dark’. William Gladstone, finding time while serving as Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote a book on Homer which included the first serious study of Greeks and colour. It has recently re-emerged as an interesting element in the renewed Sapir-Whorf debate in academic linguistics. If you are interested, I recommend Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. fn50 The story of ‘Arion and the Dolphin’ is recounted in the first volume of Mythos (page 363). fn51 The name Jason actually means ‘healer’. fn52 They were not so far, after all, from Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympics were held. fn53 According to some they were the birds who had flown from Lake Stymphalia when Heracles disturbed them with Athena’s rattle during his Sixth Labour. fn54 I’ve spelled his name this way to avoid confusion with Argus the shipwright. fn55 In today’s Republic of Georgia the river is now the Rioni and the port is Poti, headquarters of the Georgian navy. fn56 Now Kutaisi, Georgia’s legislative capital. fn57 Should you so wish, you can be introduced to the twelve original Titans in the first volume of Mythos (page 7). fn58 See under Theseus for the story of Pasiphae (here). Circe will feature in the story of Odysseus’s journey home from the Trojan War. fn59 Pronounced ‘ee-dee-ya’ I would think. She was Aeëtes’ aunt, being an Oceanid, and therefore a sister of his mother Perseis. fn60 If you’re anything like me, you’ll find all these relationships wildly confusing, although they are probably no more complicated than those in your own family. Save that you are less likely to be so incestuously connected to Titans, sea nymphs and enchantresses. fn61 Aeëtes is thought to be a form of the Greek word for ‘eagle’. fn62 Hecate, goddess of witchcraft and potions, was a daughter of the second generation Titans Perses and Asteria. She features in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. fn63 Unless you are fortunate enough to possess the wisdom of Nestor, you might find his plan easier to understand after a look at the map here. I don’t mind waiting. fn64 On their way through, Jason established Ljubljana, the capital of today’s Slovenia. The people there celebrate him as a founder hero. They say he killed a dragon in a lake and saved the inhabitants. That dragon remains the city’s emblem (although the story was later Christianized and Jason was replaced by St George). fn65 As Odysseus was to discover many years later, during his decade-long struggle to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. fn66 Lilybaeum is today’s Marsala, famous for its honey-sweet wine. Butes and Aphrodite became lovers. Some say it was around the time of her affair with ADONIS (see Mythos, Vol. I, page 325), and that she only did this to make Adonis jealous. She bore Butes a son, ERYX, who grew up to be one of the finest boxers of his generation. Not fine enough to survive a bout with Heracles, however. Even in his later years the great hero was too much for Eryx. He knocked him dead with one punch. Doubtless, being Heracles, he was filled with remorse and tried to put him back together again. fn67 Planets are ‘wandering rocks’ too – they get their name from the same Greek source word planetai meaning ‘wanderers’. Early astronomers were alerted to their difference from other heavenly bodies when they observed them roaming apparently randomly across the sky and called them planetes asteres, wandering stars. fn68 Or like the Millennium Falcon trying to steer through an asteroid field. fn69 Today’s Corfu. fn70 The Southern Adriatic. Confusing because the name ‘Ionia’ refers to parts of Asia Minor, today’s Turkey far to the other side of Greece. fn71 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn72 Ichor, the silvery-gold blood that ran in the veins of the gods was deadly poison to mortals. fn73 The word he used must have been ‘thaumaturge’. A lifetime ago, when I was learning ancient Greek as an eight-year-old, the textbook the school used liked to remind one of the English words that derived from Greek: ‘graph’ and ‘graphic’ from grapho, ‘telephone’ from phonos, that sort of thing. I will never forget my puzzlement when, in a vocabulary list, it presented the verb thaumazo, offering this helpful thought: ‘thaumazo, I wonder, or marvel at. This is easily remembered by thinking of the English word “thaumaturge”.’ And I suppose that was true, since I’ve never forgotten it. fn74 Also known as Chandax. fn75 This is where the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius comes to an end (as does the Argonautica Orphica, a Byzantine Greek retelling of the fifth or sixth century AD ostensibly narrated by Orpheus). Whether Apollonius failed to finish, or whether he felt he had best remain true to his title and deal only with the voyage and not with the repercussions and aftermath, is not known. fn76 Not to be confused with the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, daughters of Atlas and Pleione. See the first volume of Mythos (page 100). Euripides wrote a tragedy called the Peliades, but it is lost. fn77 She was later won by Admetus, and offered to die in his place. Heracles wrestled Death for her soul if you recall. fn78 Same name as Jason’s mother, which is confusing. fn79 I know, that name rather stands out amongst the others, doesn’t it? It’s the only one the spell-checker didn’t challenge. Evadne means ‘very holy’ which makes me think, wrongly, of Evander Holyfield. fn80 ‘Looking for a ewe’s teat to suckle from’ as Ovid rather endearingly puts it. fn81 It is far more likely to have been a magic trick than real witchcraft. I don’t doubt my friends the magnificent Penn and Teller could reproduce the effect perfectly. It’s very much in their wheelhouse – their frequently sordid and spectacularly sick wheelhouse. They are, in some respects, the Medeas of our time. fn82 Acastus is often listed as one of the Argonauts, which would mean that Pelias was either willing to sacrifice him – for he never believed the Argo would return – or perhaps that Acastus was there to ensure the Fleece, if found, would be returned to him. fn83 Half-uncle if my calculations are correct. Can there be such a thing as a half-uncle? At any rate, Pelias was a half-brother of Jason’s father Aeson, sharing Tiro as a mother. fn84 Samos was famous for the quality of its wine. It is celebrated by Byron in the glorious ‘Isles of Greece’ section of his epic poem Don Juan. ‘Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!’ fn85 His words were Πολλὰ μεταξὺ πέλει κύλικος καὶ χείλεος ἄκρου (Polla metaxu pelei kulikos kai cheileos akrou) according to Jenny March in her excellent Dictionary of Classical Mythology. If you put that into Google Translate however, it comes out as ‘A lot of people are screaming and screaming’ – go figure. fn86 What follows is based on Euripides’ version of the story in his tragedy Medea. fn87 No relation to the Theban royal of the same name in the stories of Heracles and Oedipus. This Creon was a descendant of Sisyphus which suggests some kind of family tie to Jason, which may explain his offer of sanctuary. fn88 Euripides doesn’t give them names, but according to Apollodorus they were Thessalus, Mermerus and Pheres. fn89 The eldest of the three, Thessalus, was away being tutored by Chiron and survived. He would return from Chiron’s cave to rule over Iolcos and Greater Aeolia, which we now call Thessaly in his honour. fn90 It seems that almost all the actresses who play the part win Tony or Olivier Awards these days. fn91 Translation by C. A. E. Luschnig. fn92 See the story of Theseus (here). It is Medea’s presence in Athens, as we shall see, that makes it impossible for Theseus to have been an Argonaut.
ATALANTA fn1 As in the lovers HERO and LEANDER, whose tragic tale is recounted in the first volume of Mythos (page 359) – and the daughter of Leonato in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. fn2 Minyas was the founder king of Orchomenos in Boeotia, the great rival city state of Thebes. Heracles defeated Minyas’ descendant Erginos and was given the hand of Megara in marriage as a reward. fn3 Pronounced ‘Skeenius’ to rhyme with ‘genius’. fn4 The name means, so far as I can tell, ‘equal in weight’ – which is a strange thing to call someone. But perhaps she got the name because the men who found her believed her to be a man’s equal. fn5 The same that had done for King Ancaeus of Samos before he had a chance to taste his wine. fn6 His name means ‘Man of Wine’. fn7 It’s not entirely clear when in Jason’s busy life this adventure took place. It is usually assumed to be between the return of the Argo and the flight from Iolcos after the death of Pelias. fn8 It means, according to Robert Graves, ‘excessive wooing’. fn9 The Deianira who was to go on and play such a fateful role in the life and death of Heracles. fn10 But Meleager is married already, to a very beautiful girl called CLEOPATRA (no relation to the one we know) the daughter of Prince IDAS and Princess MARPESSA). fn11 Toxeus actually means ‘bowman’, as in toxophily. fn12 To this day there are species of guinea fowl and turkey that bear the scientific name meleagrididae. fn13 See under Heracles for the fate of Deianira. Her sister Gorge had a child by her own father, Oeneus, who grew up to feature in the Trojan War. fn14 And never was, until Achilles … fn15 See the story of Oedipus (here). Parthenopaeus was described by most sources as long-haired, fast-running and outstandingly beautiful, like his mother. He figures prominently as a heroic figure in Statius’s Thebiad. fn16 Cybele was a Phrygian deity associated with both Artemis and Gaia.
