Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The name "Selene" is derived from the Greek noun selas (σέλας), meaning "light, brightness, gleam". in the Doric and Aeolic dialects, her name was also spelled Σελάνα (Selána) and Σελάννα (Selánna) respectively. Selene was also called Mene. The Greek word Mene meant the moon, and the lunar month. The masculine form of Mene (men) was also the name of the Phrygian moon-God Men. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. In post-classical times, Selene was often identified with Artemis, much as her brother, Helios, was identified with Apollo. Selene and Artemis were also associated with Hecate and all three were regarded as the three moon and Luner goddesses, but only Selene was regarded as the personification of the Moon itself.

Her equivalent in Roman religion and mythology is the goddess, Luna.

Abode: the sky

symbol: Crescent, chariot, torch, billowing cloak, bull, moon

Parents: Hyperion and Theia

Siblings: Helios and Eos

Domain: The Personification of the Moon

Chapter Text

Amphitrite was the Goddess/Queen of the sea, wife of Poseidon

She hid away when Poseidon asked for her hand in marriage.

Delphin the dolphin god eventually tracked her down and persuaded her to return to wed Poseidon.

She usually rides beside her husband in a chariot drawn by fish-tailed horses or Êhippokampoi

Her name means "the surrounded three"

Lives: Mount Olympus or the sea

Symbol: Trident, dolphin, seal

Parents: Nereus and Doris, or Oceanus and Tethys

Siblings: nerites and the nereids, or the river gods and the oceanids

Cosort: Poseidon

children: Triton, Rhodes, Benthesikyme

Roman: Salacia

Domain: the sea, fish, shellfish

Chapter Text

NYX (Nux), Nox or Night personified. Homer (Il. xiv. 259, &c.) calls her the subduer of gods and men, and relates that Zeus himself stood in awe of her.

In the ancient cosmogonies Night is one of the very first created beings, for she is described as the daughter of Chaos, and the sister of Erebus, by whom she became the mother of Aether and Hemera. (Hes. Theog. 123, &c.) According to the Orphics (Argon. 14) she was the daughter of Eros. She is further said, without any husband, to have given birth to Moros, the Keres, Thanatos, Hypnos, Dreams, Momus, Oizys, the Hesperides, Moerae, Nemesis, and similar beings. (Hes. Theog. 211, &c.; Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 17.) In later poets, with whom she is merely the personification of the darkness of night, she is sometimes described as a winged goddess (Eurip. Orest. 176), and sometimes as riding in a chariot, covered with a dark garment and accompanied by the stars in her course. (Eurip. Ion, 1150; Theocrit. ii. in fin.; Orph. Hymn. 2. 7; Virg. Aen. v. 721; Tibull. ii. 1. 87; Val. Flacc. iii. 211.) Her residence was in the darkness of Hades. (Hes. Theog. 748; Eurip. Orest. 175; Virg. Aen. vi. 390.) A statue of Night, the work of Rhoecus, existed at Ephesus (Paus. x. 38. § 3). On the chest of Cypselus she was represented carrying in her arms the gods of Sleep and Death, as two boys (v. 18. § 1).

Domain: Personification of night

Chapter Text

Aphrodite is associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her Roman counterpart, Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of sacred prostitution in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous. in Hesiod's Theogony, Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam (ἀφρός, aphrós) produced by Uranus's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into the sea. in homer's Iliad, however, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Animals: dolphin, sparrow, dove, swan, hare, goose, bee, fish, butterfly

Symbol: rose, seashell, pearl, mirror, girdle, anemone, lettuce, narcissus

Tree: myrrh, myrtle, apple, pomegranate

Parents: Zeus and Dione (Homer) or Uranus (Hesiod)

Consort: Hephaestus (divorced), Ares, and several lovers

Children: Eros, Phobos, Deimos, Harmonia, Pothos, Anteros, Himeros, Hermaphroditus, Rhodos, Eryx, Peitho, The Graces, Beroe, Golgos, Priapus, Aeneas

Domain: love, lust, passion, pleasure, beauty, and sexuality

Chapter Text

Hades is the Ancient Greek god of the Underworld, the place where human souls go after death. In time, his name became synonymous with his realm. It has to be said unsurprisingly – since he barely left it. Appropriately, the most significant myth related to Hades concerns one of the very few times he did – to abduct Demeter's daughter, Persephone. Hades means "The Unseen One" – a suitable name since Hades is the ruler of the invisible world. However, the Ancient Greeks rarely used this name – just like Christians rarely used the word "Hell" during the Middle Ages. So, since minerals and precious metals are found underground, they often referred to Hades euphemistically as Plouton – namely, "The Wealth-Giver." Unsurprisingly, Hades' Roman equivalent is called Pluto as well. After being rescued by Zeus from the belly of Cronus, Hades joins him in the Titanomachy. Eventually, the decade-long war ends with a victory for the Olympians. Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus cast lots to decide who of the brothers will rule which domain. Hades gets the underworld. Since Hades was a fearsome deity who rarely left his kingdom, there are very few myths about him in Ancient Greek sources.

Abode: Greek underworld

Symbol: Cornucopia, Cypress, Narcissus, keys, serpent, mint plant, white poplar, dog, pomegranate, sheep, cattle, screech owl, horse, chariot

Parents: Cronus and Rhea

Siblings: Poseidon, Hera, Hestia, Zeus, and Demeter

Consort: Persephone

Children: Macaria, and in some cases Zagreus, Dionysus, and the Erinyes

Roman: Pluto, Dis, Pater, Orcus

Domain: the dead and riches

Chapter Text

The myth of her abduction, her sojourn in the underworld, and her cyclical return to the surface represents her functions as the embodiment of spring and the personification of vegetation, especially grain crops, which disappear into the earth when sown, sprout from the earth in spring, and are harvested when fully grown. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the process of being carried off by Hades. Persephone, as a vegetation goddess, and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised the initiated a happy afterlife. The origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on ancient agrarian cults of agricultural communities. In Athens, the mysteries celebrated in the month of Anthesterion were dedicated to her. The city of Locri Epizephyrii, in modern Calabria (south Italy), was famous for its cult of Persephone, where she is a goddess of marriage and childbirth in this region.

Abode: the underworld

Symbol: Pomegranate, seeds of grain, torch, and deer

Parents: Zeus and Demeter and/or Zeus and Rhea (Orphic)

Siblings: several paternal half-siblings and maternal half-siblings

Spouse: Hades

Children: Zagreus/Dionysus (Orphic), Melinoe

Roman: Proserpina

Domain: the dead, grain, and spring

Chapter Text

He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cities and colonies. In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, Poseidon was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes, with the cult title "earth shaker" in the myths of isolated Arcadia, he is related to Demeter and Persephone and was venerated as a horse, and as a god of the waters. Poseidon maintained both associations among most Greeks: he was regarded as the tamer or father of horses, who, with a strike of his trident, created springs (the terms for horses and springs are related in the Greek language). Poseidon is famous for his contests with other deities for winning the patronage of the city. According to legend, Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens after a competition with Poseidon, though he remained on the Acropolis in the form of his surrogate, Erecheus. After the fight, Poseidon sent a monstrous flood to the Attic plain to punish the Athenians for not choosing him. In similar competitions with other deities in different cities, he causes devastating floods when he loses. Poseidon is a horrifying and avenging god and must be honored even when he is not the patron deity of the city.

The origins of the name "Poseidon" are unclear, and the possible etymologies are contradictive among the scholars. One theory breaks it down into an element meaning "husband" or "lord" (Greek πόσις (posis), from PIE*pótis) and another element meaning "earth" (δᾶ (da), Doric for γῆ (gē)), producing something like lord or spouse of Da, i.e. of the earth; this would link him with Demeter, "Earthmother". Burkert finds that "the second element δᾶ- remains hopelessly ambiguous" and finds a "husband of Earth" reading "quite impossible to prove". According to Beekes in Etymological Dictionary of Greek, "there is no indication that δᾶ means 'earth'", although the root da appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".

Some scholars suggested that Poseidon was probably a Pelasgian god or a god of the Minyans. However, it is possible that Poseidon, like Zeus was a common god of all Greeks from the beginning.

Abode: Mount Olympus, or the sea

Symbol: Trident, fish, dolphin, horse, bull

Parents: Cronus and Rhea

Sibling: Hades, Demeter, Hestia, Hera, and Zeus

Consort: Amphitrite

Roman: Neptune

children: Triton, Rhodes, Benthesikyme, Kymopoleia, Pelias, Theseus, Procrustes, Chrysaor, Ancaeus, Antaeus, Siculus, Halirrhothius, Mygodn, Astacus, Cteatus, Agenor, Eusirus, Hyrieus, Dorus, Belus, Lelex, Pelasgus, Anthas, Cycnus, Byzinus, Cychreus, Melas, Phthius, Nycteus, Augeas, Mneseus, Eurypylus of Cos, Lepreus, Chryses, Alcippe, Abderus, Chthonius, Periphetes, Lycus, Eleius, Eirene, Boeotus, Althepus, Achaeus, Sikanos, Nireus, Amykos, Palaestinus, Ergiscus, Erginus, Hopleus, Autochthon

Domain: the sea, storms, earthquakes, and horses

Chapter Text

Lyssa, also called Lytta by the Athenians, is a minor goddess in Greek Mythology, the spirit of rage, fury, and rabies in animals. She was closely related to the Maniae, the spirits of madness and insanity. Her Roman equivalent was variously named Ira, Furor, or Rabies. Sometimes she was multiplied into a host of Irae and Furores. In myth, Lyssa features in stories where she drives people insane to their doom.

The viral genus Lyssavirus, which includes the causative agent of rabies, was named after this goddess.

Because seeds of alyssum were used (unsuccessfully) to treat rabies, the flower was named after the disease with the prefix α- in front, meaning without. Thus, Lyssa is the etymological origin of the feminine name Alyssa.

Lyssa personifies mad rage and frenzy, as well as rabies in animals. In Herakles, she is called upon by Hera to inflict the hero Heracles with insanity. In this scenario, she arrives on her chariot and is portrayed as an unmarried virgin. She is shown to take a temperate, measured approach to her role, professing "not to use [her powers] in anger against friends, nor [to] have any joy in visiting the homes of men." She counsels Iris, who wishes to carry out Hera's command, against targeting Heracles but, after failing to persuade, bows to the orders of the superior goddess and sends him into a mad rage that causes him to murder his wife and children.

In a number of ancient Greek vases Lyssa appears on the scene of the death of Actaeon, the hunter who was transformed into a deer and devoured by his own hounds for seeing Artemis naked or trying to woo Semele. In a 440s BC red-figure bell-krater by the Lykaon Painter, Lyssa stands to the right of Actaeon, inflicting his dogs with rabies and directing them against him. It has been theorized that the vase depicts the events of the myth as dramatized in Athenian tragedian Aeschylus lost play Toxotides which dealt with Actaeon's death, although this assertion is far from certain. In a different vase with Actaeon's death, Lyssa is present along with Aphrodite, Eros, Artemis and a woman that could be Semele, indicating a sexual nature of Actaeon's grave offence which led to him being eaten by his own rabid dogs.

Lyssa also had a role in the myth of Lycurgus, the Thracian king who tried to ban the worship of Dionysus, the god of madness. In an Apulian vase from around 350 BC, the winged Lyssa supplants Dionysus as the deity causing Lycurgus to attack and kill his wife and son. Aeschylus identifies her as being the agent sent by Dionysus to madden the impious daughters of Cadmus, who in turn dismember their kinsman Pentheus.

Lyssa depicted as a winged figure, surrounded by a nimbus and wielding a goad. Apulian red-figure Kalyx-krater, c. 360–350 BC.

Animals: dog

Mount: chariot

Parents: Uranus (father) Nyx (mother)

Siblings: Thanatos, Hypnos, Erinyes, several more

Roman: Ira, Rabies

Domain: rage and madness

Chapter Text

In ancient Athens, Eleos or Elea was the personification of compassion. Pausanias described her as "among all the gods the most useful to human life in all its vicissitudes."

Pausanias states that there was an altar in Athens dedicated to Eleos, at which children of Heracles sought refuge from Eurystheus' prosecution. Adrastus also came to this altar after the defeat of the Seven against Thebes, praying that those who died in the battle be buried. Eleos was only recognized in Athens, where she was honored by the cutting of hair and the undressing of garments at the altar.

Statius in Thebaid (1st century) describes the altar to Clementia in Athens (treating Eleos as feminine based on the grammatical gender in Latin): "There was in the midst of the city [of Athens] an altar belonging to no god of power; gentle Clementia (Clemency) [Eleos] had there her seat, and the wretched made it sacred".

roman: Misericordia

Domain: kindness and redemption

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grain, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although Demeter is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Underworld. She is also called Deo.

In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and the sister of Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Like her other siblings except Zeus, she was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus. Through Zeus, she became the mother of Persephone, a fertility goddess and resurrection deity. One of the most notable Homeric Hymns, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, tells the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades and Demeter's search for her. When Hades, the King of the Underworld, wished to make Persephone his wife, he abducted her from a field while she was picking flowers, with Zeus' leave. Demeter searched everywhere to find her missing daughter to no avail until she was informed that Hades had taken her to the Underworld. In response, Demeter neglected her duties as goddess of agriculture, plunging the earth into a deadly famine where nothing would grow, causing mortals to die. Zeus ordered Hades to return Persephone to her mother to avert the disaster. However, because Persephone had eaten food from the Underworld, she could not stay with Demeter forever but had to divide the year between her mother and her husband, explaining the seasonal cycle as Demeter does not let plants grow while Persephone is gone.

Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), "she of the Grain", as the giver of food or grain, and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; φόρος, phoros: bringer, bearer), "giver of customs" or "legislator", in association with the secret female-only festival called the Thesmophoria. Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law and the cycle of life and death. She and Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised the initiated a happy afterlife. This religious tradition was based on ancient agrarian cults of agricultural communities and predated the Olympian pantheon, probably having its roots in the Mycenaean period c. 1400–1200 BC. Demeter was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele, and she was identified with the Roman goddess Ceres.

Demeter may appear in Linear A as da-ma-te on three documents (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), all three dedicated to religious situations and all three bearing just the name (i-da-ma-te on AR Zf 1 and 2). It is unlikely that Demeter appears as da-ma-te in a Linear B (Mycenaean Greek) inscription (PY En 609); the word 𐀅𐀔𐀳, da-ma-te, probably refers to "households". On the other hand, 𐀯𐀵𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊, si-to-po-ti-ni-ja, "Potnia of the Grain", is regarded as referring to her Bronze Age predecessor or to one of her epithets.

Demeter's character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter (μήτηρ) derived from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *méh₂tēr (mother). In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name. It is possible that Da (Δᾶ), a word which corresponds to Gē (Γῆ) in Attic, is the Doric form of De (Δῆ), "earth", the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess, and that Demeter is "Mother-Earth". Liddell & Scott find this "improbable" and Beekes writes, "there is no indication that [da] means "earth", although it has also been assumed in the name of Poseidon found in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker". John Chadwick also argues that the dā element in the name of Demeter is not so simply equated with "earth".

M. L. West has proposed that the word Demeter, initially Damater, could be a borrowing from an Illyrian deity attested in the Messapic goddess Damatura, with a form dā- ("earth", from PIE *dʰǵʰ(e)m-) attached to -matura ("mother"), akin to the Illyrian god Dei-paturos (dei-, "sky", attached to -paturos, "father"). The Lesbian form Dō- may simply reflect a different colloquial pronunciation of the non-Greek name.

Another theory suggests that the element De- might be connected with Deo, an epithet of Demeter and it could derive from the Cretan word dea (δηά), Ionic zeia (ζειά)—variously identified with emmer, spelt, rye, or other grains by modern scholars—so that she is the mother and the giver of food generally. This view is shared by British scholar Jane Ellen Harrison, who suggests that Démeter's name means Grain-Mother, instead of Earth-Mother.

An alternative Proto-Indo-European etymology comes through Potnia and Despoina, where Des- represents a derivative of PIE *dem (house, dome), and Demeter is "mother of the house" (from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr). R. S. P. Beekes rejects a Greek interpretation, but not necessarily an Indo-European one.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Animals: Pig, serpent, gecko, turtledove, crane, screech owl

symbol: Cornucopia, wheat, torch, poppy, bread

Festivals: Thesmophoria, Eleusinian Mysteries, Lithobolia

parents: Cronus and Rhea

Siblings: Hades, Hera, Hestia, Poseidon, Zeus

Consort: Poseidon, Zeus, Lasion, Karmanor, Mecon

children: Persephone, Despoina, Eubuleus, Aion, Plutus, Philomelus, Lacchus, Acheron, Hecate (Orphic)

Roman: Ceres

Egyptian: Isis

Domain: the harvest, agriculture, fertility, and sacred law

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek religion and Mythology, Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. In later times, she was identified with Selene, the personification of the moon. She was often said to roam the forests and mountains, attended by her entourage of nymphs.

In Greek tradition, Artemis is the daughter of Leto and Zeus, and twin sister of Apollo. In most accounts, the twins are the products of an extramarital liaison. For this, Zeus' wife Hera forbade Leto from giving birth anywhere on solid land. Only the island of Delos gave refuge to Leto, allowing her to give birth to her children. In one account, Artemis is born first and then proceeds to assist Leto in the birth of the second twin, Apollo.

Artemis was a kourotrophic (child-nurturing) deity, being the patron and protector of young children, especially young girls. Artemis was worshipped as one of the primary goddesses of childbirth and midwifery along with Eileithyia and Hera. She was also a patron of healing and disease, particularly among women and children, and believed to send both good health and illness upon women and children. Artemis was one of the three major virgin goddesses, alongside Athena and Hestia. Artemis preferred to remain an unmarried maiden and was one of the three Greek goddesses over whom Aphrodite had no power.

In myth and literature, Artemis is presented as a hunting goddess of the woods, surrounded by her chaste band of nymphs. In the myth of Actaeon, when the young hunter sees her bathing naked, he is transformed into a deer by the angered goddess and is then devoured by his own hunting dogs, who do not recognize their master. In the story of Callisto, the girl is driven away from Artemis' company after breaking her vow of virginity, having lain with and been impregnated by Zeus. In the Epic tradition, Artemis halted the winds blowing the Greek ships during the Trojan War, stranding the Greek fleet in Aulis, after King Agamemnon, the leader of the expedition, shot and killed her sacred deer. Artemis demanded the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon's young daughter, as compensation for her slain deer. In most versions, when Iphigenia is led to the altar to be offered as a sacrifice, Artemis pities her and takes her away, leaving a deer in her place. In the war that followed, Artemis supported the Trojans against the Greeks, and she challenged Hera in battle.

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities; her worship spread throughout ancient Greece, with her multiple temples, altars, shrines, and local veneration found everywhere in the ancient world. Her great temple at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, before it was burnt to the ground.

The name "Artemis" is of unknown or uncertain etymology, although various sources have been proposed. R.S.P. Beekes suggested that the e/i interchange points to a Pre-Greek origin. Artemis was venerated in Lydia as Artimus. Georgios Babiniotis, while accepting that the etymology is unknown, also states that the name is already attested in Mycenean Greek and is possibly of pre-Greek origin.

The name may be related to Greek árktos "bear" (from PIE *h₂ŕ̥tḱos), supported by the bear cult the goddess had in Attica (Brauronia) and the Neolithic remains at the Arkoudiotissa Cave, as well as the story of Callisto, which was originally about Artemis (Arcadian epithet kallisto); this cult was a survival of very old totemic and shamanistic rituals and formed part of a larger bear cult found further afield in other Indo-European cultures (e.g., Gaulish Artio). It is believed that a precursor of Artemis was worshipped in Minoan Crete as the goddess of mountains and hunting, Britomartis. While connection with Anatolian names has been suggested, the earliest attested forms of the name Artemis are the Mycenaean Greek 𐀀𐀳𐀖𐀵, a-te-mi-to /Artemitos/ and 𐀀𐀴𐀖𐀳, a-ti-mi-te /Artimitei/, written in Linear B at Pylos.

According to J.T. Jablonski, the name is also Phrygian and could be "compared with the royal appellation Artemas of Xenophon. Charles Anthon argued that the primitive root of the name is probably of Persian origin from *arta, *art, *arte, all meaning "great, excellent, holy", thus Artemis "becomes identical with the great mother of Nature, even as she was worshiped at Ephesus". Anton Goebel "suggests the root στρατ or ῥατ, 'to shake', and makes Artemis mean the thrower of the dart or the shooter".

Ancient Greek writers, by way of folk etymology, and some modern scholars, have linked Artemis (Doric Artamis) to ἄρταμος, artamos, i.e. "butcher" or, like Plato did in Cratylus, to ἀρτεμής, artemḗs, i.e. "safe", "unharmed", "uninjured", "pure", "the stainless maiden". A. J. van Windekens tried to explain both ἀρτεμής and Artemis from ἀτρεμής, atremḗs, meaning "unmoved, calm; stable, firm" via metathesis.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Planet: Moon

Animals: deer, serpent, dog, boar, goat, bear, quail, buzzard, guineafowl

Symbol: bow and arrows, crescent moon, animal pelts, spear, knives, torch, lyre, amaranth

Tree: cypress, palm, walnut

Mount: A golden chariot driven by four golden-horned deer

Born: Island of Delos, Greece

Parents: Leto and Zeus

Siblings: Apollo(twin), many paternal half-siblings

Roman: Diana

Domain: nature, childbirth, wildlife, healing, the hunt, sudden death, animals, virginity, young women, and archery

Chapter Text

Apollo is one of the Olympian deities in ancient Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more. One of the most important and complex of the Greek gods, he is the son of Leto and Zeus, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. He is considered to be the most beautiful god and is represented as the ideal of the kouros (ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth). Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Aplulu.

As the patron deity of Delphi (Apollo Pythios), Apollo is an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle and also the deity of ritual purification. His oracles were often consulted for guidance in various matters. He was in general seen as the god who affords help and wards off evil, and is referred to as Alexicacus, the "averter of evil". Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius. Apollo delivered people from epidemics, yet he is also a god who could bring ill health and deadly plague with his arrows. The invention of archery itself is credited to Apollo and his sister Artemis. Apollo is usually described as carrying a silver or golden bow and a quiver of arrows.

As the god of mousike, Apollo presides over all music, songs, dance, and poetry. He is the inventor of string-music and the frequent companion of the Muses, functioning as their chorus leader in celebrations. The lyre is a common attribute of Apollo. Protection of the young is one of the best attested facets of his panhellenic cult persona. As a kourostrophos, Apollo is concerned with the health and education of children, and he presided over their passage into adulthood. Long hair, which was the prerogative of boys, was cut at the coming of age (ephebeia) and dedicated to Apollo. The god himself is depicted with long, uncut hair to symbolise his eternal youth.

Apollo is an important pastoral deity, and he was the patron of herdsmen and shepherds. Protection of herds, flocks and crops from diseases, pests and predators were his primary rustic duties. On the other hand, Apollo also encouraged the founding of new towns and the establishment of civil constitutions, is associated with dominion over colonists, and was the giver of laws. His oracles were often consulted before setting laws in a city. Apollo Agyieus was the protector of the streets, public places and home entrances.