OEDIPUS fn1 The foundation of Thebes, as befits its precedence, is recounted in the first volume of Mythos (page 224). fn2 The story of Tantalus is treated in Mythos (page 261): the fate of House of Atreus belongs to the story of the Trojan War. fn3 See the first volume of Mythos (page 230). fn4 Pronounced Lie-us. fn5 The curse of Ares had lain on the royal house of Thebes ever since Cadmus slew the Ismenian water dragon. See the first volume of Mythos (pages 220 and 244). fn6 They were responsible for finishing the construction of Thebes’ walls and its acropolis, the Cadmeia. See the first volume of Mythos (page 225). fn7 As previously pointed out, not the Italian Pisa, but a city state in the Peloponnese (which hadn’t yet earned that name from Pelops), the large peninsula to the south west of Greece joined to the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth. It was inherited by Pelops when he won the hand of Hippodamia in marriage. See the story of Perseus (here). fn8 Another version of the story maintains that Chrysippus was killed by his half-brothers Atreus and THYESTES out of jealousy at their father’s love for him. Euripides wrote a play about the life and fate of Chrysippus that is sadly lost to us. fn9 The Greek for that is ‘anagram’. fn10 Zeus’s mother RHEA had fooled her husband Kronos into eating the stone, thinking it was the infant Zeus. When Kronos later vomited up the stone, Zeus threw it so that it landed at Pytho/Delphi. See the first volume of Mythos (page 97). fn11 And of course, in Greek letters Python and Typhon are not anagrams, but we’ll pretend we don’t know that. fn12 The Sphinx is usually given as a child of Echidna and Typhon, though some sources suggest she was their grandchild – a daughter of Orthrus and Chimera. fn13 An asclepion was a cross between a health spa, a hospital and a temple to Asclepius. fn14 See the first volume of Mythos for the full story (page 330). fn15 Oedipus Tyrannos in its original Greek, but often confusingly given the Latin title Oedipus Rex. I was a perfectly dreadful Oedipus in a production (the W. B. Yeats translation) at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1979. The unhappy citizens of Edinburgh still talk about it in hushed, disbelieving tones. One of Laurence Olivier’s most celebrated feats was his double bill as Oedipus and as Mr Puff in Sheridan’s The Critic. They say Olivier’s scream as Oedipus when he suddenly realises the truth about himself – the cascade of truths – was one of the great moments in theatrical history. They don’t say that of my performance. fn16 As in the third state of man in the Sphinx’s riddle … fn17 Literally rivals, since their plays were submitted in competition, only the prizewinning texts going into production. fn18 There was also a fourth work by Aeschylus, a comic companion piece or ‘satyr’ play, called Sphinx. They are sometimes collectively referred to as Aeschylus’s Oedipodea. fn19 I sometimes dream that a great find will restore thousands of the great lost works of antiquity to us. Many perished in the catastrophic fire (or fires) at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, but who knows? – maybe one day a huge repository of manuscripts will be uncovered. We have eighteen or nineteen plays by Euripides, for example, yet he is known to have written almost a hundred. Only seven of Aeschylus’s eighty remain, while just seven plays of Sophocles have come down to us out of a hundred and twenty known titles. Almost every character you come across when reading the Greek myths had a play about them written by one, other or all three of the great Athenian masters. The loss of so many of their works might be regarded as the greatest Greek tragedy of them all.
THESEUS fn1 The same Aethra to whom Bellerophon had once been engaged. fn2 In Euripides Heracleidae or ‘Children of Heracles’, it is given that Alcmene was the daughter of Pelops’s son Pittheus, making him the common grandfather of Heracles and Theseus. Hence my occasional use of the word ‘cousin’ when talking of the two heroes. fn3 See the story of Heracles (here). fn4 How Medea acquired such a dreadful reputation, and how she came to be in Athens, you will recall, is told in the story of Jason (here and here).