In Hellenistic times, especially during the 5th century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, the personification of the Sun. Although Latin theological works from at least 1st century BCE identified Apollo with Sol, there was no conflation between the two among the classical Latin poets until 1st century CE.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Planet: Sun, Mercury (antiquity)

Animals: Raven, Swan, Wolf

Symbol: Lyre, Laurel Wreath, Python, bow and arrows

Trees: Laurel, cypress

Mount: A chariot drawn by swans

Born: Delos

Parents: Leto and Zeus

Siblings: Artemis (twin), and many paternal half-siblings

Children: Asclepius, Aristaeus, Corybantes, Hymen, Apollonis, Amphiaraus, Anius, Apis, Cycnus, Eurydice, Hector, Linus of Thrace, Lycomedes, Melaneus, Melite, Miletus, Mopsus, Oaxes, Oncius, Orpheus, Troilus, Phemonoe, Philammon, Tenerus, Trophonius, and various others

Celtic: Grannus

Domain: oracles, healing, archery, music and arts, light, knowledge, herds and flocks, and protection of the young

Chapter Text

Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear.

From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess Athena was closely associated with the city. She was known as Polias and Poliouchos (both derived from polis, meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. She was also a warrior goddess and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos. Her main festival in Athens was the Panathenaia, which was celebrated during the month of Hekatombaion in midsummer and was the most important festival on the Athenian calendar.

In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus. In almost all versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. In a few others, such as Hesiod's Theogony, Zeus swallows his consort Metis, who was pregnant with Athena; in this version, Athena is first born within Zeus and then escapes from his body through his forehead. In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. She was known as Athena Parthenos "Athena the Virgin". In one archaic Attic myth, Hephaestus tried and failed to rape her, resulting in Gaia giving birth to Erichthonius, an important Athenian founding hero Athena raised. She was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the Trojan War. She plays an active role in the Illiad, in which she assists the Achaeans and, in the Odyssey, she is the tutelary deity to Odysseus.

In the later writings of the Roman poet Ovid, Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition, afterward transforming Arachne into the first spider, and to have transformed Medusa into the Gorgon after witnessing the young woman being raped by Poseidon in the goddess's temple. Ovid also says that Athena saved the mortal maiden Corone from the same god by transforming her into a crow. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Animals: owl, serpent, horse

Symbol: Aegis, helmet, spear, armor, Gorgoneion, chariot, distaff

Tree: olive

Parents: Zeus alone, or Zeus and Metis

Children: Erichthonius(adopted)

Roman: Minerva

Egyptian: Neith

Domain: wisdom, warfare, and handicraft

Chapter Text

The name Macaria derives from the Greek word makarios (μακάριος), meaning blessed, serene or happy, which is fitting for a deity embodying the concept of a peaceful and blessed death. In ancient texts, she is sometimes referred to as Makaria, a variation of her Greek name Μακαρία, emphasizing her role in ensuring a serene passage to the afterlife.

Her Roman counterpart shares her name, Macaria – by simply changing the letter “k” to the letter “c,” which are both pronounced as /k/, as “k” did not exist in Latin – indicating that her essence and responsibilities were recognized across the two cultures. This cross-cultural reverence underscores the universal desire for a death that is not only peaceful but also carries a sense of divine blessing.

Macaria’s epithets and alternative names are scarce, reflecting her specific role in the Greek pantheon. On the one hand, Macaria’s singular focus on a blessed death implies that her name encapsulates her entire being and purpose, so she is not given any additional names. However, it could also indicate that she is just not that well-known.

To discuss the origins of Macaria, we must first distinguish between Roman and Greek mythology. In Roman mythology, Macaria is identified as the daughter of Hades, the god of the underworld, and Persephone, the queen of the underworld whose annual descent and return marked the seasons. This lineage places her at the center of the ancient Greek concept of life, death, and rebirth, representing the unbreakable cycle that governs all existence.

While there are no detailed accounts of Macaria’s birth or childhood, her origins in the underworld, which the ancient Greeks feared and revered, imbue her with a deep connection to the mysteries of death. Her very existence exemplifies the belief that death, while unavoidable, can also be a return to a state of divine peace and blessing.

However, her Greek presence is more perplexing. While the Byzantine encyclopedia of Suda mentions her as a daughter of Hades (from an unknown mother), and she is associated with “blessed death,” there is no further mention of her or her role. In fact, many sources in Greek mythology state that Hades had no children and only mentioned Macaria, Heracles’ daughter. Macaria’s divine presence could be attributed to her by association with the Isles of the Blessed (Νήσοι τωv Μακάρων). She was also mentioned as a goddess of the Elysian Fields.

As a goddess whose realm is the peaceful passage to the afterlife, Macaria does not have offspring in the traditional sense. That was the case with most gods and goddesses connected to the Underworld. Her legacy is not carried on through lineage but through the comfort and solace that she provides to those facing the end of their mortal journey.

While specific descriptions of Macaria’s appearance are rare, she is often imagined as a serene and comforting presence, embodying the peace that comes with a blessed death. Unlike the fearsome depictions of other death-related deities, like Thanatos and Hekate, Macaria’s visage would likely be gentle, reflecting her role in easing the transition of the souls to the afterlife.

Symbols directly associated with Macaria are also not well-documented, reflecting her niche domain within the vast pantheon of Greek deities – or the fact that she was mostly revered in Roman religion/mythology.

Since there are no recorded myths about Macaria, we can only guess about her personality based on the few mentions of her name and role. As the goddess of “blessed” death, Macaria would be compassionate and understanding. She represents the aspect of death that should not be feared. Instead, it should be accepted as a natural and potentially beautiful part of the life cycle. Her demeanor would be calming, reassuring those on the verge of death.

Macaria’s powers are subtle yet profound, centered on the ability to grant a peaceful and blessed death. Unlike her father Hades, who rules the underworld, or her – alleged – Mother Persephone, who embodies the cycle of life and death, Macaria’s influence is more focused. Solely ensuring that the end of life is as serene as possible.

Given Macaria’s specific domain, no widely recognized symbols, animals, or plants are directly associated with her. Symbols of peace, such as olive branches or calm waters, may be associated with her essence. However, no documentation supports this.

In Greek mythology, Macaria is primarily responsible for the peaceful and blessed aspect of death. This responsibility distinguishes her from other underworld deities. She emphasizes the quality of death rather than its inevitability or aftermath, as Thanatos does.

Her inclusion in the pantheon serves as a reminder of the ancient Greeks’ nuanced view of death. It saw death not only as an end but also as a transition that could bring divine blessings. Macaria’s role emphasizes the belief that death, while a natural cycle, can also represent a return to a state of peace and grace.

There are no well-known myths about Macaria and no documented stories that would constitute a complete myth. We only know about Macaria through references in encyclopedias and plays.

Not to be confused with Macaria, daughter of Heracles’. She has a myth about her sacrifice to ensure the safety and victory of her people.

Macaria may not have been as widely worshiped or recognized as other deities. However, her role in the pantheon reflects a specific aspect of the ancient Greeks’ relationship with death. Her presence underscores the belief in a death that is not to be feared. Instead, it can be embraced as a peaceful return to the divine.

There are no well-documented sites or temples dedicated solely to Macaria. Possibly reflecting her more abstract and specialized role in Greek religion. However, any sacred spaces associated with the underworld or the cycle of life and death could be considered linked to her essence.

We do not see any depictions of Macaria in art. This is likely due to her specific domain and the ancient Greeks’ overall focus on more prominent deities. However, any depictions would highlight her serene and comforting nature, distinguishing her from other, more terrifying figures associated with death.

Macaria’s mentions in ancient texts are sparse, reflecting her unique role in Greek mythology. Her name appears in the Byzantine Encyclopedia of Suda as well as the works of Greek sophist Zenobius. He may have been referring to the Isles of the Fortunate (Nesoi Makarioi).

Chapter Text

Zéphuros,  'westerly wind'), also spelled in English as Zephyr is the god and personification of the West wind, one of the several wind gods, the Anemoi. The sons of Eos (the goddess of the dawn) and Astraeus, Zephyrus is the most gentle and favourable of the winds, associated with flowers, springtime and even procreation. In myths, he is presented as the tender breeze, known for his unrequited love for the Spartan prince Hyacinthus. Alongside Boreas, the two are the most prominent wind gods with relatively limited roles in recorded mythology.

Zephyrus, similarly, to his brothers, received a cult during ancient times although his worship was minor compared to the Twelve Olympians. Still, traces of it are found in Classical Athens and surrounding regions and city-states, where it was usually joint with the cults of the other wind gods.

The ancient Greek noun ζέφυρος is the word for the wind that blows from the west. His name is attested in Mycenaean Greek as ze-pu2-ro (Linear B) which points to a possible Proto-Hellenic form *Dzépʰuros. Further attestation of the god and his worship as part of the Anemoi is found in the word-forms 𐀀𐀚𐀗𐀂𐀋𐀩𐀊, a-ne-mo-i-je-re-ja, 𐀀𐀚𐀗𐄀𐀂𐀋𐀩𐀊, a-ne-mo i-je-re-ja. That is, "priestess of the winds", found on the KN Fp 1 and KN Fp 13 tablets.

Traditionally, 'Zephyros' has been linked to the word ζόφος (zóphos) meaning "darkness" or "west". Both in turn have been connected to the Proto-Indo-European root *(h₃)yebʰ-, meaning "to enter, to penetrate" (from which οἴφω (oíphō), meaning 'to have sex', also derives). It has been noted however that a development *Hi̯- → ζ- is unlikely, and most evidence in fact points to the contrary.

It could also be of pre-Greek origin, though Beekes is not sure either way. Due to his role as the west wind, his name and various derivatives of it were used to mean 'western', for example the Greek colony of Epizephyrian Locris in southern Italy west of Greece.

Greek: Ζέφυρος

Abode: Sky

Animals: Horse, swan

Parents: Eos and Astraeus

Siblings: winds (Boreas, Eurus, and Notus), Eosphorus, the stars, Memnon, Emathion, Astraea

Consort: Iris or Chloris/Flora

Children: Pothos, Balius and Xanthus, Carpus, Tigers

Roman: Favonius

Domain: the west wind

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology Hemera was the personification of day. According to Hesiod, she was the daughter of Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and the sister of Aether. Though separate entities in Hesiod's Theogony, Hemera and Eos (Dawn) were often identified with each other.

Hesiod's Theogony, Hemera and her brother Aether were the offspring of Erebus and Nyx. Bacchylides apparently had Hemera as the daughter of Chronus (Time) and Nyx. In the lost epic poem, the Titanomachy (late seventh century BC?), Hemera was perhaps the mother, by Aether, of Uranus (Sky). In some rare versions, Hemera was instead the daughter of Helios (the sun) by an unknown mother.

According to Hesiod's Theogony, Hemera left Tartarus just as Nyx (Night) entered it; when Hemera returned, Nyx left: Night and Day passing near greet one another as they cross the great bronze threshold. The one is about to go in, and the other is going out the door, and never does the household them both inside, but always the one goes out from the house and passes over the earth, while the other in turn remaining inside the house waits for the time of her own departure, until it comes. The one holds much-seeing light for those on the earth, but the other holds Sleep in her hands, the brother of Death —deadly Night, shrouded in murky cloud.

Hemera's Roman counterpart Dies (Day) had a different genealogy. According to the Roman mythographer Hyginus, Chaos and Caligio (Mist) were the parents of Nox (Night), Dies, Erebus, and Aether. Cicero says that Aether and Dies were the parents of Caelus (Sky). While, Hyginus says that, in addition to Caelus, Aether and Dies were also the parents of Terra (Earth), and Mare (Sea). Cicero also says that Dies and Caelus were the parents of Mercury, the Roman counterpart of Hermes.

Although Eos (Dawn) is a separate entity in Hesiod's Theogony—where she is the daughter of the Titans Theia and Hyperion, the mother of Memnon, and the lover of Cephalus—elsewhere Eos and Hemera are identified. For example, the geographer Pausanias describes seeing depictions, on the "Royal Portico" at Athens and on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae, of Cephalus being carried off by a goddess whom he identifies as Hemera. He also describes a stone pedestal at Olympia which depicted Hemera pleading with Zeus for the life of her son Memnon. Similarly, although, in Homer's Odysses, Eos is said to be the abductor of Orion, a scholiast on that passage says that, according to Euphorion, Hemera fell in love with Orion and carried him away.

While there is little evidence of Hemera having received a cult in ancient times, archaeological evidence has proven the existence of a small shrine to Hemera and Helios, the god of the sun, on the island of Kos.

Abode: sky and Tartarus

Parents: Nyx and Erebus

Sibling: Aether

Consort: Aether

Domain: Personification of day

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology Caerus was the personification of opportunity, luck and favorable moments. He was shown with only one lock of hair. His Roman equivalent was Occasio or Tempus. Caerus was the youngest son of Zeus.

Caerus is the due measure that achieves the aim. This god brings about what is convenient, fit, and comes in the right moment. Sometimes it could be the critical or dangerous moment, but more often Caerus represents the advantageous, or favorable occasion. Hence, what is opportune, or "Opportunity." In the Hellenistic age (as P. Chantraine informs us), the term was also used as "time" or "season" (the good time, or good season).

According to Pausanias, there was an altar of Caerus close to the entrance to the stadium at Olympia, for Opportunity is regarded as a divinity and not as a mere allegory. This indefatigable traveler also tells us that Caerus was regarded as the youngest child of Zeus in a hymn by Ion of Chios (ca. 490-425 BC).

Caerus is represented as a young and beautiful god. Opportunity obviously never gets old, and beauty is always opportune, flourishing in its own season. Caerus stands on tiptoe because he is always running, and like Hermes, he has wings in his feet to fly with the wind. He holds a razor, or else scales balanced on a sharp edge—attributes illustrating the fleeting instant in which occasions appear and disappear. A. Fairbanks (translator of Callistratus) suggests that the type of the statue of Opportunity was developed out of the form of the Hermes that granted victory in athletic contests.

Caerus can easily be seized by the hair hanging over his face ("creeping down over the eyebrows") when he is arriving. But once he has passed by, no one can grasp him, the back of his head being bald. The moment of action is gone with his hair: a neglected occasion cannot be recovered. The author of Ekphráseis (Descriptions) found that the statue of Caerus at Sicyon resembled Dionysus, with his forehead glistening with graces and a delicate blush on his cheeks: "... though it was bronze, it blushed; and though it was hard by nature, it melted into softness". And like the statue is Opportunity himself, he melts into softness if caught by the forelock, but once he has raced by, he assumes his hard nature and seldom grants a second chance.

According to ancient Greeks, Kairos was the god of the "fleeting moment"; "a favorable opportunity opposing the fate of man". Such a moment must be grasped (by the tuft of hair on the personified forehead of the fleeting opportunity); otherwise the moment is gone and can not be re-captured (personified by the back of head being bald).

A bronze statue of Kairos is known in literature, made by the famous Greek sculptor Lysippos. It stood at his home, in the Agora of Hellenistic Sikyon. The following epigram by Poseidippos was carved on the statue:

Who and whence was the sculptor? From Sikyon.
And his name? Lysippos.
And who are you? Time who subdues all things.
Why do you stand on tip-toe? I am ever running.
And why you have a pair of wings on your feet? I fly with the wind.
And why do you hold a razor in your right hand? As a sign to men that I am sharper than any sharp edge.
And why does your hair hang over your face? For him who meets me to take me by the forelock.
And why, in Heaven's name, is the back of your head bald? Because none whom I have once raced by on my winged feet will now, though he wishes it sore, take hold of me from behind.

Why did the artist fashion you? For your sake, stranger, and he set me up in the porch as a lesson.

This statue was the original model for the various representations of Kairos made in ancient times and Middle Ages as well. John Tzetzes wrote about it, as well as Himerius. The image of hair hanging on the forehead and a bald back of the head. For instance Disticha Catonis II, 26 refer to the Latin concept of Occasio (a female word which can be considered as a literal translation of the Greek Kairos) in these terms: "Rem tibi quam scieris aptam dimittere noli: fronte capillata, post haec occasio calva", which means "Don't let that what you consider good for you escape by; chance has hair over her forehead, but behind she's bald". Phaedrus (V,8) has a similar writing and he himself admits that the theme was not his own but more ancient. Callistratus (Descriptions, 6) has a long text describing the statue by Lysippos.

Domain: personification of opportunity, luck and favorable moments

Chapter Text

Heracles born Alcaeus (Ἀλκαῖος, Alkaios) or Alcides (Ἀλκείδης, Alkeidēs), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon. He was a descendant and half-brother (as they are both sired by Zeus) of Perseus.

He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae (Ἡρακλεῖδαι), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. Details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well.

Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being the twelve Labours of Hercules; Alexandrian poets of the Hellenistic age drew his mythology into a high poetic and tragic atmosphere. His figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as the lion-fight, was widely known.

Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, no tomb was identified as his. Heracles was both hero and god, as Pindar says heros theos; at the same festival sacrifice was made to him, first as a hero, with a chthonic libation, and then as a god, upon an altar: thus he embodies the closest Greek approach to a "demi-god".

The core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld. It is possible that the myths surrounding Heracles were based on the life of a real person or several people whose accomplishments became exaggerated with time.

Heracles's role as a culture hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling (see below), was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. This created an awkwardness in the encounter with Odysseus in the episode of Odyssey XI, called the Nekuia, where Odysseus encounters Heracles in Hades: And next I caught a glimpse of powerful Heracles—

His ghost I mean: the man himself delights
in the grand feasts of the deathless gods on high ...
Around him cries of the dead rang out like cries of birds
scattering left and right in horror as on he came like night ...

Ancient critics were aware of the problem of the aside that interrupts the vivid and complete description, in which Heracles recognizes Odysseus and hails him, and some modern critics deny that the verse's beginning, in Fagles's translation His ghost I mean ..., was part of the original composition: "once people knew of Heracles's admission to Olympus, they would not tolerate his presence in the underworld", remarks Friedrich Solmsen, noting that the interpolated verses represent a compromise between conflicting representations of Heracles.

The ancient Greeks celebrated the festival of the Heracleia, which commemorated the death of Heracles, on the second day of the month of Metageitnion (which would fall in late July or early August). What is believed to be an Egyptian Temple of Heracles in the Bahariya Oasis dates to 21 BCE. A reassessment of Ptolemy's descriptions of the island of Malta attempted to link the site at Ras ir-Raheb with a temple to Heracles, but the arguments are not conclusive. Several ancient cities were named Heraclea in his honor. A very small island close to the island of Lemnos was called Neai (Νέαι), from νέω, which means "I dive/swim", because Heracles swam there. According to the Greek legends, the Heraculaneum in Italy was founded by him.

Several poleis provided two separate sanctuaries for Heracles, one recognizing him as a god, the other only as a hero. Sacrifice was made to him as a hero and as a god within the same festival. This ambiguity helped create the Heracles cult especially when historians (e.g. Herodotus) and artists encouraged worship such as the painters during the time of the Peisistratos, who often presented Heracles entering Olympus in their works.

Some sources explained that the Greek hero cult of Heracles persisted because of the hero's ascent to heaven and his suffering, which became the basis for festivals, ritual, rites, and the organization of mysteries. There is the observation, for example, that sufferings (pathea) gave rise to the rituals of grief and mourning, which came before the joy in the mysteries in the sequence of cult rituals. Also, like the case of Apollo, the cult of Heracles had been sustained through the years by absorbing local cult figures such as those who share the same nature. He was also constantly invoked as a patron for men, especially the young ones. For example, he was considered the ideal in warfare so he presided over gymnasiums and the ephebes or those men undergoing military training.

There were ancient towns and cities that also adopted Heracles as a patron deity, contributing to the spread of his cult. There was the case of the royal house of Macedonia, which claimed lineal descent from the hero, primarily for purposes of divine protection and legitimator of actions.

The earliest evidence that shows the worship of Heracles in popular cult was in 6th century BCE (121–122 and 160–165) via an ancient inscription from Phaleron. After the 4th century BCE, Heracles became identified with the Phoenician God Melqart

Oitaens worshiped Heracles and called him Cornopion (Κορνοπίων) because he helped them get rid of locusts (which they called cornopes), while the citizens of Erythrae at Mima called him Ipoctonus (ἰποκτόνος) because he destroyed the vine-eating ips (ἀμπελοφάγων ἰπῶν), a kind ofcynips wasp, there.

Near the town of Bura in Achaea, there was a statue of Heracles on the River Buraicus and an oracle in a cave. People who consulted this oracle first prayed before the statue, then threw four dice from a mound that was always kept ready onto a table. These dice were marked with certain characters, the significance of which was elucidated by an artwork shown in the cave. Because of this town Heracles had the epithet Buraicus (Βουραϊκός).

Pausanias wrote that at Thebes there was a statue of Heracles, called Nose-docker (Ῥινοκολούστης) because, according to the ancient Thebans, he cut off the noses of the heralds sent from Orchomenus to demand tribute, intending to insult them.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Symbol: Club, lion skin

Born: Thebes, Boeotia, Greece

Died: Mount Oeta, Phocis, Greece

Parents: Zeus and Alcmene

Sibling: maternal-Iphicles, Laonome; paternal- Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Dionysus, Helen of Troy, Perseus, and many others

Consort: Megara, Omphale, Deianira, Hebe

Children: Alexiares and Anicetus, Telephus, Hyllus, Tlepolemus

Canaanite: Melqart

Roman: Hercules

Domain: strength and heroes' Divine protector of mankind

Chapter Text

Rhea or Rheia is a mother goddess in Greek religion and mythology the Titan daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, the first son of Gaia. She is the older sister of Cronus, who was also her consort, and the mother of the five eldest Olympian gods (Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus) Hades, king of the underworld.

When Cronus learnt that he was destined to be overthrown by one of his children like his father before him, he swallowed all the children Rhea bore as soon as they were born. When Rhea had her sixth and final child, Zeus, she spirited him away and hid him in Crete, giving Cronus a rock to swallow instead, thus saving her youngest son who would go on to challenge his father's rule and rescue the rest of his siblings. Following Zeus's defeat of Cronus and the rise of the Olympian gods into power, Rhea withdraws from her role as the queen of the gods to become a supporting figure on Mount Olympus. She has some roles in the new Olympian era. She attended the birth of her grandson Apollo and raised her other grandson Dionysus. After Persephone was abducted by Hades, Rhea was sent to Demeter by Zeus. In the myth of Pelops, she resurrects the unfortunate youth after he has been slain.

In early traditions, she is known as "the mother of gods" and therefore is strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, who have similar functions. The classical Greeks saw her as the mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses. The Romans identified her with Magna Mater (their form of Cybele), and the Goddess Ops.

Some ancient etymologists derived Rhea (Ῥέα) (by metathesis) from ἔρα (éra, 'ground', 'earth'); the same is suggested also by Ioannes Stamatakos. Other roots have been suggested by modern scholarship, but Hjalmar Frisk considers a convincing etymology to be lacking.

A different tradition, embodied in Plato and in Chrysippus, connected the word with ῥέω (rhéo, 'flow, discharge'), Alternatively, the name Rhea may be connected with words for the pomegranate: ῥόα (rhóa), and later ῥοιά (rhoiá).

The name Rhea may ultimately derive from a Pre-Greek or Minoan source.

An alternative etymological hypothesis is that "re” (cloud/sky) as a foundational element in the ancient Illyric or pre-Albanian vocabulary could symbolize the sky or celestial phenomena. Given that Uranus is the sky god in Greek mythology, and "Rhea" is his daughter, it’s plausible to hypothesize that her name might have roots linked to "cloud" or "sky" in the ancient Balkanic language.

Therefore, "Rhea", as a daughter of Uranus, could be etymologically connected to this root, implying "daughter of the sky" or "cloud-born," fitting her mythological role as a primordial sky goddess or divine mother associated with celestial elements.

Animals: Lion

Symbol: Chariot, tambourine, crown, cornucopia

Parents: Uranus (father) Gaia (mother)

Siblings: the titans

Consort: Cronus

Offspring: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus/ Persephone (Orphic)

Roman: Ops

Domain: motherhood, fertility, and generation

Chapter Text

in Greek mythology and religion, Nike is the personification of the abstract concept of victory. She was the goddess of victory in battle, as well as in other kinds of contests. According to Hesiod's Theogony, she is the daughter of Styx and the Titan Pallas, and the sister of similar personifications: Kratos, Bia, and Zelus (i.e. Rivalry, Strength, and Force).

What little mythology Nike had involved her close association with the gods Zeus and Athena. She was one of the first gods to support Zeus in his overthrow of the Titans, and because of this Zeus always kept Nike with him. Nonnus makes her the attendant of Athena, and gives her a role in Zeus's victory over Typhon. In Athens, she was particularly associated with Athena, and the cult of Athena Nike. In art Nike is typically portrayed as winged and moving at great speed. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess, Victoria.

The name derives from the Greek noun νίκη níkē meaning "victory", "upper hand [in battle or contest]". The word is of uncertain origin, probably related to Ancient Greek: νεῖκος neîkos "strife" and the verb νεικεῖν neikeîn "to quarrel"; ultimately also of uncertain, possibly pre-Greek, etymology. R.S.P. Beekes finds the word unrelated to Proto-Indo-European *ni-h₃kʷo- and sees no strong evidence for the proposed relation with νεῖκος and the Lithuanian ap-ni̇̀kti "to attack". In the Doric Greek dialect, the name was alternatively spelled as Νίκα Níka. The word gave several compounds in Ancient Greek, including the name Νικηφόρος Nikephoros "carrying away victory" and, through the verb νικάω nikáo "to win", it gave the epithet νικάτωρ nikator "victor".

Hesiod, in his Theogony, has Nike as the daughter of Styx and the Titan Pallas, and the sister of Kratos, Bia, and Zelus. in one of the Homeric Hymns, Ares the god of war is said to be the "father of warlike Victory [Nike]". According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the Arcadians had a legend that Nike was the daughter of Pallas (the son of their legendary king Lycaon), to whom Zeus gave Athena when she was born to be raised by him, and so was Athena's foster-sister. Or like Athena, Nike could be thought of as the daughter of Zeus himself.

Nike had little to no independent mythology. She was closely associated with both Zeus and Athena and can appear as a constant companion or attribute of either god. In her earliest mention, by Hesiod, Nike is said to have received honors from Zeus for her support of Zeus in his overthrow of the Titans, but no details are given. Following Hesiod, Nike's next several mentions occur, not in connection with military victory, but rather in the granting of victory in other kinds of contests (agones), including athletic or theatrical competitions. The fifth-century AD Greek poet Nonnus gave Nike a minor role in Zeus's battle with Typhon.

The first mention of Nike occurs in the Theogony of Hesiod (c. 730–700 BC). According to Hesiod's account, in preparation for the Titanomachy, the Olympians' war against the Titans, Zeus called all the gods to Mount Olympus to determine their allegiance. He declared that any god that chose to align with him against Cronus would receive his honor and favor. The first to do so was Styx, who brought Zeus her children: Nike, the personification of victory, and her brothers Zelus, Kratos, and Bia, the personifications of glory, power and strength. Nike and her brothers all represented qualities which would be invaluable to Zeus in the coming war. As a result, Zeus forever honored Nike and her brothers keeping them always with him. And as such, the qualities represented by Nike and her brothers would become attributes of Zeus himself.

In Nonnos' Dionysiaca, Nike comes to aid Zeus in his battle against the many snake-headed giant Typhon, who has stolen Zeus's weapons the thunderbolts and begun a concerted attack on the heavens and the seas. When Typhon discovers that Zeus has, through trickery, retrieved his thunderbolts, Typhon renews his attack, laying waste to the earth. The day ends with Typhon unchallenged, while Zeus waits through the night for the approaching dawn.

Nike, in the form of Leto, finds Zeus alone waiting in the dark and reproaches him saying:

Lord Zeus! stand up as champion of your own children! Let me never see Athena mingled with Typhon, she who knows not the way of a man with a maid! Make not a mother of the unmothered! Fight, brandish your lightning, the fiery spear of Olympos! Gather once more your clouds, lord of the rain! For the foundations of the steadfast universe are already shaking under Typhon's hands ...!

Nike expresses here her particular concerns (as her attendant) for Athena, the motherless maiden daughter of Zeus. She goes on to tell Zeus that many gods have already given up and fled the battle including Ares, Hermes, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. She also reminds Zeus of the terrible consequences if Typhon were to win, mentioning again the rape and enslavement of Athena, as well as that of Zeus's other maiden daughter Artemis.

When in the morning Typhon again issued his challenge, Zeus gathered the clouds around himself for armor and answered the monster's threats. Nike leads Zeus into battle, as Eris (Strife) leads Typhon. During the fighting, Nike "lifted her shield and held it before Zeus", while Zeus, armed with "his aegis-breastplate", attacked with his thunderbolts. After a long and cataclysmic battle, Zeus is able to defeat the monster and claim victory. As the victorious Zeus rides off the battlefield in his golden chariot, Nike is "by his side" driving "her father's team with the heavenly whip".

In Hesiod's Theogony, this battle is described differently. There is no indication of Zeus being hesitant or fearful and Nike makes no appearance to encourage or aid Zeus in his battle with Typhon.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Parents: Pallas and Styx

Sibling: Kratos, Bia, and Zelus

Roman: Victoria

Domain: victory

Chapter Text

Menoetius or Menoetes Μενοίτιος, Μενοίτης Menoitios), meaning doomed might, is a name that refers to three distinct persons from Greek mythology: Menoetius, a second-generation Titan, son of Iapetus and Clymene or Asia, and a brother of Atlas, Prometheus and Epimetheus. Menoetius was killed by Zeus with a flash of lightning in the Titanomachy and banished to Tartarus. His name means "doomed might", deriving from the Ancient Greek words menos ("might, power") and oitos ("doom, pain"). Hesiod described Menoetius as hubristic, meaning exceedingly prideful and impetuous to the very end. From what his name suggests, along with Hesiod's own account, Menoetius was perhaps the Titan god of violent anger and rash action.

Menoetes, guard of the cattle of Hades. During Heracles twelfth labor, which required him to steal the hound Cerberus from the Underworld, he slays one of Hades' cattle. A certain Menoetes, son of Keuthonymos, challenges Heracles to a wrestling match, during which Heracles hugs him and breaks his ribs before Persephone intervenes.

Domain: violent anger and doomed pride

Chapter Text

Castor and Pollux (or Polydeuces) are twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri or Dioskouroi.

Their mother was Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. The pair are thus an example of heteropaternal superfecundation. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytmnestra.

In Latin, the twins are also known as the Gemini ("twins") or Castores, as well as the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids. Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire. They were also associated with horsemanship, in keeping with their origin as the Indo-European horse twins.

There is much contradictory information regarding the parentage of the Dioscuri. In the Homeric Odyssey (11.298–304), they are the sons of Tyndareus alone, but they were sons of Zeus in the Hesiodic Catalogue (fr. 24 M–W). The conventional account (attested first in Pindar, Nemean 10) combined these paternities so that only Pollux was fathered by Zeus, while Leda and her husband Tyndareus conceived Castor. This explains why they were granted an alternate immortality. The figure of Tyndareus may have entered their tradition to explain their archaic name Tindaridai in Spartan inscriptions, or Tyndaridai in literature, in turn occasioning incompatible accounts of their parentage. Their other sisters were Timandra, Phoebe, and Philonoe.

Castor and Pollux are sometimes both mortal, sometimes both divine. One consistent point is that if only one of them is immortal, it is Pollux. In Homer's Iliad, Helen looks down from the walls of Troy and wonders why she does not see her brothers among the Achaeans. The narrator remarks that they are both already dead and buried back in their homeland of Lacedaemon, thus suggesting that at least in some early traditions, both were mortal. Their death and shared immortality offered by Zeus was material of the lost Cypria in the Epic cycle.

The Dioscuri were regarded as helpers of mankind and held to be patrons of travellers and of sailors in particular, who invoked them to seek favourable winds. Their role as horsemen and boxers also led to them being regarded as the patrons of athletes and athletic contests. They characteristically intervened at the moment of crisis, aiding those who honoured or trusted them.

Ancient Greek authors tell a number of versions of the story of Castor and Pollux. Homer portrays them initially as ordinary mortals, treating them as dead in the Iliad:

"... there are two commanders I do not see,
Castor the horse breaker and the boxer
Polydeuces, my brothers ..." -Helen, Iliad

but in the Odyssey
they are described as both being alive, even though "the grain-bearing earth holds them". The author describes them as "having honour equal to gods", living on alternate days because of the intervention of Zeus. In both the Odyssey and in Hesiod, they are described as the sons of Tyndareus and Leda. In Pindar, Pollux is the son of Zeus, while Castor is the son of the mortal Tyndareus. The theme of ambiguous parentage is not unique to Castor and Pollux; similar characterisations appear in the stories of Herakles and Theseus. The Dioscuri are also invoked in Alcaeus'
fragment 34a, though whether this poem antedates the Homeric Hymn to the twins is unknown. They appear together in two plays by Euripides, Helen and Elektra.

Cicero tells the story of how Simonides of Ceos was rebuked by Scopas, his patron, for devoting too much space to praising Castor and Pollux in an ode celebrating Scopas' victory in a chariot race. Shortly afterwards, Simonides was told that two young men wished to speak to him; after he had left the banqueting room, the roof fell in and crushed Scopas and his guests.

According to the ancient sources the horse of Castor was named Cyllarus.

When their sister Helen was abducted by Theseus, the half-brothers invaded his kingdom of Attica to rescue her. In revenge they abducted Theseus's mother Aethra and took her to Sparta while setting his rival, Menestheus, on the throne of Athens. Aethra was then forced to become Helen's slave. She was ultimately returned to her home by her grandsons Demophon and Acamas after the fall of Troy.

Domain: Twin gods, patrons of sailors, associated with horsemanship

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato's Gorgias (c. 400 BC), souls are judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment. Tartarus appears in early Greek cosmology, such as in Hesiod's Theogony, where the personified Tartarus is described as one of the earliest beings to exist, alongside Chaos and Gaia (Earth).

In Greek mythology, Tartarus is both a deity and a place in the underworld.

In the Greek poet Hesiod's Theogony (c. late 8th century BC), Tartarus was the third of the primordial deities, following after Chaos and Gaia (Earth), and preceding Eros, and was the father, by Gaia, of the monster Typhon. According to Hyginus, Tartarus was the offspring of Aether and Gaia.

Hesiod asserts that a bronze anvil falling from heaven would fall nine days before it reached the earth. The anvil would take nine more days to fall from earth to Tartarus. In the Iliad (c. 8th century BC), Zeus asserts that Tartarus is "as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth." Similarly, the mythographer Apollodorus, describes Tartarus as "a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky."

While according to Greek mythology the realm of Hades is the place of the dead, Tartarus also has a number of inhabitants. When Cronus came to power as the King of the Titans, he imprisoned the three ancient one-eyed Cyclopes and only the hundred-armed Hecatonchires in Tartarus and set the monster Campe as its guard. Campe was part scorpion and had a ring of animal heads around her waist, snapping at anyone who dared to get near. She also carried a whip to torture the Cyclopes and the hundred-armed ones. Zeus killed Campe and released these imprisoned giants to aid in his conflict with the Titans. The gods of Olympus eventually triumphed. Cronus and many of the other Titans were banished to Tartarus, though Prometheus, Epimetheus, and female Titans such as Metis were spared. Other gods could be sentenced to Tartarus as well. In the Homeric hymn to Hermes, Apollo threatens to throw Hermes into Tartarus. Apollo himself was almost condemned to Tartarus by Zeus for the act of killing the Cyclops. The Hecatonchires became guards of Tartarus's prisoners. Later, when Zeus overcame the monster Typhon, he threw him into "wide Tartarus".

Originally, Tartarus was used only to confine dangers to the gods of Olympus and their predecessors. In later mythologies, Tartarus became a space dedicated to the imprisonment and torment of mortals who had sinned against the gods, and each punishment was unique to the condemned. For example:

King Sisyphus was sent to Tartarus for killing guests and travelers at his castle in violation of his hospitality, seducing his niece, and reporting one of Zeus's sexual conquests by telling the river god Asopus of the whereabouts of his daughter Aegina (who had been taken away by Zeus). But regardless of the impropriety of Zeus's frequent conquests, Sisyphus overstepped his bounds by considering himself a peer of the gods who could rightfully report their indiscretions. When Zeus ordered Thanatos to chain up Sisyphus in Tartarus, Sisyphus tricked Thanatos by asking him how the chains worked and ended up chaining Thanatos; as a result, there was no more death. This caused Ares to free Thanatos and turn Sisyphus over to him. Sometime later, Sisyphus had Persephone send him back to the surface to scold his wife for not burying him properly. Sisyphus was forcefully dragged back to Tartarus by Hermes when he refused to go back to the Underworld after that. In Tartarus, Sisyphus was forced forever to try to roll a large boulder to the top of a mountain slope, which, no matter how many times he nearly succeeded in his attempt, would always roll back to the bottom. This constituted the punishment (fitting the crime) of Sisyphus for daring to claim that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus. Zeus's cunning punishment demonstrated quite the opposite to be the case, condemning Sisyphus to a humiliating eternity of futility and frustration.

King Tantalus, also ended up in Tartarus after he cut up his son Pelops, boiled him, and served him as food when he was invited to dine with the gods. He also stole the ambrosia from the Gods and told his people its secrets. Another story mentioned that he held onto a golden dog forged by Hephaestus and stolen by Tantalus's friend Pandareus. Tantalus held onto the golden dog for safekeeping and later denied to Pandareus that he had it. Tantalus's punishment for his actions (now a proverbial term for "temptation without satisfaction") was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any. Over his head towered a threatening stone like that of Sisyphus.

Ixion was the king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly. Ixion grew to hate his father-in-law and ended up pushing him onto a bed of coal and wood, committing the first kin-related murder. The princes of other lands ordered that Ixion be denied the cleansing of his sin. Zeus took pity on Ixion and invited him to a meal on Olympus. But when Ixion saw Hera, he fell in love with her and did some under-the-table caressing until Zeus signaled him to stop. After finding a place for Ixion to sleep, Zeus created a cloud-clone of Hera named Nephele to test him to see how far he would go to seduce Hera. Ixion made love to her, which resulted in the birth of Centaurus, who mated with some Magnesian mares on Mount Pelion and thus begot the race of Centaurs (who are called the Ixionidae from their descent). Zeus drove Ixion from Mount Olympus and then struck him with a thunderbolt. He was punished by being tied to a winged flaming wheel that was always spinning: first in the sky and then in Tartarus. Only when Orpheus came down to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice did it stop spinning because of the music Orpheus was playing. Ixion's being strapped to the flaming wheel represented his burning lust.

In some versions, the Danaides murdered their husbands and were punished in Tartarus by being forced to carry water in a jug to fill a bath which would thereby wash off their sins. But the jugs were filled with cracks, so the water always leaked out.

The giant Tityos attempted to rape Leto on Hera's orders but was slain by Apollo and Artemis. As punishment, Tityos was stretched out in Tartarus and tortured by two vultures who fed on his liver. This punishment is extremely similar to that of the Titan Prometheus.

King Salmoneus was also mentioned to have been imprisoned in Tartarus after passing himself off as Zeus, causing the real Zeus to smite him with a thunderbolt.

Arke is the sister of Iris who sided with the Titans as their messenger goddess. Zeus removed her wings following the gods' victory over the Titans and she was thrown into Tartarus with the Titans.

Ocnus was condemned in Tartarus perpetually to weave a rope of straw which, as fast as he weaves it, is just as quickly eaten by a donkey. There is no mention of what he did to deserve this fate.

When his pregnant daughter Coronis was killed by either Artemis or Apollo, King Phlegyas set fire to the Apollonian temple at Delphi and was killed by Apollo. He was punished in Tartarus by being entombed in a rock and starved in front of an eternal feast as he shouts to the other inhabitants not to despise the gods.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology Priapus is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens, and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized penis, and his permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism. He became a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature and is the subject of the often humorously obscene collection of verse called the Priapeia.

Priapus was described in varying sources as the son of Aphrodite by Dionysus; as the son of Dionysus and Chione; as perhaps the father or son of Hermes; or as the son of Zues or Pan. According to legend, Hera cursed him with inconvenient impotence (he could not sustain an erection when the time came for sexual intercourse), ugliness and foul-mindedness while he was still in Aphrodite's womb, in revenge for the hero Paris having the temerity to judge Aphrodite more beautiful than Hera. In another account, Hera's anger and curse were because the baby had been fathered by her husband Zeus. The other gods refused to allow him to live on Mount Olympus and threw him down to Earth, leaving him on a hillside. He was eventually found by shepherds and was brought up by them.

Priapus joined Pan and the satyrs as a spirit of fertility and growth, though he was perennially frustrated by his impotence. In a ribald anecdote told by Ovid, he attempted to rape the goddess Hestia but was thwarted by an ass, whose braying caused him to lose his erection at the critical moment and woke Hestia. The episode gave him a lasting hatred of asses and a willingness to see them killed in his honour. The emblem of his lustful nature was his permanent erection and his large penis. Another myth states that he pursued the nymph Lotis until the gods took pity on her and turned her into a lotus plant.

"Priapos" is a title given to Eros Phanes in the Orphic Hymn to Protogonos, the "firstborn" god of the Greeks who came from the Cosmic Egg. In The Orphic Hymn to Dionysus, Dionysus is given epithets similar to Protogonos and was thought of as the incarnation of Protogonos, so he was considered both the father of fertility god Priapus and also the incarnation of the primordial Priapus.

As well as the collection known as the Priapeia mentioned above, Priapus was a frequent figure in Latin erotic or mythological verse.

In Ovid's Fasti, the nymph Lotis fell into a drunken slumber at a feast, and Priapus seized this opportunity to advance upon her. With stealth he approached, and just before he could embrace her, Silenus's donkey alerted the party with "raucous braying". Lotis awoke and pushed Priapus away, but her only true escape was to be transformed into the lotus tree. To punish the donkey for spoiling his opportunity, Priapus bludgeoned it to death with his gargantuan phallus. When the same story is recounted later in the same book, Lotis is replaced with the virginal goddess Hestia, who avoids being changed into a tree as the other Olympians come to her rescue. Ovid's anecdote served to explain why donkeys were sacrificed to Priapus in the city of Lampsacus on the Hellespont, where he was worshipped among the offspring of Hermes.

Once, a donkey that had been given human speech by Dionysus challenged Priapus to a contest about which between them had the better penis. Priapus won the contest, and then killed the donkey, which was put by Dionysus among the stars.

The first extant mention of Priapus is in the eponymous comedy Priapus, written in the 4th century BC by Xenarchus. Originally worshipped by Greek colonists in Lampsacus in Asia Minor, the cult of Priapus spread to mainland Greece and eventually to Italy during the 3rd century BC. Lucian (De saltatione) tells that in Bithynia Priapus was accounted as a warlike god, a rustic tutor to the infant Ares, "who taught him dancing first and war only afterwards," Karl Kerenyi observed. Arnobius is aware of the importance accorded Priapus in this region near the Hellespont. Also, Pausanias notes:

This god is worshipped where goats and sheep pasture or there are swarms of bees; but by the people of Lampsacus he is more revered than any other god, being called by them a son of Dionysus and Aphrodite.

In later antiquity, his worship meant little more than a cult of sophisticated pornography.

Outside his "home" region in Asia Minor, Priapus was regarded as something of a joke by urban dwellers. However, he played a more important role in the countryside, where he was seen as a guardian deity. He was regarded as the patron god of sailors and fishermen and others in need of good luck, and his presence was believed to avert the evil eye.

Symbol: Donkey, flowers, fruit, vegetables, fish, bees

Parents: Dionysus and Aphrodite, Hermes and Aphrodite, Dionysus and Chione, Zeus and Aphrodite, Pan

Roman: Mutunus Tutunus

Domain: fertility, vegetables, nature, livestock, fruit, beekeeping, sex, genitals, masculinity, and gardens

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Melicertes, later called Palaemon or Palaimon (Παλαίμων), was a Boeotian prince as the son of King Athamas and Ino, daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes. He was the brother of Learchus.

Ino, pursued by her husband, who had been driven mad by Hera because Ino had brought up the infant Dionysus, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara and Corinth, and both were changed into marine deities: Ino as Leucothea, noted by Homer, Melicertes as Palaemon. The body of the latter was carried by a dolphin to the Isthmus of Corinth and deposited under a pine tree. Here it was found by his uncle Sisyphus, who had it removed to Corinth, and by command of the Nereids instituted the Isthmian Games and sacrifices in his honor.

other names: Palaemon

Abode: Boeotia

Parents: Athamas and Ino

Siblings: Learchus

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology and religion, Notus is the god of the south wind and one of the Anemoi (wind-gods), sons of the dawn goddess Eos and the star-god Astraeus. A desiccating wind of heat, Notus was associated with the storms of late summer and early autumn, wetness, mist, and was seen as a rain-bringer. Unlike his two more notable brothers, Boreas (the god of the north wind) and Zephyrus (the god of the west wind), Notus has little to no unique mythology of his own.

The Greek noun νότος refers both to the south cardinal direction and the south wind that blows from it. Its ultimate etymology remains unknown, although a pre-Greek origin seems to be the most likely origin.

In Hesiod's Theogony, Notus is the son of Eos, the goddess of the dawn, and Astraeus, her husband. He is the sibling of the other winds, who Hesiod lists as Zephyrus and Boreas. Thus, he is brother to the stars and the justice goddess Astraea, and half-brother to the mortals Memnon and Emathion, sons of his mother Eos by the Trojan prince Tithonus. Notus has no known consorts, lovers or offspring.

The ancient Greeks distinguished the three types of wind blowing from the south; the first was notos (the one Notus mostly represents) which blew from various directions in winter and was seen as the rain-bringer that obscured visibility, the second was leukonotos ("white notus") which was milder and cleared up the sky, and the third was the hot bringer of dust, identified with sirocco.

Notus is one of the three wind-gods mentioned by Hesiod, alongside his brothers Boreas and Zephyrus, the three wind gods seen as beneficial by the ancient Greeks. Unlike his two more prominent brothers however, Notus has very little mythology, and mostly appears in conjugation with his brothers, with too few unique appearances to differentiate him from the rest. In his few appearances in mythology, Notus is usually paired with his full brother Eurus, the god and personification of the east wind.

In his preparation for the Great Deluge, Zeus locked up Boreas and the other cloud-blowing gales, and let Notus free, to rain upon the earth, who let it pour all over the globe, drowning almost everyone.

In the Odyssey the winds seem to dwell on the island of Aeolia, as Zeus has made Aeolus keeper of the winds. Aeolus receives Odysseus and his crew and keeps them as guests for a month. As they part, Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag containing all the winds, except for Zephyrus; although warned not to open the bag, Odysseus's crewmates however foolishly open the bag, thinking it to contain some treasure, and set free Notus along with all the other winds as well, who then blow the ships back to Aeolia. Much later, he and Eurus strand Odysseus on Thrinacia, the island of the sun-god Helios, for an entire month.

In the Dionysiaca meanwhile, he and his brothers live with their father Astraeus; Notus serves water from a jug when Demeter pays a visit. In the Iliad, Notus dined together with his brothers in a faraway land as Iris visited to summon Boreas and Zephyrus.

In one of his few defining appearances, Notus features in two of the Dialogues of the Sea Gods, a satirical work by Lucian of Samosata. In the first, he and Zephyrus discuss the woes of the Argive princess Io at the hands of Zeus and Hera, while in the second Zephyrus enthusiastically describes the marvellous scene of the abduction of Europa by the bull, while Notus admits in disappointment having seen nothing of note.