THE LABOURS OF THESEUS fn1 Some say that the Crommyonian Sow was the mother of the Calydonian Boar. See the story of Atalanta (here). fn2 Kore, meaning the ‘maiden’, was the embodiment of Persephone when she rose up from the underworld in the spring and summer months as per her mother Demeter’s arrangement with Hades. fn3 The Athenians believed that Theseus invented wrestling. His use of wit, technique and skill to turn Cercyon’s brute strength against him exemplified everything ancient Athens valued. The specific art he developed, what we might call ‘mixed martial arts’ was called by the Greeks pankration … ‘all strength’. If you recall, Heracles had picked up some of the technique and employed it on Antaeus during his Eleventh Labour. fn4 Other interpretations of this confrontation would have it that the story was reverse-engineered to fit the myth of Theseus’ youthful Labours, and that it actually had its origins in a later and more routine political takeover. This reading has it that Cercyon was a real king and that Theseus wrested, rather than wrestled, his realm – Eleusis – from him in later days, when Theseus was by that time a king himself. fn5 We even know the day of Theseus’s arrival in Athens. It was, according to Plutarch, the eighth day of the month of Hecatombaion, somewhere around July and August in our calendar. It was the month in the Attic calendar when each year a hundred cattle were ritually sacrificed to the gods. fn6 According to Plutarch and Pausanias, they were the sons of PHYTALUS (‘butterfly’, perhaps?) who had once shown great kindness to Demeter. In recompense, the goddess granted his descendants the power to expiate those who broke the laws of hospitality. fn7 Known as the Palliantidae. fn8 See the story of Heracles (here). But don’t think too hard about timelines and the relative ages of Theseus and Heracles or we’ll all go mad. fn9 Here again Theseus invented an art, that of bull-leaping. It may sound comical, but plenty of archaeological evidence has been uncovered showing this mixture of sport and entertainment. It can be considered a forerunner of modern bullfighting. Both techniques rely on finesse and timing and aim to tire the bull out rather than engage with it fairly. So different from dear, honest Heracles. fn10 The same Plain of Marathon saw the soldiers of Athens win their startling victory against the Medes and Persians in 490 BC. Pheidippides was said to have run the 25 or so miles from Marathon to Athens to break the news of the victory, shouting the word ‘nenikekamen!’ – ‘we won!’ – before expiring the ground of exhaustion at having run the first ‘marathon’. fn11 It sprang from where Cerberus’s drool hit the ground when Heracles took him to the Upper World. fn12 Just as Perseus’s son Perses gave us Persia and the Persians, so Medus went on to give us the Medes. Medes and Persians in turn, went on to attempt to get their revenge on Theseus’s city of Athens many, many generations later when they launched an invasion under Darius the Great and then Xerxes. One man’s Mede, as Dorothy Parker observed, is another man’s Persian. As for Medea, little more of her is heard, which is a pity. There was a tradition that had her in the Meadows of Asphodel marrying Achilles in the afterlife. fn13 The zoological name for the genus is still perdix, the Latin for partridge. fn14 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn15 That bull ascended to the heavens as the constellation Taurus. fn16 This was an especially cutting remark for Aegeus’s name means ‘goatlike’. fn17 A spring month. fn18 The Greek poet Bacchylides tells in one of his lyrics, his ‘dithyrambs’, that when the ship arrived Minos tried it on with one of the Athenian girls, Eriboia, and that Theseus defended her. Minos claimed that as a son of Zeus (in this version he is the first Minos, issue of Europa and Zeus) he had the right. Theseus countered that he was a son of Poseidon. Minos tested him by throwing a golden ring into the sea and telling Theseus to fetch it back. Theseus dived in and was taken by a dolphin to Poseidon’s palace where Nereids gave him the ring and all kinds of gifts besides. He then emerged from the sea and presented the ring and other treasures to an astonished Minos. All this is charming but it seems odd that Minos would then imprison Theseus with the others as if nothing had happened. He would surely be wary that Theseus might be the first Athenian to prove himself a match for the beast and the labyrinth itself. fn19 The story of Daedalus and Icarus has long been a favourite with artists. The combined brilliance of Pieter Breugel the Elder and W. H. Auden has given us the latter’s poem ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, one of his finest. Sculptures and paintings on the subject abound. My favourite use of the myth is in the relief representation of the falling Icarus on