Greek: Νότος

Abode: sky

Parents: Eos and Astraeus

Sibling: winds (Zephyrus, Boreas, and Eurus), Eosphorus, the Stars, Memnon, Emathion, Astraea

Domain: the south wind

Chapter Text

Britomartis was a Greek goddess mountains, nets, and hunting who was primarily worshipped on the island of Crete. She was sometimes described as a nymph, but she was more commonly conflated or syncretized with the goddesses Artemis, Athena, and Aphaea. She is also known as Dictynna, Dicte, Dictymna, or as a daughter of Dictynna (Δίκτυννα).

In the 16th century, Edmund Spencer named a character identified with English military prowess as "Britomart" in his knightly epic The Raerie Queene. This subsequently led to a number of appearances of "Britomart" figures in British art and literature.

According to Solinus, the name 'Britomartis' is from a Cretan dialect. He also says that her name means virgo dulcis, or "sweet virgin". It is possible that her name also means "sweet" or "blessing" (βριτύς) "maiden," with Hesychius of Alexandria equating the Cretan βριτύ (britý) with the Greek word γλυκύ (glyký) 'sweet'. Other scholars have argued that Britomartis is an epithet that does not reveal the goddess's name or character, instead arguing that it may be a noa-name.

The goddess was frequently portrayed on Cretan coinage, either as herself or as Diktynna, the goddess of Mount Dikte, Zeus' birthplace. As Diktynna, she was depicted as a winged goddess with a human face, standing atop the mountain and grasping an animal in each hand. This imagery is directly related to the Potnia Theron motif, also known as the mistress of animals. She also occasionally appeared on coinage with a crescent moon, likely due to her close relationship with Artemis, goddess of the moon.

By Hellenistic and Roman times, Britomartis was given a genealogical setting that cast her into a Classical context:

Britomartis, who is also called Dictynna, the myths relate, was born at Caeno in Crete of Zeus and Carme, the daughter of Eubulus who was the son of Demeter; she invented the nets (dictya) which are used in hunting.

One of the main myths surrounding Britomartis concerns her being pursued by King Minos. According to Diodorus, Britomartis was a nymph and huntress much beloved by Artemis. Minos took interest in her and pursued her for nine months. She continually fled his advances, and to escape, she at last leapt into the sea (possibly from Mount Dikte) and landed in fishermen's nets. She became entangled but was rescued by Artemis, who then made her a goddess. In his third hymn to Artemis, Callimachus tells a similar tale, and claims it is the source of the name and title Diktynna, "Lady of the Nets." Some tellings instead claim that she was taken by fishermen to mainland Greece, therefore explaining the spread of her cult to Greece. Diodorus Siculus found it less than credible:

But those men who tell the tale that she has been named Dictynna because she fled into some fishermen's nets when she was pursued by Minos, who would have ravished her, have missed the truth; for it is not a probable story that the goddess should ever have got into so helpless a state that she would have required the aid that men can give, being as she is the daughter of the greatest one of the gods.

Another version of the myth claims Britomartis vowed to live in perpetual maidenhood, and that she was a frequent wanderer before eventually settling in Crete. It claims she was born in Phoenicia, travelled to Argos and visited the daughters of the river god Erasinos, went to Cephalonia and was worshiped under the name Laphria, and then finally arrived in Crete and was pursued by Minos. This version of the myth additionally has her flee onto the island of Aegina, where she was then built a temple and worshipped as a goddess.

Strabo notes she was venerated as Diktynna primarily in western Crete, in the regions of Cydonia and Lysos, where there was a Diktynnaion, or temple of Diktynna. Occasionally she was conflated with Artemis or Athena as the same goddess, with Solinus explicitly identifying her as the Cretan Artemis. Diodorus suggests that since "she passed her time in the company of Artemis," that this was the "reason why some men think Diktynna and Artemis are one and the same goddess." She has also been associated with Hekate.

other names: Dictynna, Dictymna, Dicte

Major cult center: Crete

Symbols: Mountains, fishing nets, the moon

Temple: Diktynnaion

Festivals: Britomarpeia

Parents: Zeus(farther) Carme(mother)

Aeginian: Aphaea

Domain: mountains, fishing nets, and hunting

Chapter Text

According to Hesiod's Theogony, which contained the "standard" Greek genealogy of the gods, Aether was the offspring of Erebus and Nyx, and the brother of Hemera. However, other early sources give other genealogies. According to one, the union of Erebus and Nyx resulted in Aether, Eros, and Metis (rather than Aether and Hemera), while according to another, Aether and Nyx were the parents of Eros (in Hesiod, the fourth god to come into existence after Chaos, Gaia (Earth), and Tartarus). Others tell us that Uranus (Sky) (in Hesiod, the son of Gaia) was Aether's son, and that "everything came from" Aether.

In Orphic cosmogony Aether was the offspring of Chronus (Time), the first primordial deity, and the brother of Chaos and Erebus. And made from (or placed in) Aether was the cosmic egg, from which hatched Phanes/Protogonus, so Aether was sometimes said to be his father. The Orphic Argonautica gives a theogony that begins with Chaos and Chronus, and has Chronus producing Aether and Eros.

Aether also played a role in Roman genealogies of the gods. Cicero says that Aether and Dies were the parents of Caelus (Sky), and reports that according to the "so called theologians" Aether was the father of one of the "three Jupiters". According to Hyginus's (possibly confused) genealogy, Nox (Night), Dies, Erebus, and Aether were the offspring of Chaos and Caligo (Mist), and Aether and Dies were the parents of Terra (Earth), Caelus (Sky) and Mare (Sea), and Aether and Terra were the parents of:

Pain, Deception, Anger, Mourning, Lying, Oath, Vengeance, Self-indulgence, Quarreling, Forgetfullness, Sloth, Fear, Arrogance, Incest, Fighting, Ocean, Themis, Tartarus, and Pontus; and the Titans, Briareus, Gyges, Steropes, Atlas, Hyperion and Polus, Saturn, Ops, Moneta, Dione, and the three Furies (Alecto, Megaera,Tisiphone).

For the ancient Greeks, the word aether (unpersonified), referred to the upper atmosphere, a material element of the cosmos. For example, Homer has Sleep climb:

a fir-tree exceeding tall, the highest that then grew in Ida; and it reached up through the mists into heaven [aether].

However, Aether (personified) figured prominently in early Greek cosmogony. In Hesiod's Theogony, Chaos was the first being after which came Gaia (Earth), Tartarus, and Eros, Chaos was the first being after which came Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and from Erebus and Nyx came Aether and Hemera (Day):

From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bore from union in love with Erebus.

According to a fragment of Hesiod, by his sister Hemera he is the father of a figure named Brotus. Aether perhaps also figured in the lost epic poem the Titanomachy (late seventh century BC?). Two ancient sources report statements about Aether, which they attribute to the "author of the Titanomachy". The Homeric Parsings (from Methodius), reports that Uranus was Aether's son, while Philodemus, in his De Pietate (On Piety), reports that "everything came from Aither".

Parents: Erebus and Nyx (Hesiod) Chronos (Orphic)

Sibling: Hemera (Hesiod) Chaos and Erebus (Orphic)

Domain: Personification of the Upper Sky

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religion ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.

His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In Orphism, he was variously a son of Zeus and Persephone; a chthonic or underworld aspect of Zeus; or the twice-born son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. The Eleusinian Mysteries identify him with Iacchus, the son or husband of Demeter. Most accounts say he was born in Thrace, traveled abroad, and arrived in Greece as a foreigner. His attribute of "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults, as he is a god of epiphany, sometimes called "the god who comes".

Wine was a religious focus in the cult of Dionysus and was his earthly incarnation. Wine could ease suffering, bring joy, and inspire divine madness. Festivals of Dionysus included the performance of sacred dramas enacting his myths, the initial driving force behind the development of theatre in Western culture. The cult of Dionysus is also a "cult of the souls"; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead. He is sometimes categorised as a dying-and-rising god. Scholars note parallels between Dionysus and Jesus as dying-and-rising gods, though key differences and contexts complicate direct comparisons.

Romans identified Bacchus with their own Liber Pater, "the free Father" of the Liberalia festival, patron of viniculture, wine and male fertility, and guardian of the traditions, rituals and freedoms attached to coming of age and citizenship, but the Roman state treated independent, popular festivals of Bacchus (Bacchanalia) as subversive, partly because their free mixing of classes and genders transgressed traditional social and moral constraints. Celebration of the Bacchanalia was made a capital offence, except in the toned-down forms and greatly diminished congregations approved and supervised by the State. Festivals of Bacchus were merged with those of Liber and Dionysus.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Animals: Bull, panther, tiger or lion, goat, snake, leopard

Symbol: Thyrsus, grapevine, ivy, theatrical masks, phallus

Festivals: Bacchanalia (Roman), Dionysia

Parents: Semele and Zeus

Consort: Ariadne

Roman: Bacchus

Egyptian: Osiris

Domain: wine, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religion ecstasy, and theatre

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Psamathe is a Nereid, one of the fifty daughters of the sea god Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. By Aeacus, the king of Aegina, she is the mother of a son, Phocus. When Phocus is killed by his half-brothers Peleus and Telamon, Psamathe sends a giant wolf at Peleus's herd.

Psamathe is one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of Nereus and Doris. By Aeacus, the king of Aegina, she is the mother of a son, Phocus. She is later the wife of Proteus, king of Egypt, by whom she has a son, Theoclyenos, and a daughter, Eido (later known as Theonoe).

There are two myths which involve Psamathe. The first is the story of her violation by Aeacus. Upon his advances, she transforms herself into a seal in an attempt to escape. She is unsuccessful, however, and from their union is born Phocus, whose name (phoke meaning "seal") recalls his mother's metamorphosis.

Peleus and Telamon are the sons of Aeacus by his wife Endeis. he two of them kill their half-brother Phocus, and they are subsequently exiled from Aegina by their father. The second story which features Psamathe involves her sending of a wolf at the herds of Peleus, out of revenge for her son's death. After the wolf eats part of Peleus's herd, it is turned to stone by either Psamathe herself, or her sister Thetis.

Psamathe is first mentioned in Hesiod's Theogony (c. 730–700 BC), where she described as "Psamathe of charming figure" and "the fair goddess". Hesiod lists her among the Nereids and calls her the mother of Phocus by Aeacus. Pindar (c. 518–438 BC), who calls her "Psamatheia" (Ψαμάθεια), says that she bore Phocus by the shore of the sea, while Euripides, in his play Helen (c. 412 BC), offers a very different account of Psamathe, in which, "after she left Aiakos's bed", she is the wife of Proteus, king of Egypt, by whom she has atwo children, Theoclyenos, and a daughter, Eido (the latter of which is later known as Theonoe).

The myth of Psmathe's transformation into a seal comes from the mythographer Apollodorus (first or second century AD) and a scholiast on Euripides's play Andromache, while multiple versions of the story of the wolf are given by different authors. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses (c. 8 AD), presents the most detailed account. After Phocus is killed by his half-brothers Peleus and Telamon, they are exiled from the island of Aegina by their father Aeacus. Psamathe, out of revenge for her son's murder, sends at Peleus's herd of cattle a wolf that is described as a "huge beast", with "great, murderous jaws" and "eyes blazing with red fire". Peleus is informed of the wolf by his herdsman, and "well [knows] that the bereaved Nereid [is] sending this calamity upon him". In desperation, he prays to Psamathe to "put away her wrath and come to his help"; she remains unmoved, however, until her sister Thetis prays for her forgiveness alongside Peleus, at which point she transforms the wolf into what Ovid describes as "marble". Antoninus Liberalis (second to third century AD), in his Metamorphoses, presents a much briefer version, which he attributes to Nicander of Colophon (second century BC). In this version the origin of the wolf is not specified, and it is transformed into stone, not by Psamathe, but by "divine will". A wolf is similarly mentioned by the Hellenistic poet Lycophron (born 330–325 BC), in his Alexandra: "... the Wolf that devoured the atonement and was turned to stone ...". The byzantine poet John Tzetzes (c. 1110–1180), in his commentary on Lycophron's Alexandra, presents a version of the story in which Psamathe sends the wolf, but does not transform it herself; instead it is Thetis who turns it to stone.

Psamathe also appears in book 43 of Nonnus's Dionysiaca (c. fifth century AD), during the fight between Poseidon and Dionysus, where, from the beach, she pleads to Zeus to end the battle.

Psamathe is depicted on a number of Attic vases dating from the late fifth century BC. The iconography of Psamathe is typical for a Nereid, and she is depicted in such scenes as the fight between Peleus and Thetis, and the transportation of the weapons and armour of Achilles, where she is among the Nereids carrying his weaponry while riding on a dolphin.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Pontus was an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, one of the Greek primordial deities. Pontus was Gaia's son and has no father; according to the Greek poet Hesiod, he was born without coupling, though according to Hyginus, Pontus is the son of Aether and Gaia.

For Hesiod, Pontus seems little more than a personification of the sea, ho póntos (Ancient Greek: ὁ Πόντος), by which Hellenes signified the Mediterranean Sea. After the castration of his brother Uranus, Pontus, with his mother Gaia, fathered Nereus (the Old Man of the Sea), Thaumas (the awe-striking "wonder" of the Sea, embodiment of the sea's dangerous aspects), Phorcys and his sister-consort Ceto, and the "Strong Goddess" Eurybia. With the sea goddess Thalassa (whose own name simply means "sea" but is derived from a Pre-Greek root), he fathered all sea life.

In a Roman sculpture of the 2nd century AD, Pontus, rising from seaweed, grasps a rudder with his right hand and leans on the prow of a ship. He wears a mural crown, and accompanies Fortuna, whose draperies appear at the left, as twin patron deities of the Black Sea port of Tomis in Moesia.

She [Gaia] bore also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. ---Hesiod, Theogony (130) And Sea begat Nereus, the eldest of his children, who is true and lies not: and men call him the Old Man because he is trusty and gentle and does not forget the laws of righteousness but thinks just and kindly thoughts. And yet again he got great Thaumas and proud Phorcys, being mated with Earth, and fair-cheeked Ceto and Eurybia who has a heart of flint within her.

— Hesiod, Theogony (231–239)

From Aether and Earth [i.e. Gaia]: Grief, Deceit, Wrath, Lamentation, Falsehood, Oath, Vengeance, Intemperance, Altercation, Forgetfulness, Sloth, Fear, Pride, Incest, Combat, Ocean, Themis, Tartarus, Pontus; and the Titans, Briareus, Gyges, Steropes, Atlas, Hyperion, and Polus, Saturn, Ops, Moneta, Dione; and three Furies – namely, Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone.

Parents: Gaia

Siblings: Uranus, Ourea

Consort: Gaia, Thalassa

Offspring: Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, Eurybia

Domain: Personification of the Sea

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Gaia (Gê), meaning 'land' or 'earth'), also spelled Gaea is the personification of Earth. She is the mother of Uranus (Sky), with whom she conceived the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods), the Cyclopes, and the Giants, as well as of Pontus (Sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.

The Greek name Γαῖα is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic Γῆ, and Doric Γᾶ, perhaps identical to Δᾶ, both meaning "Earth". Some scholars believe that the word is of uncertain origin. Beekes suggested a probable Pre-Greek origin. M.L. West derives the name from the Indo-European *dʰéǵʰōm (Earth). Greek: gaia (<*gm-ya), chamai (χαμαί) on the earth, Hittite: tekan, Tocharian: tkam, Phrygian zemelo, Proto-Slavonic: *zem-yã, Avestan: za (locative: zemi), Vedic: ksam, Latin: hum-us, Albanian: dhé.

In Mycenean Greek Ma-ka (probably transliterated as Ma-ga, "Mother Gaia") also contains the root ga-.

The Greeks invoked Gaia in their oaths, and she should be aware if one broke his oath. In the Homeric poems she appears usually in forms of oath. In the Iliad, the sacrifice of a black lamb is offered to Gaia, and she is invoked in the formula of an oath. Homer considers her a physical distinct existence not clearly conceived in anthropomorphic form. Gaia does not seem to have any personal activity. In the Iliad, Alpheia beats with her hands the bountiful ("Polyphorbos" = epithet for Gaia) earth, but she calls Hades and Persephone to avenge her against her son. In the poems of Hesiod, she is personified. Gaia has a significant role in the evolution of the world. She is the nurse of Zeus, and she has the epithet "Kourotrophos". Kourotrophos was the name of an old goddess who was subordinate to Ge. Dieterich believed that Kourotrophos and Potnia theron construct precisely the mother goddess. Ge is also personified in the myths of Erichthonius and Pluto. Erichthonius is early mentioned in the Catalogue of ships. He is born by the Homeric earth which produces fruits and cereals (zeidoros arura). The name of Erichthonius includes chthon which is not the underground kingdom of the dead, but the Homeric earth.

In ancient times, the earth was considered a plane or a flat disk with a wide extent. The earth-goddess can be identified with the nymph "Plataia" (broad one) in Plataaea of Boeotia as the spouse of Zeus. Homer uses the form "eureia chthon" (broad earth). Hesiod speaks of the broad-breasted earth, ("eurysternos") the sure seat of all immortals. The same epithet appears in her cults at Delphi and Aegae in Achaea. In the Homeric hymn her conception is more clear and detailed. She is the Mother of the Gods, the goddess that brings forth life and blesses men with children. She is called "pammе̄tōr", the all-mother who nourishes everything. This conception is closer to the popular belief. In the hymn to Apollo she is called "pheresvios" (life giving) The "mother of the gods" is a form of Gaia. According to Pausanias an epithet of Ge in Athens is "the Great goddess", which is an appellation of the "Mother of the gods". She is related to the mystery cult of Phlya which seems to be original. At Athens Gaia had the cult-title Thetis. In the Ashmolean Museum, a vase shows Pandora (all-giving) rising from the earth and according to some scholars she may be identified with Gaia. "Anesidora" (sending up gifts) on a vase in the British Museum is an epithet of Gaia.

Traditionally "gaia" means "earth" and chthon, "under or "beneath the earth" however chthon has occasionally the same meaning with the earth. Pherecydes uses the name Chthonie for the primeval goddess who later became Ge and Musaeus the same name for the oracular goddess of Delphi. Homer uses for chthon the epithets "euryodeia" (broad-seated) and "polyvoteira" (all-nourishing) which can also be used for the earth. In some plays of Aeschylus "chthon" is the earth-goddess Gaia.

The tragic poets usually describe Gaia as mother of all, all-nourishing and all-productive who must be honoured. In Aeschylus' Prometheus Unbound, Gaia is the mother mother of all ("pammetor") and in a fragment of Euripides chthon has the same epithet. In Persai of Aeschylus, offerings are recommended to Ge and the spirit of the departed. She is called "pamphoros", (all bearing). In Choephori, Electra in her prayer describes Gaia as an avenger of wrong. Sophocles in Philoctetes calls Gaia "pamvōtis" (all nourishing). A famous fragment of Danaides describes the sacred marriage between heaven and earth. Ouranos and Gaia are cosmic powers and natural processes. In Chrysippus of Euripides, Gaia is the mother of all in a philosophical poetic thought. "Gaia receives the drops of rain bearing the mortals and bearing food and beasts, therefore she is rightly called 'mother of all'. Aether of Zeus bears men and gods. Everything which is born by the earth returns to the earth, and everything born from aether returns to the sky. Nothing is destroyed, but it is transformed to another form." An inscription on a gravestone in Potidaia mentions: "Aether receives the souls and 'chthon' receives the bodies". According to Plutarch: "The name of Ge is beloved to every Greek and she is traditionally honoured like any other god".

Other names: Ge, Gaea, chthon

Greek: Γαῖα, Γῆ

Symbol: Fruit

Parents: none

Consort: Uranus, Pontus, Tartarus

Offspring: Uranus, Pontus, the Ourea, the Hecatonchires, the cyclopes, the Titans, the Gigantes, Nereus, Thaumus, Phorcys, Ceto, Eurybia, Tritopatores, Tphon

Roman: Terra

Domain: Personification of the Earth

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Iapetus also Japetus, is a Titan, the son of Uranus and Gaia and father of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius. He was also called the father of Buphagus and Anchiale in other sources.

Iapetus was linked to Japheth (Hebrew: יֶפֶת), one of the sons of Noah and a progenitor of mankind in biblical accounts. The practice by early historians and biblical scholars of identifying various historical nations and ethnic groups as descendants of Japheth, together with the similarity of their names, led to a fusion of their identities, from the early modern period to the present.

Iapetus is the one Titan mentioned by Homer in the Iliad as being in Tartarus with Cronus. He is a brother of Cronus, who ruled the world during the Golden Age but is now locked up in Tartarus along with Iapetus, where neither breeze nor light of the sun reaches them.

Iapetus's wife is usually described as a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys named either Clymene (according to Hesiod and Hyginus) or Asia (according to Apollodorus).

In Hesiod's Works and Days, Prometheus is addressed as "son of Iapetus", and no mother is named. However, in Hesiod's Theogony, Clymene is listed as Iapetus's wife and the mother of Prometheus. In Aeschylus's play Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is son of the goddess Themis with no father named (but still with at least Atlas as a brother). However, in Horace's Odes, in Ode 1.3 Horace writes "audax Iapeti genus ... Ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit" ("The bold offspring of Iapetus [i.e. Prometheus] ... brought fire to peoples by wicked deceit").

Hesiod and other Greek scholars regarded the sons of Iapetus as mankind's ancestors and as such, some of humanity's worst qualities were said to have been inherited from these four gods, each of whom were punished by Zeus for a particular moral fault. "High-towering Menoetius, the embodiment of arrogance, insolence and overweening pride, he hurls to the nethermost of Tartarus. Prometheus, who uses his high intelligence for purposes of deception, he makes the victim of an ever-growing conscience symbolized by the onsets of a voracious vulture. To Epimetheus, the personification of stupidity that refuses to be instructed, he presents all the ills of Pandora's box. To Atlas, patient, enduring Atlas who is devoid of self-assertion, he assigns the task of holding up the heavens, on the outskirts of the world, -- the zero of occupations.

Iapetus as the progenitor of mankind has been equated with Japheth (יֶפֶת), the son of Noah, based on the similarity of their names and the tradition, reported by Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews), which made Japheth the ancestor of the "Japhetites" i.e. the peoples of Europe. Iapetus was linked to Japheth by 17th-century theologian Matthew Poole (and more recently by Robert Graves) and by John Pairman Brown.

Abode: Tartarus

Battles: Titanomachy

Parents: Uranus and Gaia

Siblings: Titans, Hekatonkeires, cyclopes, Gigants, Erinyes (the Furies), Meliae

Consort: Clymene or Asia

Offspring: Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius, Buphagus and Anchiale

Domain: mortality and craftsmanship

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Ganymede or Ganymedes is a divine hero whose homeland was Troy. Homer describes Ganymede as the most handsome of mortals and tells the story of how he was abducted by the gods to serve as Zeus's cupbearer in Olympus. The Latin form of the name was Catamitus (and also "Ganymedes"), from which the English word catamite is derived. The earliest forms of the myth have no erotic content, but by the 5th century BCE it was believed that Zeus had a sexual passion for him. Socrates says that Zeus was in love with Ganymede, called "desire" in Plato's Phaedrus; but in Xenophon's Symposium, Socrates argues Zeus loved him for his mind and their relationship was not sexual. By the early modern period, the event was termed a "rape" with little distinction from equivalent female abductees like Io, Europa, Callisto.

According to Dictys Cretensis, Ganymede was instead abducted by the Cretans.