the wall outside the bankruptcy court of Amsterdam. Rembrandt might well have looked up at it during the proceedings against him and been reminded of the perils of soaring ambition. So far as I know he never painted an Icarus picture himself but scores, hundreds, of artists and sculptors have. fn20 He federated Megara (a region, not to be confused with Heracles’ first wife), for example, and installed Cercyon’s son Hippothoon on the throne of Eleusis, which extended the reach of Athens as far as Corinth. fn21 Usually pronounced ‘Pirry-tho-us’ with an unvoiced ‘th’, as in ‘thistle’ – think, ‘Pirry-throw-us’ without the R. fn22 The Lapiths were credited with inventing the bit for greater control of the horse’s mouth. fn23 Issue, some say, of the Marathonian Bull who fathered them before Theseus tamed him and took him to Athens to be sacrificed. The Marathonian Bull that had been the Cretan Bull that fathered the Minotaur, of course. The baleful influence of that animal seems to have no end. fn24 They were children of Ixion and Nephele, the cloud goddess in the shape of Hera that was created by Zeus to prove Ixion’s wickedness. The same Nephele who went on to send down the Golden Ram to rescue Phrixus. fn25 Her name means ‘tamer of horses’. Horses gallop all the way through the story of Pirithous. fn26 Similar to its effect on the centaurs including, fatefully, Nessus, who drank wine in Pholus’s cave during Heracles’ Fourth Labour. fn27 ‘War’ rather than ‘battle’ really, but battle sounds better in English somehow. The accidental rhyme in ‘War of the Centaurs’ or ‘Centaur War’ seems inelegant. fn28 See the story of Heracles (here). fn29 In some versions (including Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) Theseus is married to Hippolyta herself. In these tellings Theseus accompanies Heracles on the Ninth Labour, and instead of Heracles killing Hippolyta, he gives her to Theseus. fn30 For more on the Amazonian lifestyle see Heracles’ Ninth Labour (here). fn31 Sited just below the heights of the Acropolis, the Areopagus was the meeting place of the Athenian Council of Elders, and later the site of the court where serious crimes were tried. John Milton invoked it in his great polemic against censorship, the Areopagitica. fn32 The German classicist Bruno Snell puts it very well: ‘For the Greeks, the Titanomachy and the battle against the giants remained symbols of the victory which their own world had won over a strange universe; along with the battles against the Amazons and Centaurs they continue to signalize the Greek conquest of everything barbarous, of all monstrosity and grossness.’ fn33 See the first volume of Mythos (page 43). fn34 See the story of Heracles (here). fn35 For example, the Parthenon in Athens prominently featured sculptures depicting the Gigantomachy, the Amazonomachy and the Centauromachy. Examples of the latter can still be seen to this day, as can the Centauromachy that once adorned another of the most important buildings of classical Greece, the temple of Zeus at Olympia. fn36 This story is better told another time … fn37 See Heracles’ Twelfth Labour (here). fn38 Think Mick Jagger. fn39 The twins not only returned Helen to Sparta, but they forcibly took Theseus’s mother Aethra along with her to act as her nurse and companion. This position she held into extreme old age. Her grandsons Acamas and Demophon would finally rescue her during the fall of Troy. But that too is a story for another time. fn40 The versions by Euripides in Hippolytus (the surviving play of two that he wrote on the story) and in Phaedra by the Roman playwright Seneca both alter this a little. She never speaks of her love, but commits suicide and leaves a note implicating Hippolytus. fn41 The Grandfather’s Axe, its blade and handle regularly replaced, presents a similar ontological conundrum in the field of study known as the Metaphysics of Identity.
ENVOI fn1 See the story of Heracles (here, here and here).
THE OFFSPRING OF ECHIDNA AND TYPHON fn1 But not by Odysseus on a later occasion.
THE RAGES OF HERACLES fn1 The Benoit case has resulted in a much stricter regime of testing and a zero-tolerance of drug taking in the WWE, I am told. fn2 Perhaps comic book fans will also want to draw a comparison with Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk.
AFTERWORD fn1 And dreams, ‘private myths’.
LIST OF CHARACTERS fn1 Hades spent all of his time in the underworld, so technically he is often not regarded as one of the twelve Olympians. fn2 But not by Odysseus on a later occasion. fn3 In some but not all versions of Heracles’ Eleventh Labour. fn4 But not by Odysseus on a later occasion. fn5 It was Zeus’s punishment for this appalling crime that immortalized Tantalus’s name. See the first volume of Mythos (page 263). fn6 See the first volume of Mythos (page 224).
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