In Greek mythology, Ganymede is the son of Tros of Dardania, from whose name "Troy" is supposedly derived, either by his wife Callirrhoe, daughter of the river god Scamander, or Acallaris, daughter of Eumedes. Depending on the author, he is the brother of either Ilus, Assaracus, Cleopatra, or Cleomestra.

Other details about Ganymede differ as well. Some authors called him a son of Laomedon while others called him a son of Ilus. He is also known in stories as Dardanus, Erichthonius, or Assaracus.

According to Edmund Veckenstedt, Ganymede was an ethnic Semite, along with his brothers Ilus and Assarakos.

The story of Ganymede first appears in Homer's Iliad without any suggestion of a sexual connection but later became associated with male same-sex relationships and homoerotic passion. The myth as given by Homer (8th century BCE) simply relates how the gods recognized Ganymede's beauty and brought him to Olympus to be Zeus' cupbearer. By the 6th century BCE, however, the story was given as Zeus falling in love with Ganymede and taking him to be his lover. Ganymede was abducted by Zeus from Mount Ida near Troy in Phrygia. Ganymede had been tending sheep, a rustic or humble pursuit characteristic of a hero's boyhood before his privileged status is revealed, when an eagle transported the youth to Mount Olympus. The bird is sometimes described as being under the command of Zeus and sometimes as being Zeus himself. In Homer's account of the abduction in the Iliad, the poet writes:

[Ganymedes] was the loveliest born of the race of mortals, and therefore
the gods caught him away to themselves, to be Zeus' wine-pourer,
for the sake of his beauty, so he might be among the immortals.

— Homer, Iliad, Book XX, lines 233–235.

On Olympus, Zeus granted Ganymede eternal youth and immortality as the official cup bearer to the gods, in place of Hebe, who was relieved of cup-bearing duties upon her marriage to Herakles. Alternatively, the Iliad presented Hebe (and at one instance, Hephaestus) as the cup bearer of the Olympians in general, with Ganymede acting as Zeus's personal cup bearer. Edmund Veckenstedt associated Ganymede with the creation of mead, which had a traditional origin in Phrygia. In various literature such as the Aeneid, Hera, Zeus's wife, regards Ganymede as a rival for her husband's affection. In various stories, Zeus later put Ganymede in the sky as the constellation Aquarius (the "water-carrier" or "cup-carrier"), which is adjacent to Aquila (the Eagle). In recognition of this myth, the largest moon of the planet Jupiter (named after Zeus's Roman counterpart) was named Ganymede by the German astronomer Simon Marius.

In the Iliad and other sources, Zeus is said to have compensated Ganymede's father Tros with the gift of a pair of fine horses, "the same that carry the immortals" and so swift they could run "over water and standing airs of grain", delivered by the messenger god Hermes. Tros was consoled that his son was now immortal and would be the cupbearer for the gods, a position of much distinction.

his job: Cupbearer to the gods

Abode: Mount Olympus

Parents: Tros and Callirhoe or Acallaris

Sibling: Ilus, Assaracus, Cleopatra, Cleomestra

Chapter Text

Alastor refers to a number of people and concepts in Greek mythology:

Alastor, an epithet of the Greek God Zeus, according to Hesychius of Alexandria and the Etymologicum Magnum, which described him as the avenger of evil deeds, specifically familial bloodshed. As the personification of a curse, it was also a sidekick of the Erinyes. The name is also used, especially by the tragic writers, to designate any deity or demon who avenges wrongs committed by men. In Euripides' play Elecra, Orestes questions an oracle who calls upon him to kill his mother Clytemnestra, and wonders if the oracle was not from Apollo, but some malicious alastor. There was an altar to Zeus Alastor just outside the city walls of Thasos.
By the time of the 4th century BC, alastor in Greek had degraded to a generic type of insult, with the approximate meaning of "scoundrel".
Alastor, a prince of Pylos and son of King Neleus and Chloris, daughter of Amphion. He was the brother of Asterius, Deimachus, Epilaus, Eurybius, Eurymenes, Evagoras, Nester, Periclymenus, Phrasius, Pylaon, Taurus, and Pero. When Heracles took Pylos, he killed Alastor and his brothers, except for Nester. According to Parthenius of Nicaea, he was to be married to Harpalyce, who, however, was taken from him by her father Clymenus.
Alastor, a Lycian warrior who was a companion of Sarpedon. He fought in the Trojan War and was slain by the Greek hero Odysseus during the battle.
Alastorides is a patronymic form given by Homer to Tros, who was probably a son of the Lycian Alastor mentioned above.
Alastor, a Pylian soldier who fought under their leader Nestor during the Trojan War. He remembered for having, together with Mecisteus, carried the wounded Teucer off the battlefield as they later did also with Hypsenor.
Alastor, a black horse belonging to the Greek God Hades. He was one of the four horses drawing Hades's chariot when he rose from the Underworld to bring Persephone down with him. The other three were Orphnaeus, Aethon, Nycteus.
Alastor, a vengeful daemon
that relentlessly pursues the guilty, punishing their children for the sins of their fathers.
Alastor, in Christian demonology, came to be considered a kind of possessing entity. He was likened to Nemesis. The name Alastor was also used as a generic term for a class of evil spirit.

Chapter Text

Phobos is the god and personification of fear and panic in Greek mythology. Phobos was the son of Ares and Aphrodite, and the brother of Deimos. He does not have a major role in mythology outside of being his father's attendant.

In Classical Greek mythology, Phobos exists as both the god of and personification of the fear brought by war.

In Hesiod's Theogony, Phobos is the son of Ares and Aphrodite, and the sibling of Deimos and Harmonia. He mainly appears in an assistant role to his father and causes disorder in battle. In the Iliad, he accompanied his father into battle along with the goddess Eris (discord) and his brother Deimos (Dread). In Hesiod's Shield of Herakles, Phobos and Deimos accompany Ares into battle and remove him from the field once he is injured by Herakles, In Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Zeus arms Phobos with lightning and Deimos with thunder to frighten Typhon. Later in the work, Phobos and Deimos act as Ares's charioteers to battle the god Dionysus during his war against the Indians.

In the Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus, the seven warriors slaughter a bull over a black shield and then "...touching the bull's gore with their hands they swore an oath by Ares, by Enyo, and by Rout [Phobos]". According to Stesichorus, Ares's son, Kyknos, "...beheaded strangers who came along in order to build a temple to Phobos (fear) from the skulls."

Hesiod depicts Phobos on the shield of Heracles as "…staring backwards with eyes that glowed with fire. His mouth was full of teeth in a white row, fearful and daunting…"

Phobos often is depicted as having a lion's or lion-like head. This may be seen in Description of Greece by Pausanias, "On the shield of Agamemnon is Phobos (Fear), who[se] head is a lion's…".

Plutarch makes reference to a shrine to Phobos at Sparta, in addition to shrines dedicated to Death (Thanatos) and Laughter (Gelos), and he claimed that the Spartans honoured fear as a positive force that held the state together. Pausanias, writing during Imperial Rome, noted that the temple dedicated to Phobos was located outside of the city.

There are many places within the Iliad, where Homer mentions the presence of Phobos and Deimos. Some references are:

Homer, Iliad 11. 36 ff:"[The shield of Agamemnon:] And he took up the man-enclosing elaborate stark shield, a thing of splendour. There were ten circles of bronze upon it, and set about it were twenty knobs of tin, pale-shining, and in the very centre another knob of dark cobalt. And circled in the midst of all was the blank-eyed face of the Gorgo (Gorgon) with her stare of horror, and Deimos (Dread) was inscribed upon it, and Phobos (Fear).

Homer, Iliad 15. 119 ff:"So he [Ares] spoke, and ordered Deimos (Dread) and Phobos (Fear) to harness his horses, and himself got into his shining armour."

Abode: Mount Olypus

Parents: Ares and Aphrodite

Siblings: Erotes, Deimos, Phlegyas, Harmonia, Enyalios, Thrax, Oenomaus, and Amazons

Domain: Personification of fear

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Perses is the son of the Titan Crius and Eurybia, and thus brother to Astraeaus and Pallas. Ancient tradition records very little of Perses other than his marriage and offspring, his role largely being genealogical, existing merely to provide a parentage for other, more important figures.

His name is derived from the Ancient Greek word perthō (πέρθω – "to sack", "to ravage", "to destroy").

According to the Theogony, Perses was born to Crius, one of the original twelve Titans, and Eurybia. He had two brothers, Astraeaus and Pallas.

According to Timothy Gantz, Hestiod "oddly" describes Perses as "eminent among all men in wisdom." He was wed to his cousin Asteria, the daughter of Phoebe and Coeus, with whom he had one child, Hecate, honoured by the king of the gods Zeus above all others as the goddess of magic, crossroads, and witchcraft. In a lesser-known tradition mentioned by Musaeus, the father of Hecate was Zeus himself; Zeus kept Asteria as his mistress for some time before giving her to Perses.

He was sometimes confused with another Perses (the son of the sun-god Helios and the nymph Perse), who was made the father of Hecate in some versions. He might also be the same Perses who is the father of Chariclo, the wife of Chiron, in some versions.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Chione is a mortal woman, the daughter of Boreas, the god of the north wind, and the princess Orithyia, a daughter of Erechtheus, the king of Athens. In the only myth concerning her, Chione sleeps with the sea-god Poseidon and bears him a son, Eumolpus, but in fear of her father's wrath she casts the infant into the sea.

The girl's name Χιόνη is derived from the ancient Greek word for snow, χιών (khiṓn), a 'fitting' name for the daughter of the cold, northern wind. The word is derived from the Indo-European root *ǵʰéyōm, translating to 'snow,' and is cognate with the words χεῖμα (kheîma, meaning snow) and χειμών (kheimṓn, meaning winter).

Chione was born to Boreas, the god of the north wind, and the Athenian princess Orithyia. She was thus the sister of Cleopatra (wife of Phineus, king of Thrace) and the Argonauts Calais and Zetes.

Chione's only myth relates how she became the mother of Poseidon's son Eumolpus whom she then threw into the ocean for fear of her father's reaction; however, Eumolpus is rescued and raised by Poseidon.

Eumolpus was seen as the first hierophant and ancestor of the Eleusinian clan; in that case, the myth of Chione casting him into the sea might be an allegory of hieronymy, a ritual in which the hierophant consigned their previous name to the sea.

Although generally distinct, Renaud Gagné has proposed that this Chione is meant to be the same as Chione, the mother of Boreas' three Hyperborean sons, otherwise the daughter of Arcturus.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Hyrieus was the eponym of Hyria in Boeotia, where he dwelt and where Orion (see below) was born; some sources though place him either in Thrace or on Chios. Most accounts speak of him as a king, although Ovid and Nonnus portray him as a peasant.

Hyrieus was the son of Alcyone and Poseidon, brother of Hyperenor and Aethuse. By the nymph Clonia, he became the father of Nycteus and Lycus. According to later sources, Hyrieus was also the father of Orion, but according to Ovid, his wife had died chidless.

One source calls Hyrieus the father of Crinacus, father of King Macareus of Lesbos.

Hyrieus hired Trophonius and Agamedes to build a treasure chamber for him but they also built a secret entrance to it, so that the treasury was easily accessible by removing just one stone from the outside. Using the secret entrance, they would come and steal some of Hyrieus' possessions. He was dumbfounded at discovering that his fortune was diminishing while the locks and seals remained intact; to catch the thief, he laid a snare. Agamedes was trapped in it; Trophonius cut off his brother's head so that Hyrieus would never know the thief's identity, and himself disappeared in a chasm of the earth.

Some speak of Hyrieus as Orion's natural father; others relate that he was childless and a widower and became (technically) adoptive father of Orion via the following circumstances. He was visited by Zeus and Hermrs (some add Poseidon), who, to express gratitude for his hospitality, promised him to fulfill a wish of his; he said that he wanted children. The gods filled a sacrificial bull's hide with their urine, then told Hyrieus to bury it. Nine months later, Hyrieus found a newborn baby boy inside and named him Orion; Roman authors thought of the Latin word urina "urine" as an etymon for Orion's name (though actually his name is obviously not of Latin origin). Nonnus, on account of this story, refers to Orion as "having three fathers" and to Gaea (Earth) as his mother.

Hyrieus was said to have expelled Euonymus from the temple of Apollo.

Chapter Text

In Greek religion and myth, Nemesis, also called Rhamnousia was the goddess who personified retribution for the sin of hubris: arrogance before the gods.

The name Nemesis is derived from the Greek word νέμειν, némein, meaning "to give what is due", from Proto-Indo-European *nem- "distribute".

According to Hesiod's Theogony, Nemesis was one of the children of Nyx alone. Nemesis has been described as the daughter of Oceanus, Erebus, or Zeus, but according to Hyginus she was a child of Erebus and Nyx. ome made her the daughter of Zeus by an unnamed mother. In several traditions, Nemesis was seen as the mother of Helen of Troy by Zeus, adopted and raised by Leda and Tyndareus. According to the Byzantine poet Tzetzes, Bacchylides had Nemesis as the mother of the Telchines by Tartarus.

The word nemesis originally meant the distributor of fortune, neither good nor bad, simply in due proportion to each according to what was deserved. Later, Nemesis came to suggest the resentment caused by any disturbance of this right proportion, the sense of justice that could not allow it to pass unpunished.

O. Gruppe (1906) and others connect the name with "to feel just resentment". From the fourth century onward, Nemesis, as the just balancer of Fortune's chance, could be associated with Tyche.

Divine retribution is a major theme in the Greek world view, providing the unifying theme of the tragedies of Sophocles and many other literary works. Hesiod states: "Also deadly Nyx bore Nemesis an affliction to mortals subject to death" (Theogony, 223, though perhaps an interpolated line). Nemesis appears in a still more concrete form in a fragment of the epic Cyria.

She is implacable justice: that of Zeus in the Olympian scheme of things, although it is clear she existed prior to him, as her images look similar to several other goddesses, such as Cybele, Rhea, Demeter, and Artemis.

In the Greek tragedies Nemesis appears chiefly as the avenger of crime and the punisher of hubris, and as such is akin to Ate and the Erinyes. She was sometimes called Adrasteia, probably meaning "one from whom there is no escape"; her epithet Erinys ("implacable") is specially applied to Demeter and the Phrygian mother goddess, Cybele.

In some less common traditions, it is Nemesis, rather than the mortal Spartan queen Leda, who is the mother of Helen of Troy. This narrative is first found in the lost epic Cypria, the prelude of the Iliad. According to its author, Stasinus of Cyprus, Helen was born from the rape of Nemesis by Zeus. Zeus fell in love with Nemesis, here possibly presented as his own daughter, and pursued her, only for her to flee in shame. She took several forms to escape Zeus, but he eventually captured her and forced himself on her.

Apollodorus speaks of a single transformation, into a goose, while Zeus turned into a swan to hunt her down and raped her, producing an egg that was given to the queen of Sparta; Helen hatched from the egg, and was raised by Leda. In another variation, Zeus desired Nemesis, but could not persuade her to sleep with him. So he tasked Aphrodite to transform into an eagle and mock-chase him, while he transformed into a swan. Nemesis, pitying the poor swan, offered it refuge in her arms, and fell into a deep sleep. While asleep, Zeus raped her and in time she bore an egg which was transported to Leda by Hermes. Leda then raised Helen as her own. According to Eratosthenes in his Catasterismi, this version was presented by Cratinus.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Nemesis enacted divine retribution on Narcissus for his vanity. After he rejected the advances of the nymph Echo, Nemesis lured him to a pool where he caught sight of his own reflection and fell in love with it, eventually dying. His body was transformed by the nymphs into a narcissus flower.

In Nonnus' epic Dionysiaca, Aura, one of Artemis' virgin attendants, questioned her mistress' virginity due to the feminine and curvaceous shape of her body; Aura claimed that no goddess or woman with that sort of figure would be a virgin, and asserted her own superiority over the goddess thanks to her own lean and boyish silhouette. Artemis, enraged, went to Nemesis and asked for revenge. Nemesis promised to the goddess that Aura would have her punishment, and that the punishment would be to lose the virginity she took such pride in. Nemesis then contacted Eros, the god of love, and he struck Dionysus with one of his arrows. Dionysus fell madly in love with Aura, and when she rebuffed his advances, he got her drunk, tied her up and raped her as she lay unconscious, bringing Nemesis' plan to a success.

She is portrayed as a winged goddess wielding a whip or a dagger. In early times the representations of Nemesis resembled Aphrodite, who sometimes bears the epithet Nemesis.

Other names: Rhamnousia, Rhamnusia

Animals: goose

Symbol: Sword, lash, dagger, measuring rod, scales, bridle

Festivals: Nemeseia

Parents: Nyx and Erebus or Oceanus or Zeus

Offspring: Helen of Troy

Domain: Goddess of retribution

Chapter Text

Pothos (Greek: Πόθος, "yearning", "desire") was one of Aphrodite's erotes and brother to Himeros and Eros. In some versions of myth, Pothos is the son of Eros, or is portrayed as an independent aspect of him.  Yet others called him son of Zephyrus and Iris. He was part of Aphrodite's retinue, and carried a vine, indicating a connection to wine or the god Dionysus. Pothos represents longing or yearning.   In the temple of Aphrodite at Megara, there was a sculpture that represented Pothos together with Eros and Himeros which has been credited to Scopas.

Domain: sexual longing, yearning and desire

Chapter Text

In Greek myhtology, Peitho is the Personification of Persuasion. She is a goddess of charming speech. She is typically presented as an important companion of Aphrodite. Her opposite is Bia, the personification of force. As a personification, she was sometimes imagined as a goddess and sometimes an abstract power with her name used both as a common and proper noun. There is evidence that Peitho was referred to as a goddess before she was referred to as an abstract concept, which is rare for a personification. Peitho represents both sexual and political persuasion. She is associated with the art of rhetoric.

Peitho's ancestry is unclear, as various authors provide different identities for her parents. Hesiod in Theogony identifies Peitho as the daughter of the Titans Tethys and Oceanus, which would make her an Oceanid and the sister of notable goddesses such as Dione, Doris, Metis. According to the lyric poet Sappho, she was the daughter of Aphrodite. Aeschyus identifies her as the daughter of Aphrodite in Suppliant Women (Hiketides) but also describes her as the child of Ate in Agamemnon. Nonnus in his Dionysiaca describes the Charites (Graces), an ensemble of goddesses of grace and charm, as including Peitho, Pasithea, and Aglaia, and all of them are identified as daughters of Dionysus. The Hellenistic era elegiac poet Hermesianax also refers to Peitho as one of the Charites. Alcman describes her as the daughter of Prometheia and the sister of Tyche and Eunomia.

Nonnus identifies Peitho as the wife of Hermes, the messenger of the gods. However, commentary on Euripides' Orestes notes that Peitho is the wife of Phoroneus, the primordial King of Argos, and the mother of Aegialeus, Apis, Europs, and Niobe. An alternative Argive tradition describes her instead as the wife of Argos, Phoroneus's grandson. The Byzantine encyclopedic text, Suda, states that the mother of Iynx was either Peitho or Ekho.

Peitho plays a limited role in mythology, mainly appearing with or as a companion of Aphrodite.

A degraded fragment by Sappho may identify Peitho as an attendant of Aphrodite, although other possibilities are Hebe, Iris, or even Hekate. Pindar characterizes Peitho, either as the abstract concept of persuasion or the goddess, as a wise one that holds the "secret key to holy love", associating her with Aphrodite. She is also described as the nurse of the baby Erotes, who are Aphrodite's children. A fragment by Ibycus describes Aphrodite and Peitho, who is described as tendered eyed (aganoblepharos), nursing Euryalus among rose blossoms.

Nonnus gives her a role within the marriage of Kadmos and Harmonia, as she appears to Kadmos in the form of a mortal slave and covers Kadmos in a mist to lead him unseen through Samothrace to the palace of Electra, Harmonia's adoptive mother. Peitho often appears on a 5th century epinetron by the Eretria Painter depicting Harmonia’s bridal preparations with Aphrodite, Eros, Persephone (Kore), Hebe, and Himeros as in attendance. In art, she was also depicted at the weddings for Dionysus and Ariadne, Alkestis and Admetos, Thetis and Peleus, and at the union of Aphrodite and Adonid. A hydria attributed to the Meidias Painter shows Peitho fleeing from the scene of the abduction of the Leukippidai by the Dioskuri, indicating either that she persuaded the women into eloping or that she does not condone the marriage by Athenian standards.

When Zeus ordered the creation of the first woman, Pandora, Peitho and the Charites placed golden necklaces around her neck, and the Horae (Seasons) crowned Pandora's head with spring flowers. Extravagant jewelry, particularly necklaces, were viewed with suspicion in Ancient Greek literature, as they were typically seen as a way for women to seduce men, making the necklace a way to enhance Pandora’s sexual attractiveness and persuasive abilities.

In art, Peitho is often represented with Aphrodite during the abduction of Helen, symbolizing the forces of persuasion and love at work during the scene. Her presence at the event may be interpreted as either Paris needing persuasion to claim Helen as a prize for choosing Aphrodite, or Helen needing to be persuaded to accompany him to Troy, as Helen's level of agency became a popular topic of discussion in the 5th century. Peitho's presence brings the question of whether mortals have the ability to resist her power or whether they are bound to her persuasive abilities.

Cults dedicated to Peitho date to at least the early 5th century. In her role as an attendant or companion of Aphrodite, Peitho was intimately connected to the goddess of love and beauty. Aphrodite and Peitho were sometimes conflated, more commonly in the later periods, with the name Peitho appearing in conjunction with or as an epithet of Aphrodite's name. She is also identified with Tyche in Suppliant Women (Hiketides). Peitho was associated with marriage, since a suitor or his father would negotiate with the father or guardian of a young woman for her hand in marriage and offer a bridal price in return for her. The most desirable women drew many prospective suitors, and persuasive skill often determined the suitor's success. Plutarch includes her on a list of five deities for new couples to pray to, also included are Zeus (Teleios), Hera (Teleia) Aphrodite, and Artemis.

Peitho was an important figure for emphasising civic harmony, particularly in Athens and Argos, and harmony within interpersonal relationships. Notably in Athens, the unification (synoikismos) of the city by Theseus was only possible with the intervention of both Aphrodite and Peitho to create democratic spirit and cooperation. In Argos, she was paired with the early kings of the city, functioning as a civic unifier in a similar role as Harmonia, the first Queen of Thebes. On a 4th century vase from Apulia, Peitho and Hermes are depicted together instructing Tripolemus to teach agriculture to mankind, indicating Peitho's role in creating harmony through civilization. Plutarch outlines Peitho’s role in interpersonal harmony in Moralia, where he states that persuasion’s role within a marriage is so that spouses can achieve their wants without quarreling. In Eumenides, Athena thanks Peitho after convincing the Furies of her reasoning in acquitting Orestes and successfully defusing strife. However, Peitho may be a destructive force when used for seduction or selfish personal gains, such as in Agamemnon where Clytemnestra curses Peitho for Paris’s stealing of Helen, and she uses persuasion to convince Cassandra to enter the house in order to murder her.

Domain: Personification of Persuasion

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Hymen, Hymenaios or Hymenaeus (Ὑμέναιος), is a god of marriage ceremonies who inspires feasts and song. Related to the god's name, a hymenaios is a genre of Greek lyric poetry that was sung during the procession of the bride to the groom's house in which the god is addressed, in contrast to the Epithalamium, which is sung at the nuptial threshold.

Hymen's name is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *syuh₁-men-, "to sew together," hence, "joiner;" it is also recorded in Doric Greek as Ῡ̔μᾱ́ν (Hyman). The term hymen was also used for a thin skin or membrane such as that which covers the vaginal opening and was traditionally supposed to be broken by Sexual intercourse after a woman's (first) marriage. The membrane's name was, therefore, not directly connected to that of the god, but they shared the same root and in folk etymology were sometimes supposed to be related.

Hymen is supposed to attend every wedding. If he did not, the marriage would supposedly prove disastrous and so the Greeks would run about calling his name aloud. He presided over many of the weddings in Greek mythology, for all the deities and their children.

Hymen is celebrated in the ancient marriage song of unknown origin (called a Hymenaios) Hymen o Hymenae, Hymen delivered by Catullus.

Hymen was mentioned in Euripides's The Trojan Women in which Cassandra says:

Bring the light, uplift and show its flame! I am doing the god's service, see! I making his shrine to glow with tapers bright. O Hymen, king of marriage! blest is the bridegroom; blest am I also, the maiden soon to wed a princely lord in Argos. Hail Hymen, king of marriage!

Hymen is also mentioned in Virgil's Aeneid and in seven plays by William Shakespeare: Hamlet, the Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing, Titus Andronicus, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Timon of Athens and As You Like It, where he joins the couples at the end —

Tis Hymen peoples every town;
High wedlock then be honoured.
Honour, high honour, and renown,
To Hymen, god of every town!

Hymen also appears in the work of the 7th- to 6th-century BCE Greek poet Sappho (translation: M. L. West, Greek Lyric Poetry, Oxford University Press):

High must be the chamber –
Hymenaeum!
Make it high, you builders!
A bridegroom's coming –
Hymenaeum!
Like the War-god himself, the tallest of the tall!

Hymen is most commonly the son of Apollo and one of the Muses, Clio or Calliope or Urania or Terpsichore. In Seneca's play Medea, he is stated to be the son of Dionysus. Servius calls him the son of Dionysus by Aphrodite.

Other stories give Hymen a legendary origin. In one of the surviving fragments of the Megalai Ehoiai attributed to Hesiod, it's told that Magnes "had a son of remarkable beauty, Hymenaeus. And when Apollo saw the boy, he was seized with love for him and wouldn't leave the house of Magnes".

Aristophanes' Peace ends with Trygaeus and the Chorus singing the wedding song, with the repeated phrase "Oh Hymen! Oh Hymenaeus!", a typical refrain for a wedding song.

According to Athenaeus, Likymnios of Chios, in his Dithyrambics, says that Hymenaeus was the erastes of Argynnus, a boy from Boeotia.

Maurus Servius Honoratus, in his commentaries on Virgil's Eclogues, mentions that Hesperus, the Evening Star, inhabited Mount Oeta in Thessaly and that there he had loved the young Hymenaeus, son of Apollo with a similar singing voice, which he was said to have lost at the wedding of Dionysus and Ariadne.

According to a later romance, Hymen was an Athenian youth of great beauty but low birth who fell in love with the daughter of one of the city's wealthiest women. Since he could not speak to her or court her because of his social standing, he instead followed her wherever she went.

Hymen disguised himself as a woman in order to join one of those processions, a religion rite at Eleusis in which only women went. The assemblage was captured by pirates, Hymen included. He encouraged the women and plotted strategy with them, and together, they killed their captors. He then agreed with the women to go back to Athens and win their freedom if he were allowed to marry one of them. He thus succeeded in both the mission and the marriage, and his marriage was so happy that Athenians instituted festivals in his honour, and he came to be associated with marriage.

According to Apollodorus, "the Orphics report" that Hymenaeus was among those resurrected by Asclepius.

At least since the Italian Renaissance, Hymen was generally represented in art as a young man wearing a garland of flowers and holding a burning torch in one hand.

Hymen appears as a character in the final scene of William Shakespeare's pastoral comedy As You Like It in which he presides over the rites for four weddings. These include a dance of harmony for the eight characters entering their unions, including the play's protagonist and heroine Rosalind with her beloved Orlando.

Hymen (1921) is an early book of poetry by the American modernist poet H.D. The eponymous long poem of the collection imagines an ancient Greek women's ritual for a bride.

Domain: marriage ceremonies

Chapter Text

Periphetes is the name of several characters from Greek mythology.

Periphetes, an Arcadian king as the son of Nyctimus, son of King Lycaon. He was the father of Parthaon, ancestor of Psophis, one of the possible eponyms for the city of Psophis.
Periphetes, also known as (Κορυνήτης) meaning Club-Bearer from the club (κορύνη) which he carried, was a son of Hephaestus and Anticleia or of Poseidon. Periphetes was lame (possibly in his feet, πόδας) like his father and used a bronze club as a crutch. He roamed the road from Athens to Troezen where he robbed travelers and killed them with his club. Theseus encountered and killed him near Epidauros (See Plutarch, Life of Theseus, et al.).
Periphetes, son of Copreus; he was killed during the Trojan War by Hector.
Periphetes, king of Mygdonia. He fought with Sithon for the hand of the latter's daughter Pallene was killed.
Periphetes, a Trojan who was killed by Teucer.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Aiolos, transcribed as Aeolus refers to three characters. These three are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which. Diodorus Siculus made an attempt to define each of these three (although it is clear that he also became muddled), and his opinion is followed here.

The first Aeolus was a son of Hellen and the eponymous founder of the Aeolian race.
The second Aeolus was a son of Poseidon, who led a colony to islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The third Aeolus was a son of Hippotes who is mentioned in the odyssey and the Aeneid
as the ruler of the winds.
All three men named Aeolus appear to be connected genealogically, although the precise relationship, especially regarding the second and third Aeolus, is often ambiguous as their identities seem to have been merged by many ancient writers.

Aeolus was also the name of the following minor characters:

Aeolus, a defender of Thebes in the war of the Seven against Thebes. He was killed by Parthenopaeus.
Aeolus, a Trojan companion of Aeneas in Italy, where he was killed by Turnus, King of the Rutulians. Aeolus was the father of Clytius and Misenus.

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Helios is the god who personifies the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") and Phaethon ("the shining"). Helios is often depicted in art with a radiant crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky. He was a guardian of oaths and also the god of sight. Though Helios was a relatively minor deity in Classical Greece, his worship grew more prominent in late antiquity thanks to his identification with several major solar divinities of the Roman period, particularly Apollo and Sol. The Roman Emperor Julian made Helios the central divinity of his short-lived revival of traditional Roman religious practices in the 4th century AD.

Helios figures prominently in several works of Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, in which he is often described as the son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and brother of the goddesses Selene (the Moon) and Eos (the Dawn). Helios's most notable role in Greek mythology is the story of his mortal son Phaethon. In the Homeric epics, his most notable role is the one he plays in the Odyssey, where Odysseus's men despite his warnings impiously kill and eat Helios's Sacred cattle that the god kept at Thrinacia, his sacred island. Once informed of their misdeed, Helios, in wrath, asks Zeus to punish those who wronged him, and Zeus, agreeing, strikes their ship with a thunderbolt, killing everyone except Odysseus himself, the only one who had not harmed the cattle and was allowed to live.

Due to his position as the sun, he was believed to be an all-seeing witness and thus was often invoked in oaths. He also played a significant part in ancient magic and spells. In art he is usually depicted as a beardless youth in a chiton holding a whip and driving his quadriga, accompanied by various other celestial gods such as Selene, Eos, or the stars. In ancient times he was worshipped in several places of ancient Greece, though his major cult centres were the island of Rhodes, of which he was the patron god, Corinth, and the greater Corinthia region. The Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic statue of the god, adorned the port of Rhodes until it was destroyed in an earthquake.

The Greek noun ἥλιος (GEN ἡλίου, DAT ἡλίῳ, ACC ἥλιον,VOCἥλιε) (from earlier ἁϝέλιος /hāwelios/) is the inherited word for the Sun from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂u-el which is cognate with Latin sol, Sanskrit surya, Old English swegl, Old Norse sól, Welsh haul, Avestan hvar, etc. The Doric and Aeolic form of the name is Ἅλιος, Hálios. In Homeric Greek his name is spelled Ἠέλιος, Ēélios, with the Doric spelling of that being Ἀέλιος, Aélios. In Cretan it was Ἀβέλιος (Abélios) or Ἀϝέλιος (Awélios). The Greek view of gender was also present in their language. Ancient Greek had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), so when an object or a concept was personified as a deity, it inherited the gender of the relevant noun; helios is a masculine noun, so the god embodying it is also by necessity male. The female offspring of Helios were called Heliades, the male Heliadae.

The author of the Suda lexicon tried to etymologically connect ἥλιος to the word ἀολλίζεσθαι, aollízesthai, "coming together" during the daytime, or perhaps from ἀλεαίνειν, aleaínein, "warming". Plato in his dialogue Cratylus suggested several etymologies for the word, proposing among others a connection, via the Doric form of the word halios, to the words ἁλίζειν, halízein, meaning collecting men when he rises, or from the phrase ἀεὶ εἱλεῖν, aeí heileín, "ever turning" because he always turns the earth in his course.

Doric Greek retained Proto-Greek long *ā as a, while Attic changed it in most cases, including in this word, to n. Cratylus and the etymologies Plato gives are contradicted by modern scholarship. From helios comes the modern English prefix helio-, meaning "pertaining to the Sun", used in compounds word such as heliocentrism aphelion, heliotropium, heliophobia (fear of the sun) and heliolatry ("sun-worship").

Helios most likely is Proto-Indo-European in origin. Walter Burkert wrote that "... Helios, the sun god, and Eos-Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, are of impeccable Indo-European lineage both in etymology and in their status as gods" and might have played a role in Proto-Indo-European poetry. The imagery surrounding a chariot-driving solar deity is likely Indo-European in origin. Greek solar imagery begins with the gods Helios and Eos, who are brother and sister, and who become in the day-and-night-cycle the day (hemera) and the evening (hespera), as Eos accompanies Helios in his journey across the skies. At night, he pastures his steeds and travels east in a golden boat. In them evident is the Indo-European grouping of a sun god and his sister, as well as an association with horses.

Helen of Troy's name is thought to share the same etymology as Helios, and she may express an early alternate personification of the sun among Hellenic peoples. Helen might have originally been considered to be a daughter of the Sun, as she hatched from an egg and was given tree worship, features associated with the Proto-Indo-European Sun Maiden; in surviving Greek tradition however Helen is never said to be Helios's daughter, instead being the daughter of Zeus.

It has been suggested that the Phoenicians brought over the cult of their patron god Baal among others (such as Astarte) to Corinth, who was then continued to be worshipped under the native name/god Helios, similarly to how Astarte was worshipped as Aphrodite, and the Phoenician Melqart was adopted as the sea-god Melicertes/Palaemon, who also had a significant cult in the isthmus of Cornth.

Helios's journey on a chariot during the day and travel with a boat in the ocean at night possibly reflects the Egyptian sun god Ra sailing across the skies in a barque to be reborn at dawn each morning anew; additionally, both gods, being associated with the sun, were seen as the "Eye of Heaven".

Helios is the son of Hyperion and Theia, or Euryphaessa, or Basileia, and the only brother of the goddesses Eos and Selene. If the order of mention of the three siblings is meant to be taken as their birth order, then out of the four authors that give him and his sisters a birth order, two make him the oldest child, one the middle, and the other the youngest. Helios was not among the regular and more prominent deities, rather he was a more shadowy member of the Olympian circle, despite the fact that he was among the most ancient. From his lineage, Helios might be described as a second generation Titan. He is associated with harmony and order, both literally in the sense of the movement of celestial bodies and metaphorically in the sense of bringing order to society.

Helios is usually depicted as a handsome young man crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun, which traditionally had twelve rays, symbolising the twelve months of the year. Beyond his Homeric Hymn, not many texts describe his physical appearance; Euripides describes him as ρυσωπός (khrysо̄pós) meaning "golden-eyed/faced" or "beaming like gold", Mesomedes of Crete writes that he has golden hair, and Apollonius Rhodius that he has light-emitting, golden eyes. According to Augustan poet Ovid, he dressed in tyrian purple robes and sat on a throne of bright emeralds. In ancient artefacts (such as coins, vases, or reliefs) he is presented as a beautiful, full-faced youth with wavy hair, wearing a crown adorned with the sun's rays.

Major cult center: Rhodes, Corinthia

Planet: Sun

Animals: Horse, wolf, cattle

Symbol: Sun, chariot, horses, aureole, whip, heliotropium, globe, cornucopia, ripened fruit

Mount: A chariot driven by four white horses

Festivals: Halia

Parents: Hyperion and Theia

Siblings: Selene and Eos

Roman: Sol, Sol Invictus

Chapter Text

Momus in Greek mythology was the personification of satire and mockery, two stories about whom figure among Aesop's Fables. During the Renaissance, several literary works used him as a mouthpiece for their criticism of tyranny, while others later made him a critic of contemporary society. Onstage he finally became the figure of harmless fun.

As a sharp-tongued spirit of unfair criticism, Momus was eventually expelled from the company of the gods on Mount Olympus. His name is related to μομφή, meaning 'blame', 'reproach', or 'disgrace'. Hesiod said that Momus was a son of Night (Nyx), "though she lay with none", and the twin of the misery goddess Oizys. In the 8th century BCE epic Cypria, Momus was credited with stirring up the Trojan War in order to reduce the human population. Sophocles wrote a later satyr play called Momos, now almost entirely lost, which may have derived from this.

Two of Aesop's Fables feature the god. The most widely reported of these in Classical times is numbered 100 in the Perry Index. There Momus is asked to judge the handiwork of three gods (who vary depending on the version): a man, a house and a bull. He found all at fault: the man because his heart was not on view to judge his thoughts; the house because it had no wheels so as to avoid troublesome neighbours; and the bull because it did not have eyes in its horns to guide it when charging. Because of it, Plutarch and Aristotle riticized Aesop's story-telling as deficient in understanding, while Lucian insisted that anyone with sense was able to sound out a man's thoughts.

As another result, Momus became a by-word for fault-finding, and the saying that if not even he could criticize something then that was the sign of its perfection. Thus, a poem in the Greek Anthology remarks of statues by Praxiteles that "Momus himself will cry out, 'Father Zeus, this was perfect skill'." Looking the lovely Aphrodite over, according to a second fable of Aesop's, number 455 in the Perry Index, it was light-heartedly noted that he could not find anything about her to fault except that her sandals squeaked.

In Lucian's 2nd-century comic dialogue The Gods in Council, Momus takes a leading role in a discussion on how to purge Olympus of foreign gods and barbarian demi-gods who are lowering its heavenly tone.

Renaissance author Leon Battista Alberti wrote the political work Momus, or The Prince (1446), which continued the god's story after his exile to earth. Since his continued criticism of the gods was destabilizing the divine establishment, Jupiter bound him to a rock and had him castrated. Later, however, missing his candor, Jupiter sought out a manuscript that Momus had left behind in which was described how a land could be ruled with strictly regulated justice.

At the start of the 16th century, Erasmus also presented Momus as a champion of the legitimate criticism of authorities. Allowing that the god was "not quite as popular as others, because few people freely admit criticism, yet I dare say of the whole crowd of gods celebrated by the poets, none was more useful." Giordano Bruno's philosophical treatise The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (1584) also looks back to Lucian's example. Momus there plays an integral part in the series of dialogues conducted by the Olympian deities and Bruno's narrators as Jupiter seeks to purge the universe of evil.

17th-century English writers introduced the figure of Momus in a gentler spirit of fun, as in Thomas Carew's masque Coelum Britannicum (1634), which was acted before King Charles 1 and his court. In Coelum Britannicum, Momus and Mercury draw up a plan to reform the "Star Chamber" of Heaven. Two centuries later, Coelum Britannicum influenced Henry David Thoreau as he was preparing to write his Walden.

John Dryden's short "Secular Masque" (1700) mocks contemporary society through the medium of the Classical divinities, with Momus playing a leading part in deflating with sarcastic wit the sports represented by Diana (hunting), Mars (war), and Venus (love), for "'Tis better to laugh than to cry." It is with similar wryness that Carl Sandburg's statue of "Momus" (1914) surveys the never-changing human scene, "On men who play in terrible earnest the old, known, solemn repetitions of history", as they continue to overpopulate the world and then bleed it.

Elsewhere in Europe, Momus was becoming softened into a figure of light-hearted and sentimental comedy, the equivalent of Harlequin in the French and Italian Commedia dell'arte. A typical production has him competing for the amorous favours of a nymph in Henry Desmarets' opéra-ballet Les amours de Momus (1695).

By this period, Momus was the patron of humorous satire, partnering the figures of comedy and tragedy. As such he appeared flanked by these female figures on the frontispiece to The Beauties of the English Stage (1737), while in Leonard Defraine's Figures of Fabled Gods (1820), he partners Comus, god of Carnival, and Themis, patroness of assemblies. Because of the Harlequin connection, and as the character able to make home-truths palatable through the use of humour, Momus had now taken the place of the Fool on a French Minchiate card pack. He also lent his name to George Saville Carey's satirical poem, Momus, or a critical examination into the merits of the performers and comic pieces at the Theatre-Royal in the Hay-Market (1767). The god himself plays no part there, only "Momus' sons," the comic actors.

Domain: personified spirit (daimon) of mockery, blame, ridicule, scorn, complaint and harsh criticism.

Chapter Text

Theseus was a divine hero in Greek mythology, famous for slaying the Minotaur. The myths surrounding Theseus, his journeys, exploits, and friends, have provided material for storytelling throughout the ages.

Theseus is sometimes described as the son of Aegeus, king of Athens, and sometimes as the son of the god Poseidon. He is raised by his mother, Aethra, and upon discovering his connection to Aegeus, travels overland to Athens, having many adventures on the way. When he reaches Athens, he finds that Aegeus is married to Medea (formerly wife of Jason), who plots against him.

The most famous legend about Theseus is his slaying of the Minotaur, half man and half bull. He then goes on to unite Attica under Athenian rule: the synoikismos ('dwelling together'). As the unifying king, he is credited with building a palace on the fortress of the Acropolis. Pausanias reports that after synoikismos, Theseus established a cult of Aphrodite ('Aphrodite of all the People') on the southern slope of the Acropolis.

Plutarch's Life of Theseus makes use of varying accounts of the death of the Minotaur, Theseus's escape, and his romantic involvement with and betrayal of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos.

Plutarch's avowed purpose is to construct a life that parallels the life of Romulus, the founding myth of Rome. Plutarch's sources, not all of whose texts have survived independently, include Pherecydes (mid-fifth century BC), Demon (c. 400 BC), Philochorus, and Cleidemus (both fourth century BC). As the subject of myth, the existence of Theseus as a real person has not been proven, but scholars believe that he may have been alive during the Late Bronze Age, or possibly as a king in the 8th or 9th century BC.

Aegeus, one of the primordial kings of Athens, was childless. Desiring an heir, he asked the Oracle of Delphi for advice. Her cryptic words were "Do not loosen the bulging mouth of the wineskin until you have reached the height of Athens, lest you die of grief." Aegeus did not understand the prophecy and was disappointed. He asked the advice of his host Pittheus, king of Troezen. Pittheus understood the prophecy, got Aegeus drunk, and gave Aegeus his daughter Aethra.

But following the instructions of Athena in a dream, Aethra left the sleeping Aegeus and waded across to the island of Sphairia that lay close to Troezen's shore. There, she poured a libation to Sphairos (Pelops's charioteer) and Poseidon and was possessed by the sea god in the night. The mix gave Theseus a combination of divine as well as mortal characteristics in his nature; such double paternity, with one immortal and one mortal, was a familiar feature of other Greek heroes. After Aethra became pregnant, Aegeus decided to return to Athens. Before leaving, however, he buried his sandals and sword under a huge rock and told Aethra that when their son grew up, he should move the rock, if he were heroic enough, and take the tokens for himself as evidence of his royal parentage. In Athens, Aegeus was joined by Medea, who had left Corinth after slaughtering the children she had borne to Jason, and had taken Aegeus as her new consort.

Thus Theseus was raised in his mother's land. When Theseus grew up to be a young man, he moved the rock and recovered his father's tokens. His mother then told him the truth about his father's identity and that he must take the sword and sandals back to the king Aegeus to claim his birthright. To journey to Athens, Theseus could choose to go by sea (which was the safe way) or by land, following a dangerous path around the Saronic Gulf, where he would encounter a string of six entrances to the Underworld, each guarded by a chthonic enemy. Young, brave, and ambitious, Theseus decided to go alone by the land route and defeated many bandits along the way.

The six entrances to the underworld, more commonly known as the Six Labours, are as follows:

At the first site, which was Epidaurus, sacred to Apollo and the healer Asclepius, Theseus turned the tables on the chthonic bandit, Periphetes, the Club Bearer, who beat his opponents into the Earth, taking from him the stout staff that often identifies Theseus in vase-paintings.
At the Isthmian entrance to the Underworld was a robber named Sinis, often called "Pityokamptes" (Ancient Greek: Πιτυοκάμπτης,  'he who bends Pinetrees'). He would capture travelers, tie them between two pine trees that were bent down to the ground, and then let the trees go, tearing his victims apart. Theseus slew him by his own method. He then seduced Sinis's daughter, Perigune, fathering the child Melanippus.
In another deed north of the Isthmus, at a place called Crommyon, he killed an enormous pig, the Crommyonian Sow, bred by an old crone named Phaea. Some versions name the sow herself as Phaea. The Bibliotheca by Pseudo-Apollodorus described the Crommyonian Sow as an offspring of Typhon and Echidna.
Near Megara, a robber named Sciron forced travelers along the narrow cliff-face pathway to wash his feet. While they knelt, he kicked them off the cliff behind them, where they were eaten by a giant turtle (or, in some versions, a sea monster). Theseus pushed him off the cliff where he was eaten as well.
Another of these enemies was Cercyon, king at the holy site of Eleusis, who challenged passers-by to a wrestling match and, when he had beaten them, killed them. Theseus beat Cercyon at wrestling and then killed him instead.
The last bandit was Procrustes the Stretcher, who had two beds, one of which he offered to passers-by in the plain of Eleusis. He then made them fit into it, either by stretching them or by cutting off their feet. Since he had two beds of different lengths, no one would fit. Theseus once again employed Procrustes's own method on him, cutting off his legs and decapitating him with his axe.

Abode: Elysium

Symbols: Sword, Corinthian helmet (occasionlly)

Festivals: Theseia

Born: Troezen

Died: Skyros

Parents: Aegeus or Poseidon (farther) Aethra (mother)

Consorts: Phaedra, Ariadne, Hippolyta

Offsprings: Demophon, Acamas, Hippolytus

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek and myth, Eubuleus or Eubouleus is a god known primarily from devotional inscriptions for mystery religions. The name appears several times in the corpus of the so-called Orphic gold tablets spelled variously, with forms including Euboulos, Eubouleos and Eubolos. It may be an epithet of the central Orphic god, Dionysus or Zagreus, or of Zeus in an unusual association with the Eleusinian Mysteries. Scholars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have begun to consider Eubuleus independently as "a major god" of the mysteries, based on his prominence in the inscriptional evidence. His depiction in art as a torchbearer suggests that his role was to lead the way back from the underworld.

Literary texts provide only scant evidence of the mythology of Eubuleus. He is not mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Differences among genealogies and cross-identifications with other gods raise the question of whether all the sources using a form of the name refer to the same figure. Diodorus Siculus says that he was a son of Demeter and the father of Karme, thus grandfather of Britomartis. One of the Orphic tablets identifies him as the son of Zeus, as does one of the Orphic Hymns. Hesychius identifies him with Plouton, who is also hailed as Euboulos in the Orphic Hymn to Plouton, but other contexts distinguish the two.

In visual representations, Eubuleus resembles Iacchos. Both are often depicted with a "dreamy" or "mystical" expression, and long hair styled in a particular manner. Both figures can also be represented as torchbearers. Eubuleus is sometimes identified as one of the figures on the so-called Regina Vasorum ("Queen of Vases"), a mid-4th-century BC hydria from Cumae that depicts various figures from Eleusinian myth.

A sculptural head most often attributed to the Athenian artist Praxiteles has sometimes been identified as Eubuleus. Uncovered by archaeologists in 1883 in the Ploutonion of Eleusis, it may instead represent Triptolemus. Alternatively, the head could be an idealized portrait of the type frequently made of Alexander, perhaps of Demetrius Poliorcetes, as it agrees in respects with Plutarch's description. The identification as Eubuleus is based on comparisons with other sculptural heads that have the name inscribed, and the presence of the name on a base found separately but also within the Eleusinian Ploutonion.

Eubuleus is also identified as the youthful figure holding a torch on the right side of the fragmentary Lacrateides Relief, a second-century BC votive relief found in Eleusis. The Hellenistic marble relief is probably the earliest artistic appearance of Eubuleus.

The Scholia to Lucian say that Eubuleus was a swineherd who was feeding his pigs at the opening to the underworld when Persephone was abducted by Hades. His swine were swallowed by the earth along with her. The scholiast presents this narrative element as an aition for the ritual at the Thesmophoria in which piglets are thrown into a sacrificial pit (megara) dedicated to Demeter and Persephone. Ritual attendants called "bailers" (ἀντλήτριαι, antlêtriai) then descended into the pit and retrieved the decayed remains, which were placed on altars, mixed with seeds, then planted. Pits rich in organic matter at Eleusis have been taken as evidence that the Thesmophoria was held there as well as in other demes of Attica.

In keeping with his ritualist approach to myth and other preoccupations in The Golden Bough, J.G. Frazer thought that the pigs, rather than merely accompanying Persephone in her descent, were an original feature of the story, representing the "corn spirit" that was later anthropomorphized as the young goddess.

The "First Fruits Decree" (5th century BC) requires sacrifices for Demeter and Kore ("the Maiden," usually identified with Persephone), Triptolemus, heos (God), Thea (Goddess) and Eubolos. The inscription with the Lakrateides relief identifies the person making the dedication as a priest of the God and Goddess — that is, of the King and Queen of the Underworld, in reference to mystery cult — and of Eubouleus. In the Orphic tablets, Eubuleus is invoked four times along with Eucles ("Good Fame"), following a declaration in the first line to the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone. He is also invoked in the Gurôb Papyrus of the mid-3rd century BC.

Because Eubuleus seems to be a human being in the narrative alluded to by the scholiast to Lucian, he has sometimes been considered a hero who received cult veneration, as are Triptolemus and even Iacchos.

Chapter Text

Byzas (Ancient Greek: Βύζας, Býzas) was the legendary founder of Byzantium (Ancient Greek: Βυζάντιον, Byzántion), the city later known as Constantinople and then Istanbul.

The legendary history of the founding of Byzantium as recorded by later Byzantine authors is most fully preserved in the Patria of Constantinople by 6th century writer Hesychius of Miletus. The Patria recorded multiple versions of the city's founding myth. Hesychius' preferred account says the city received its name from Io, daughter of the Argive king, who was raped by Inachus and then transformed into a cow. Zeus had fallen in love with Io, and in a jealous fit, Hera sent a gadfly to drive Io from one place to another in torment until she arrived in Thrace, giving birth to Ceroessa, the mother of Byzas by Poseidon, for whom the Golden Horn was named Ceras. One tradition holds that the city was founded by the Argives who received an oracle at Delphi with reference to the Golden Horn. Another claims megarians (led by Byzas) are the founders, and yet another says Byzas is the son of a local nymph, Semystra.

During the 7th century BC, the Greek city-states were expanding and establishing new colonies. The Dorian city-state of Megara, near Athens, was also searching for sites to set up yet another colony. After asking the oracle of Delphi, the Megarean king Nisos sent his son Byzas in search of "the land opposite the city of the blind".

When Byzas arrived to where the Sea of Marmara meets the Bosporus, on the border of Europe and Asia, he realized the meaning of the oracle. On the Asian shore, opposite to where he was, a colony, Chalcedon, had already been established. Byzas decided that Chalcedon was the prophesied 'city of the blind', as it had not taken advantage of the European shore.

To build his new city, he selected the European shore of the south end of Bosporos and gave the new city his name, Byzantion. Later, Byzas married Fidalea, daughter of king Varvizos (or Varvisios) of Thrace. The inhabitants of ancient Byzantion considered Byzas as their founder (Oikistes) and, according to ancient sources, honoured him by raising a statue of Byzas and his wife, Fidalea, in a noticeable place in the city.

The ancients had a very good understanding of the advantages that Byzantion had over Chalcedon, as the colony of Byzantion commanded the entrance to two seas, the entrance to both the Black Sea, through Sea of Bosporos, and the Aegean Sea, through the Sea of Marmaras (Propontis was its ancient name).

Apart from the story of the Pythian oracle of Apollonian Delphi, as described by the Greek geographer and historian Strabo (63 BC - 23 AD) and by the Roman historian Tacitus (1st century AD), there are other versions of the maxim referring to the "blind people". The Greek historian Herodotos (5th century BC) wrote that when the Persian general Megabazus arrived at Byzantium, he called the people of Chalcedon blind because although they had a choice of sites, they chose the worse one.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Morpheus was known as the god of dreams. He shaped and formed the dreams, through which he could appear to mortals in any form. This talent made Morpheus a messenger of the gods, able to communicate divine messages to sleeping mortals. Though he could take any human form, Morpheus’s true form was that of a winged demon.

He was the son of Hypnos (God of Sleep) and Pasithea (Goddess of relaxation and rest), and he and his brothers were known as Oneiroi (Dreams).

• The phrase “in the arms of Morpheus” means “to be asleep”. It was said that when people would sleep in the arms of Morpheus, they would dream about their future or coming events.

• The Greek work “morphe” means “form”. Thus, Morpheus is the god that forms the dreams.

• Morpheus appears in the poet Ovid’s Metamorphosis. He is also likely the unnamed dream spirit in Homer’s Iliad that delivers a message from Zeus to King agamemnon.

• Morpheus was the leader of the Oneiroi (Dreams), and he and his brothers were the personified spirits of dreams. Phobetor (or Ikelos) created phobic or scary dreams. Phantasus created unreal or phantasmic dreams. What set Morpheus apart from his brothers was his ability to influence the dreams of Gods, heroes, and kings.

• Each night, the Oneiroi would emerge from the palace of Hypnos and pass through one of two gates. Morpheus would pass through the gate made of horn, which represented true or divine dreams. His brothers would pass through the second gate, which was made of ivory and represented dreams without true meaning. The Greek words for “ivory” and “deceive” are very similar.

• Morpheus slept in a cave full of poppy seeds while shaping mortal dreams. This could be the reason why the opium- based medication for severe pain is known as morphine. Poppies have also been used to treat insomnia due to their hypnotic properties.

• Morpheus, his brothers, and their mother and father all lived in the land of dreams located in the underworld. His other family members included Nyx, his grandmother and the deity of Night, and Thanatos, Morpheus’s uncle and the god of death.

• Only the gods that resided in Olympus could visit Morpheus and his family in the land of dreams. Its gate was heavily guarded by two fearsome monsters that would materialize the fears of those who tried to pass through uninvited. The River of Forgetfulness and the River of Oblivion were also located in the land of dreams.

• Overseeing the dreams of mortals made Morpheus one of the busiest dieties. He didn’t have a wife, but some interpretations would have seen him paired with Iris, another messenger of the gods and the personification of rainbows.

• Some statues of Morpheus have been sculpted that depict him having one winged ear. This is said to symbolize him listening to dreams through his regular ear and delivering messages from the gods through dreams with his winged ear.

Chapter Text

The first son of Gaia and Uranus, Oceanus was a Titan ho personified the great seas and oceans. He was often likened to a great river that spanned the entirety of the known world. With his sister and lover Tethys, Oceanus spawned the legions of sea nymphs known as the Oceanids.

Though not as popular as the Olympian deities, Oceanus was still well known throughout ancient Greece. He was mentioned in the Homeric epics, though his exact personality remained obscure. The ancient Greeks viewed Oceanus as a kind and benevolent deity; he was generally represented as an older male with a flowing beard that symbolized his fatherly authority.

The name “Oceanus” (Greek Ὠκεανός, translit. Ōkeanos) is identical to the Greek word ōkeanos, meaning “great sea or river,” a reference to the body of water thought to encompass the world. The origins of the word are obscure, and possibly pre-Greek or even Semitic. The term may have been derived from the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European *ō-kei-m̥[h₁]no-, meaning “lying on.” The Titan was often depicted in a reclining pose that mimicked his literal presence lying across the world.

Oceanus embodied the seas and commanded the enormous power of their waters. While he was occasionally viewed as a source of destruction, Oceanus was generally imagined as a father and giver of life. He was also viewed as a liminal deity—one who marked the boundary between the living and the dead, as well as the seas and heavens.

Though sometimes imagined as a person, Oceanus was also regarded as a place. In the earliest texts of Greek mythology—the Homeric and Hesiodic epics—Oceanus was a great river, described as world-encircling, perfect, and endlessly flowing back into itself.

Since the days of Homer, Oceanus has been seen as the source of all seas, rivers, springs, and wells. He was also closely associated with heavenly bodies. The sun and its corresponding deity Helios, for instance, departed from the Titan’s body in the morning and settled there at night. The stars, too, bathed in Oceanus.

Oceanus (either the river itself or the palace of the Titan) was located near the ends of the earth, somewhere in the west—perhaps even in the vicinity of the Underworld. Homer puts Oceanus near Elysium, while Hesiod locates him near Tartarus. Beyond Oceanus lies the entrance to the Underworld, the Isles of the Blessed, and the Garden of the Hesperides.

As Oceanus marked the boundaries of the civilized world, the early Greeks imagined that those who lived near his waters were strange, fantastical beings. These included humans or human-esque tribes like the dark Ethiopians, the tiny Pygmies, and the Cimmerians, as well as monsters like the Harpies, the Gorgons, or Geryon. Odysseus sailed in Oceanus' great river during his wanderings, which ultimately took him as far east as Circe's island of Aea and as far west as the Underworld.

Oceanus, together with his sister-wife Tethys, was often represented as the primordial source of the world; in the Iliad, for example, Hera says that it is Oceanus “from whom the gods are sprung.” It is unclear whether this was meant literally—as an alternative to the cosmogony in which Gaia and Uranus were the originators of the world—or merely as a kind of figurative epithet.

According to the Orphics, a religious group which stressed the importance of asceticism and ritual in attaining a blissful afterlife, Oceanus and Tethys were indeed the first divine couple, born a generation before the Titans. Despite his cosmic significance, however, Oceanus remained subordinate to Zeus in traditional Greek religion and myth.

In art, Oceanus is often depicted with the features of both a man and a sea creature. He usually has a beard and sometimes sports horns or crab claws growing out of his head, with the body of a snake or fish. He shows up frequently on Roman coins, mosaics, and sarcophagi.

The firstborn son of the primordial deities Gaia and Uranus, Oceanus had many siblings. These included the Titans: Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Rhea, Tethys, and Cronus—as well as the one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires, monsters with a hundred hands each.

Oceanus acquired a reputation as a sort of pacifist among the blustering and belligerent Titans. According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Oceanus was the only Titan who did not participate in Cronus’ attack on their father, Uranus. It was through this bloody struggle that the Titans became the rulers of the cosmos, with Cronus as their leader.

Later, when Zeus and his siblings fought against Cronus and the Titans in the decade-long Titanomachy, Oceanus again stood on the sidelines. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Oceanus actually sends his daughter Styx, one of the Oceanids, to help Zeus. In Homer’s Iliad, Hera claims that during the war, she was taken in and brought up by Oceanus and Tethys. Because of his support of the Olympians, Oceanus was not cast down into Tartarus with the other Titans after Zeus defeated Cronus and his army.

Though Oceanus typically kept his distance from mythological adventures, he did appear in one tale with Heracles. The sixth-century BCE writer Pherecydes related a story in which Heracles sailed to Erytheia, the home of the monster Geryon, in a golden cup given to him by Helios. During this voyage, Oceanus decided to tease Heracles by creating large waves to rock the cup. Unfazed, Heracles drew his bow and threatened to shoot Oceanus if he did not stop. Knowing Heracles’ reputation (and thus rightly fearing this threat), Oceanus immediately complied.

Another myth explained why Ursa Major, the Great Bear, was the only star or constellation that did not bathe in the waters of Oceanus. Ursa Major had once been one of Zeus’ lovers, the nymph Callisto. When she died, she was placed in the sky as a constellation, but the ever-jealous Hera sought to further punish her husband’s lover: she ordered Oceanus not to let Ursa Major bathe with the other starts in his waters.

Oceanus was almost never an object of cult in the ancient Greek world, though he was worshipped by Alexander the Great during his campaign for world conquest.

Oceanus was famously memorialized as the focal point of the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Designed in the mid-eighteenth century by the Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed in 1762 by sculptor Guiseppe Pannini, the iconic landmark features a bearded Oceanus towering over geysers, horses, and sea nymphs. The fountain’s theme is “taming the waters,” and Oceanus’ commanding position makes it clear that the mighty Titan is the one doing the taming.

Domain: the great world-encircling river and all bodies of water

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Iris is a daughter of the gods Thaumas and Electra, the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods, a servant to the Olympians and especially Queen Hera.

Iris appears in several stories carrying messages from and to the gods or running errands but has no unique mythology of her own. Similarly, very little to none of a historical cult and worship of Iris is attested in surviving records, with only a few traces surviving from the island of Delos. In ancient art, Iris is depicted as a winged young woman carrying a caduceus, the symbol of the messengers, and a pitcher of water for the gods. Iris was traditionally seen as the consort of Zephyrus, the god of the west wind and one of the four Anemoi, by whom she is the mother of Pothos in some versions.

The ancient Greek noun Ἶρις means both the rainbow and the halo of the Moon. An inscription from Corinth provides evidence for an original form Ϝῖρις (Wîris) with a digamma that was eventually dropped. The noun seems to be of pre-Greek origin. A Proto-Indo-European pre-form *uh2i-r-i- has been suggested as well, although Beekes finds it 'hard to motivate.'

According to Hesiod's Theogony, Iris is the daughter of Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra and the sister of the Harpies: Arke and Ocypete. During the Titanomachy, Iris was the messenger of the Olympian Gods while her sister Arke betrayed the Olympians and became the messenger of the gods' enemy, the Titans. She is the goddess of the rainbow. She also serves nectar to the goddesses and gods to drink.

Zephyrus, who is the god of the west wind, is often said to be her consort. Together they had a son named Pothos, or alternatively they were the parents of Eros, the god of love, according to sixth century BC Greek lyric poet Alcaeus, though Eros is usually said to be the son of Ares and Aphrodite. According to the Dionysiaca of Nonnus, Iris' brother is Hydaspes.

She is also known as one of the goddesses of the sea and the sky. Iris links the gods to humanity. She travels with the speed of wind from one end of the world to the other and into the depths of the sea and the underworld.

Iris is said to travel on the rainbow while carrying messages from the gods to mortals. In some records, Iris is a sister to fellow messenger goddess Arke ("swift", "quick"); both sisters originally sided with the Olympian gods during the Titanomachy, but Arke eventually flew out of the company of Olympians to join the Titans as their own messenger goddess, so the two sisters found each other on opposite camps during the battle.

After the war was won by the Olympian leader Zeus and his allies, Zeus punished Arke by tearing her wings from her and in time gave them as a gift to the Nereid Thetis at her wedding to Peleus, who in turn gave them to her son, Achilles, who wore them on his feet. Achilles was sometimes known as podarkes (feet like [the wings of] Arke). Podarces was also the original name of Priam, the king of Troy. Iris on the other hand maintained her position as the messenger of the gods alongside Hermes; often Iris served specifically as Hera's personal messenger and servant.

Following her daughter Persephone's abduction by Hades, the goddess of agriculture Demeter withdrew to her temple in Eleusis and made the earth barren, causing a great famine that killed off mortals, and as a result sacrifices to the gods ceased. Zeus then sent Iris to Demeter, calling her to join the other gods and lift her curse; but as her daughter was not returned, Demeter was not persuaded.

In one narrative, after Leto and her children pleaded with Zeus to release Prometheus from his torment, Zeus relented and sent Iris to order Heracles to free the unfortunate Prometheus.

After Ceyx drowned in a shipwreck, Hera made Iris convey her orders to Hypnos, the god of sleep. Iris flew and found him in his cave, and informed him that Hera wished for Ceyx's wife, Alcyone, to be informed of her loved one's death in her dreams. After delivering Hera's command, Iris left immediately, not standing to be near Hypnos for too long, for his powers took hold of her, and made her dizzy and sleepy.

In Aristophanes's comedy The Birds, the titular birds build a city in the sky and plan to supplant the Olympian gods. Iris, as the messenger, goes to meet them, but she is ridiculed, insulted, and threatened with rape by their leader Pisetaerus, an elderly Athenian man. Iris appears confused that Pisetearus does not know who the gods are and that she is one of them. Pisetaerus then tells her that the birds are the gods now, the deities whom the humans must sacrifice to. After Pisetaerus threatens to rape her, Iris scolds him for his foul language and leaves, warning him that Zeus, whom she refers to as her father, will deal with him and make him pay.

Iris also appears several times in Virgil's Aeneid, usually as an agent of Juno. In Book 4, Juno dispatches her to pluck a lock of hair from the head of Queen Dido, so that she may die and enter the Underworld. In book 5, Iris, having taken on the form of a Trojan woman, stirs up the other Trojan mothers to set fire to four of Aeneas' ships in order to prevent them from leaving Sicily.

According to the Roman poet Ovid, after Romulus was deified as the god Quirinus, his wife Hersilia pleaded with the gods to let her become immortal as well so that she could be with her husband once again. Juno heard her plea and sent Iris down to her. With a single finger, Iris touched Hersilia and transformed her into an immortal goddess. Hersilia flew to Olympus, where she became one of the Horae and was permitted to live with her husband forevermore.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Symbol: Rainbow, Caduceus, pitcher

Parents: Thaumas and Electra

Siblings: Arke, Harpies, Hydaspes

Consort: Zephyrus

Offspring: Pothos

Domain: rainbows

Chapter Text

Doris, in Greek mythology, was a sea goddess. She was one of the 3,000 Oceanids, daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys.

The name Doris is derived from the noun for a gift, δῶρον, from Proto-Indo-European *déh₃rom of the same meaning.

When not associated with a god, Doris represented the fertility of the ocean, goddess of the rich fishing-grounds found at the mouths of rivers where fresh water mingled with the brine.

Being an Oceanid meant she was a sister of the river gods. By her husband Nereus, Doris was the mother of Nerites and mother to the fifty Nereids, including Thetis, Amphitrite (sometimes) and Galatea.

Doris Cove in Antarctica is named after the goddess.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Rhodos/Rhodus or Rhode, was the goddess and personification of the island of Rhodes and a wife of the sun god Helios.

Various parents were given for Rhodos. Pindar makes her a daughter of Aphrodite with no father mentioned, although scholia on Pindar add Poseidon as the father; for Herodorus of Heraclea she was the daughter of Aphrodite and Poseidon, while according to Diodorus Siculus she was the daughter of Poseidon and Halia, one of the Telchines, the original rulers of Rhodes. According to Apollodorus (referring to her as "Rhode") she was a daughter of Poseidon and Amphitrite, and full sister to Triton. However, for Epimendies, her father was Oceanus, while according to a scholion on Odyssey 17.208 (calling her "Rhode"), her father was the river-god Asopus, thus making her a Naiad. Perhaps misreading Pindar, Asclepiades ("presumably the mythographer" Asclepiades of Tragilus) gives her father as Helios.

Rhode together with Helios or Poseidon were the ancestors of Ialysus, Cameirus and Lindus, eponyms of the cities of Rhodes.

The poet Pindar tells the story, that when the gods drew lots for the places of the earth, Helios being absent received nothing. He complained to Zeus about it, who offered to make the division again. Helios refused, for he had seen a new island about to rise from the sea. So, Helios, with Zeus' consent, claimed a new island (Rhodes), which had not yet risen from the sea. And after it rose from the sea he lay with her and produced seven sons. According to another source, it was Helios himself who caused the water overflowing the island to disappear, and after that he named this island "Rhodes" after Rhodos.

By Helios, Rhodos was the mother of the Heliadae, who succeeded the Telchines as rulers of Rhodes. According to Pindar, Rhodos had, by Helios, seven sons. Pindar does not name the sons, but according to Diodorus Siculus, the Heliadae were Ochimus, Cercaphus, Actis, Macar (i.e. Macareus), Candalus, Triopas, and Tenages. Diodorus Siculus also says that Helios and Rhodos had one daughter, Electryone. A scholion to Pindar gives the same list of sons, with Macareus (for Macar) and naming the last Heliadae as Phaethon, "the younger, whom the Rhodians call Tenages". The older Phaethon referred to here probably being the famous Phaethon (whose story is told by Ovid) who drove Helios' chariot. The scholion on Odyssey 17.208 (perhaps drawing on either of the lost tragedies Heliades (Daughters of Helios) by Aeschylus, and Phaethon, by Euripides), also makes Rhodos the mother, by Helios, of this famous Phaethon, as well as three daughters: Lampetie, Aigle, and Phaethousa. (In the Odyssey, Lampetie and Phaethousa, the shepherds of Helios' cattle and sheep on Thrinacia, are instead the daughters of Helios by Neaera.)

When Aphrodite cursed Helios and made him fall in love with a mortal princess named Leucothoe, he is said to have forgotten about Rhodos, among other lovers.

While Rhodian coins were known for displaying the magnificent head of Helios, some of them showed the head of Rhodos; additionally, the rose (Greek rhodon) became the island's symbol. During the Hellenistic period, she was worshipped in Rhodes as the island's tutelary goddess.

Abode: Rhodes

Symbol: rose

Parents: Poseidon (father) Aphrodite, Amphitrite or Halia (mother)

Siblings: Triton and Benthesikyme (full siblings by Amphitrite) Several paternal half-siblings Several maternal half-siblings (by Aphrodite)

consort: Helios

Children: Actis, Candalus, Ceraphus, Electryone, Macareus, Ochimus, Tenages, Triopas

Domain: Rhodes

Chapter Text

Aristaeus was the mythological culture hero credited with the discovery of many rural useful arts and handicrafts, including bee-keeping; He was the son of the huntress Cyrene and Apollo.

Aristaeus ("the best") was a cult title in many places: Boeotia, Arcadia, Ceos, Sicily, Sardinia, Thessaly, and Macedonia; consequently, a set of "travels" was imposed, connecting his epiphanies in order to account for these widespread manifestations.

If Aristaeus was a minor figure at Athens, he was more prominent in Boeotia, where he was "the pastoral Apollo", and was linked to the founding myth of Thebes by marriage with Autonoe, daughter of Cadmus, the founder. Aristaeus may appear as a winged youth in painted Boeotian pottery, similar to representations of the Boreads, spirits of the North Wind. Besides Actaeon and Macris, he also was said to have fathered Charmus and Callicarpus in Sardinia.

According to Pindar's ninth Pythian Ode and Apollonius' Argonsutica (II.522ff), Cyrene despised spinning and other womanly arts and instead spent her days hunting and shepherding, but in a prophecy, he put in the mouth of the wise centaur Chiron, Apollo would spirit her to Libya and make her the foundress of a great city, Cyrene, in a fertile coastal plain. When Aristaeus was born, according to what Pindar sang, Hermes took him to be raised on nectar and ambrosia and to be made immortal by Gaia.

"Aristaios" ("the best") is an epithet rather than a name:

For some men to call Zeus and holy Apollo.

Agreus and Nomios, and for others Aristaios (Pindar)

Thanks to a vast family tree and connections, Aristaeus is a/the patron god and protector of a wide array of rustic and rural arts, crafts, skills, practices and traditions (handicrafts)—often associated with smallholdings—some of which is overlapped with his many relatives:

From his father, Apollo, the wise Centaur, Chiron and from his aunts, the Muses, Aristaeus learned the arts of prophecy, healing and herblore/herbalism/phytotherapy (similarly like his half-brother, Asclepius). As-such, Aristaeus is a patron god and protector of Physic gardens.
From his aunt, Artemis and from his mother, Cyrene (who was also a companion of his aunt, Artemis, either as a nymph or as a mortal princess-turned-nymph), Aristaeus learned how to track, hunt and trap animals, and how to dress and prepare their meat (Butchering) and skins (Leather making), as well as the use of nets and traps in hunting.
From the Myrtle-nymphs in Thessaly (being, either Dryads or Oreads)—or the Thriae—who raised him on Apollo's behalf, Aristaeus learned other useful arts and mysteries, such as dairying; how to prepare milk for cream, butter, oxygala (similar to yogurt) and cheese(making); how to keep chickens for their eggs; how to tame the Goddess's bees and keep them in hives (the bees either belonging to the Myrtle nymphs themselves or the Thriae), to harness supplies of honey and beeswax, etc.; how to tame and cultivate the wild oleaster in order to make it bear olives and how to process them into olive oil (like his aunt, Athena); as such, Aristaeus is a protector of olive trees, of olive orchards/plantations, Oliviculture and of olive oil presses (whereas Athena is the goddess of olives, of olive oil and of olive-oil-making).
Like his father, Apollo, his mother, Cyrene (a huntress and a shepherdess), his uncle, Hermes, and his cousin(?), Pan, Aristaeus is also a patron god and a protector of shepherds/herders and of herding, patron of the art of Sheep shearing, as well as the patron god of pastoralism; of the cattle and their herds and flocks, and protector of pastures.
From his uncle, Dionysus, Aristaeus learned the processes of how to produce alcoholic beverages, such as wine, ale, beer, kykeon, mead, kumis, absinthe, etc. (although an alternate account states that he was the one who taught Dionysus, having served as a surrogate father to him on the island of Euboia, as opposed to Dionysus learning about winemaking from the wise old Satyr, Silenus); as such, Aristaeus is worshipped as a protector of grapevines, vineyards, winepresses and of viticulture, while Dionysus is the god of wine & wine-making, parties, feasts, banquets & festivals, and of the state of intoxication/religious ecstasy (not to be confused with Pasithea).
From his great-aunt, Demeter, Aristaeus learned the skills of the various branches of agriculture (grain-growing), horticulture, fungiculture and animal husbandry; as such, Aristaeus was also a protector of gardens (such as kitchen gardens/subsistence gardens), farms, fields and orchards, etc. Some versions also credit Demeter with teaching Aristaeus leather-making, instead of his mother, Cyrene, and his aunt, Artemis.
Aristaeus--along with Carpo of the Horae and Karpos (son of Zephyrus/Favonius and Chloris/Flora)--is also a patron god of fruit trees (Fruticulture) & vegetable plants (Olericulture), herbs & spices (herbiculture), edible flowers (floriculture) and fungi (Fungiculture), and a patron god of the arts foraging, hunting & fishing, husbandry & agriculture, and of the arts of food preservation (fermenting, pickling, brining, curing, smoking and drying of foodstuffs), and condiments (like Garum).
From his great-aunt, Hestia, Aristaeus learned the various skills of cooking and baking, making Aristaeus a protector of Quern-stone & Gristmills, Watermills, and of Ovens, such as clay-built bread ovens, etc.
From his great-uncle, Poseidon, Aristaeus learned the skills of fishing and spearfishing, with fishing nets and fishhooks, etc.
From his aunt, Athena (also), Aristaeus learned the skills to weave, card and hand-spin fibers into wool, thread, etc., making him the patron of ropemaking, net-making, basket weaving (see also, Wattle (construction) and Wattle and daub), and working clay and glass (also learned from Hephaestus).
From his uncle, Hephaestus, Aristaeus learned the ways of working with metal (mining, blacksmithing and metalworking, etc.), stone (quarrying and stonemasonry, etc.), clay (pottery, ceramics, and other plastic arts, also learned from Athena), glass and wood (woodworking, etc.), making Aristaeus a patron god and protector of clay Kilns, Masonry ovens and Charcoal piles, etc.
In Ceos, Aristaeus is also a god of the Etesian winds (without being mistaken for Boreas or his brothers), which provided some respite from the intense heat of their scorching, drought-causing midsummers weather/climate.

Abode: Libya

Parents: Apollo and Cyrene

Consort: Autonoe

Children: Actaeon and Macris

Domain: Shepherds and Useful Arts

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Gelos was the divine personification of laughter. According to Philostratus the Elder, he was believed to enter the retinue of Dionysus alongside Comus. Plutarch relates that Lycurgus of Sparta dedicated a small statue of Gelos to the god, and elsewhere, mentions that in Sparta there was a sanctuary of Gelos, as well as those of Thanatos, Phobos "and other [personifications of] experiences of this kind".

Risus was the Latin rendition of the name Gelos. A festival in honor of Risus (i. e. Gelos) in Thessaly was described by Apuleius, but it is unknown whether it was an actual event or writer's invention.

Domain: Personification of Laughter

Chapter Text

Belus or Belos in classical Greek or classical Latin texts (and later material based on them) in a Babylonian context refers to the Babylonian god Bel Marduk. Though often identified with Greek Zeus and Latin Jupiter as Zeus Belos or Jupiter Belus, in other cases Belus is euhenerized as an ancient king who founded Babylon and built the ziggurat. He is recognized and worshipped as the god of war.

Eusebius of Caesarea (Praeparatio Evangelica 9.18) cites Artabanus as stating in his Jewish History that Artabanus found in anonymous works that giants who had been dwelling in Babylonia were destroyed by the gods for impiety, but one of them named Belus escaped and settled in Babylon and lived in the tower which he built and named the Tower of Belus. A little later Eusebius (9.41) cites Abydenus' Concerning the Assyrians for the information that the site of Babylon:

... was originally water, and called a sea. But Belus put an end to this, and assigned a district to each, and surrounded Babylon with a wall; and at the appointed time he disappeared.

This seems to be a rationalized version of Marduk's defeat of Tiamat in the Enuma Elish followed here by Belus becoming a god. A little earlier in the same section, in a supposed prophecy by King Nebuchadnezzar, King Nebuchadnezzar claims to be descended from Belus.

Diodorus Siculus (6.1.10) cites Euhemerus as relating that Zeus (a euhemerized Zeus) went to Babylon and was entertained by Belus. Diodorus also relates (17.112.3) how the Chaldean of Babylon requested Alexander the Great to restore the "Tomb of Belus" which had been demolished by the Persians. Strabo (16.1.5) likewise refers to the ziggurat as the "Tomb of Belus" which had been demolished by Xerxes.

See Belus (Egyptian) for statements that Belus in reference to the Babylonian Zeus Belus actually refers to the Belus of Greek mythology, son of Poseidon by Libya.

It is likely the Babylonian Belus was not clearly distinguished from vague, ancient Assyrian figures named Belus though some chronographers make the distinction (see Belus (Assyrian)).

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Procrustes (Προκρούστης Prokroustes, "the stretcher [who hammers out the metal]"), also known as Prokoptas, Damastes (Δαμαστής, "subduer") or Polypemon, was a rogue smith and bandit from Attica who attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, so as to force them to fit the size of an iron bed.

The word Procrustean is thus used by analogy to describe, for example, situations where an arbitrary standard is used to measure success, while completely disregarding obvious harm that results from the effort.

Procrustes was a son of Poseidon while his mother was unknown. Procrustes had a son named Sinis, by Sylea (daughter of Corinthus), who, just as his father, came to be another malefactor captured and killed by Theseus.

Procrustes had a stronghold on Mount Korydallos at Erineus, on the sacred way between Athens and Eleusis. There he had a bed, in which he invited every passer-by to spend the night, and where he set to work on them with his smith's hammer, to stretch them to fit. In later tellings, if the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length; if the guest was too short Procrustes would stretch them until they died; nobody ever fit the bed exactly. Procrustes continued his reign of terror until he was captured by Theseus, travelling to Athens along the sacred way, who "fitted" Procrustes to his own bed:

He killed Damastes, surnamed Procrustes, by compelling him to make his own body fit his bed, as he had been wont to do with those of strangers. And he did this in imitation of Heracles. For that hero punished those who offered him violence in the manner in which they had plotted to serve him.

Killing Procrustes was Theseus's last adventure on his journey from Troezen to Athens.

A Procrustean bed is an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced.

In Edgar Allan Poe's influential crime story "The Purloined Letter" (1844), the private detective Dupin uses the metaphor of a Procrustean bed to describe the Parisian police's overly rigid method of looking for clues.
French philosopher Jacques Derrida, in "The Purveyor of Truth", his response to Jacques Lacan's seminar on "The Purloined Letter" (1956), applies the metaphor to the structural analysis of texts: "By framing in this violent way, by cutting the narrated figure itself from a fourth side in order to see only triangles, one evades perhaps a certain complication." This is one of deconstruction's central critiques of structural (and formal) literary analysis. Slavoj Zizek draws upon the metaphor to critique poetic form: "The most elementary form of torturing one's language is called poetry—think of what a complex form like a sonnet does to language: it forces the free flow of speech into a Procrustean bed of fixed forms of rhythm and rhyme." Poet Hollis Robbins draws upon the metaphor to structure a sonnet about cutting lines to fit meter and rhyme.
Thomas Jefferson used the Procrustean bed as a metaphor in a paper on religious freedom. "Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitor? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subjected to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformativity desirable? Introduce the bed of Procrustus then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion."
The Talmud uses this concept to understand the sins of the people of Sodom. Sanhedrin 109b 5 says: "The Gemara continues to discuss the sins of the people of Sodom: They had beds on which they would lay their guests; when a guest was longer than the bed they would cut him, and when a guest was shorter than the bed they would stretch him."
The concept of the Procrustean bed has been invoked by Eurosceptics to describe the relationship between the Eurozone and its member states.
Theodosius Dobzhansky, a founding figure in evolutionary biology and genetics, wrote "Progress of scientific understanding is often obstructed and side-tracked when a working hypothesis which proves serviceable in a certain field is used as a Procrustean bed to mutilate the evidence derived from other fields." Dobzhansky made this chiding statement in response to claims that certain biological phenomena could only arise via one mechanism.
The Austrian-American writer Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn's 1943 book The Menace of the Herd, or Procrustes at Large is a critique of what the author describes as the negative effects of egalitarianism as a political philosophy, where state power is used to force individuals to fit the standards designed by politicians and intellectuals.
The film editor Walter Murch refers, not entirely negatively, to a certain style of film editing as "procrustean". If the first assembly of a film is too long by a certain amount, that amount is removed quickly, sometimes brutally. Then the film is viewed at this new length, and progress afterwards is aimed at smoothing out the amputations without adding length. Similarly, Vince Gilligan alludes to the Procrustean bed when stating that each episode of Braking Bad had to be edited to a length of exactly 47 minutes, 7 seconds, and 4 frames.
Procrustes appears in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians book The Lightning Thief. This version is depicted as a half-giant who is a waterbed salesman. He also appeared in the Disney+ fantasy show Percy Jackson & the Olympians, played by Julian Richings (who also played Charon in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief). The main difference is that the heroes decided to spare him, unlike the book.

Chapter Text

Triton is a Greek god of the sea, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite. Triton lived with his parents in a golden palace on the bottom of the sea. Later he is often depicted as having a conch shell he would blow like a trumpet.

Triton is usually represented as a merman, with the upper body of a human and the tailed lower body of a fish. At some time during the Greek and Roman era, Triton(s) became a generic term for a merman (mermen) in art and literature. In English literature, Triton is portrayed as the messenger or herald for the god Poseidon.

Triton of Lake Tritonis of ancient Libya is a namesake mythical figure that appeared and aided the Argonauts. Moreover, according to Apollonius Rhodius, he married the Oceanid of the said region, Libya.

Triton was the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite according to Hesiod's Theogony. He was the ruler (possessor) of the depths of the sea, who is either "dreadful" or "mighty" (δεινός) according to the epithet given him by Hesiod.

Triton dwelt with his parents in underwater golden palaces. Poseidon's golden palace was located at Aegae on Euboea in one passage of Homer's Iliad 12.21.

Unlike his father Poseidon who is always fully anthropomorphic in ancient art, Triton's lower half is that of a fish, while the top half is presented in a human figure.

Triton in later times became associated with possessing a conch shell, which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. He was "trumpeter and bugler" to Oceanus and Poseidon. Its sound was so cacophonous that when loudly blown, it put the giants to flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a dark wild beast.

The original Greek Triton only sometimes bore a trident. In literature, Triton carries a trident in Accius's Medea fragment.

Triton is "sea-hued" according to Ovid and "his shoulders barnacled with sea-shells". Ovid actually here calls Triton "cerulean" in color, to choose a cognate rendering to the original language (Latin: caeruleus); Ovid also includes Triton among other deities (Proteus, Aegaeon, Doris) of being this blue color, with green (viridis) hair, as well describing the steed Triton rides as cerulean.

There is also Triton, the god of Lake Tritonis of ancient Libya encountered by the Argonauts. This Triton is treated as a separate deity in some references. He had a different parentage, as his father was Poseidon but his mother Europa according to the Greek writers of this episode.

This Triton first appeared in the guise of Eurypylus before eventually revealing his divine nature. This local deity has thus been euhemeristically rationalized as "then ruler over Libya" by Diodorus Siculus.

Triton-Eurypylus welcomed the Argonauts with a guest-gift of a clod of earth which was a pledge that the Greeks would be granted the land of Cyrene, Libya in the future. The Argo had been driven ashore in the Syrtes (Gulf of Syrtes Minor according to some), and Triton guided them through the lake's marshy outlet back to the Mediterranean.

One of the works which recounts this adventure is Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica (3rd century BC), the first work in written literature that describes a Triton as "fish-tailed".

In Virgil's Aeneid, book 6, it is told that Triton killed Misenus, son of Aeolus, by drowning him after he challenged the gods to play as well as he did.

Herakles wrestling Triton is a common theme in Classical Greek art particularly black-figure potter, but no literature survives that tells the story. In fewer examples, the Greek pottery depicting apparently the same motif are labeled "Nereus" or "Old Man of the Sea" instead, and among these, Nereus' struggle with Herakles is attested in literature (Psoeudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca). "Old Man of the Sea" is a generic term applicable to Nereus, who was also frequently depicted as half-fishlike. One explanation is that some vase painters developed the convention of depicting Nereus as a fully human form, so that Triton had to be substituted in the depiction of the sea-monster wrestling Herakles. And Nereus appears as a spectator in some examples of this motif.

In the red-figure period, the Triton-Herakles theme became completely outmoded, supplanted by such scenes as Theseus's adventures in Poseidon's golden mansion, embellished with the presence of Triton. Again, extant literature describing the adventure omits any mention of Triton, but placement of Triton in the scene is not implausible.

Triton was the father of a daughter named Pallas and foster parent to the goddess Athena, according to Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca. Elsewhere in the Bibliotheca, there appears a different Pallas, a male figure overcome by Athena.

Athena bears the epithet Tritogeneia (Τριτογένεια) "Triton-born" and while this is suggestive of Triton's daughter being Athena, the appellation is otherwise explainable in several ways, e.g., as Athena's birth (from Zeus's head) taking place at the River Triton or Lake Tritonis.

Triton also had a daughter named Triteia. According to Pausanias writing in the 2nd century CE, one origin story of the city of Triteia held that this was an eponymous city after Triteia, founded by her and Ares's son, named Melanippus ("Black Horse").

At some time during the Greco-Roman period, "Tritons", in the plural, came to be used a generic term for mermen.

Greek pottery depicting a half-human, half-fish being bearing an inscription of "Triton" is popular by the 6th century BC. It has also been hypothesized that by this time "Triton" has become a generic term for a merman.

Furthermore, Tritons in groups or multitudes began to be depicted in Classical Greek art by around the 4th century BC. Among these is the work by Greek sculptor Scopas (d. 350 BC) which was later removed to Rome. The sirens f Homer's Odyssey were sometimes being depicted, not as human-headed birds but as tritonesses by around this time, as seen in a bowl dated to the 3rd century BC, and this is explained as a conflation with Odysseus's Scylla and Charybdis episode.

Though not a contemporaneous inscription or commentary, Pliny (d. 79 CE) commented on the work that "there are Nereids riding on dolphins… and also Tritons" in this sculpture.

In later Greek periods into the Roman period Tritons were depicted as ichthyocentaurs, i.e., merman with a horse's forelegs in place of arms. The earliest known examples are from the 2nd century BC. The term "Ichthyocentaur" did not originate in Ancient Greece and only appeared in writing in the Byzantine period (12th century); "Centaur-Triton" is another word for a Triton with horse-legs.

Besides examples in which the horse-like forelimbs have been replaced by wings, there are other examples where the forelegs have several clawed digits (somewhat like lions), as in one relief at the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany. A Triton with a lower extremity like a lobster or crayfish, in a fresco unearthed from Herculanum has been mentioned.
Double-tailed tritons began to be depicted by the late 2nd century BC, such as in the Alter of Domitius Ahenobarbus. Rumpf thought that might be the earliest example of a "Triton with two fish-tails (Triton mit zwei Fischschwänzen)". However the double-tailed tritonesses in Damophon's sculptures at Lycosura predates it, and even this is doubted to be the first example. Lattimore believed the two-tailed triton should be dated to the 4th century BC, and speculated that Skopas was the one to devise it.

As aforementioned, there is the female version of the half-human, half-fishlike being, sometimes called a "tritoness" or a "female triton".

Abode: Sea

Symbol: Conch shell

Parents: Poseidon and Amphitrite

Sibling: Rhodos, Benthesikyme, and Several Paternal half-siblings

Consort: Libya

Children: Triteia, Pallas, Calliste

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Amykos, Latinized as Amycus, may refer to the following personages:

Amycus, king of Bebrycians and son of Poseidon.
Amycus, a centaur who fought against the Lapiths during the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia.
Amycus, one of Aeneas' companions in Italy. He was killed by Turnus.
Amycus, was married to Theano, a Trojan woman remembered for having given birth to Mimas, the same day that Paris was born.

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Achelous (also Acheloos or Acheloios) was the god associated with the Achelous River, the largest river in Greece. According to Hesiod, he was the son of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. He was also said to be the father of the Sirens, several nymphs, and other offspring.

Achelous was able to change his shape, and in the form of a bull, he wrestled Heracles for the right to marry Deianeira but lost. He was also involved in the legend of the Argive hero Alcmaeon.

The name Ἀχελώϊος is possibly pre-Greek, its meaning is not entirely certain. Recent arguments suggest it is Semitic in origin, with the initial Αχ- stemming from the Akkadian aḫu ("bank of the river"), or aḫû ("seashore") and the suffix -ελώἴος, from the Akkadian illu ("watercourse" or "water of the river invading land"). According to linguist Ivan Duridanov, the Thracian river name Achelōos (alternatively, Achēlon and Achelon), located near Anchialo, in the Black Sea, is cognate to the Greek word, both deriving from a Proto-Indo-European stem *ɘku̯el, meaning 'water'.

According to Hesiod, Achelous, along with all the other river gods, was the son of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. According to the sixth-century mythographer Acusilaus, Achelous was the "oldest and most honoured" of the river-god offspring of Oceanus. Servius, relating a tradition of unknown origin, reports that Achelous was said to have been the son of Earth (i.e. Gaia).

Achelous had various offspring. He was said to be the father of the Sirens. According to the 3rd-century BC poet Lycophron, the Sirens were the daughters of Achelous, by an unnamed "melodious mother" (perhaps meaning the mother was a Muse), while Ovid calls the Sirens simply daughters of Achelous, with no mention of their mother. Another 3rd-century BC, poet Apollonius of Rhodes, makes the mother the Muse Terpsichore, while according to other accounts, she was the Muse Melpomene, or the Calydonian princess Sterope. By Perimede, the daughter of Aeolus, Achelous was said to have fathered Hippodamas and Orestes.

Achelous was also said to be the father (with no mothers mentioned) of several nymphs associated with various famous springs. These included Pirene, the nymph of a spring at Corinth, Castalia, the nymph of a spring at Delphi, and Dirce, the nymph of a spring (and the stream that flowed from it) at Thebes, which became associated with the Dirce who was Antiope's aunt. Plato has "the nymphs" as daughters of Achelous, and the 5th-century BC poet Panyassis seems also to have referred to "Achelesian nymphs". He was also the father (again with no mother mentioned) of Alcneon's second wife Callirrhoe, whose name means "the lovely spring". Such examples suggest the possibility of a tradition in which Achelous was considered to be the father of all springs or, at least, the nymphs associated with them.

Achelous was a suitor for Deianeira, daughter of Oceanus, the king of Calydon; he transformed himself into a bull and fought Heracles for the right to marry Deianeira, but was defeated, and Heracles married Deianeira. The story of Achelous, in the form of a bull, battling with Heracles for Deianeira, was apparently told as early as the 7th century BC, in a lost poem by the Greek poet Archilochus, while according to a summary of a lost poem by the early 5th-century BC Greek poet Pindar, during the contest, Heracles broke off one of Achelous's bull-horns, and the river-god was able to get his horn back by trading it for a horn from Amalthea.

Sophocles, in his play Women of Trachis (c. 450–425 BC), has Deianeira tell her story, how Achelous wooed her in the shape of a bull, a snake, and a half-man/half-bull:

For my suitor was a river-god, Achelous, who in three shapes was always asking me from my father—coming now as a bull in visible form, now as a serpent, sheeny and coiled, now ox-faced with human trunk, while from his thick-shaded beard wellheads of fountain-water sprayed. In the expectation that such a suitor would get me, I was always praying in my misery that I might die, before I should ever approach that marriage-bed. But at last, to my joy, the glorious son of Zeus and Alcmena came and closed with him in combat and delivered me.

— Sophocles; translation by Richard Claverhouse Jebb

In later accounts, Achelous does not get his horn back, as he does in Pindar's poem. Ovid, in his poem Metamorphoses (8 AD), has Achelous tell a different story. In this version, Achelous fights Heracles, and loses three times: first in his normal (human?) shape, then as a snake, and finally as a bull. Heracles tore off one of Achelous's bull-horns, and the Naiads filled the horn with fruit and flowers, transforming it into the "Horn of Plenty" (cornucopia). According to the Fabulae (before 207 AD), by the Latin mythographer Hyginus, Heracles gave the broken-off horn to "the Hesperides (or Nymphs)", and it was "these goddesses" who "filled the horn with fruit and called it "Cornucopia". According to Strabo, in some versions of the story Heracles gave Achelous's horn to Deianeira's father Oeneus as a wedding gift. While several sources make Achelous the father, by various mothers, of the Sirens (see above), according to the 4th-century AD Greek teacher of rhetoric Libanius, they were born from the blood Achelous shed when Heracles broke off his horn.

Chapter Text

Brizo is an ancient Greek goddess who was known as the protector of mariners, sailors, and fishermen. Brizo was also known as an oracular goddess specializing in oneiromancy.

One of the epithets that was used in ancient Greece for the seers who specialized at the interpretation of dreams was brizomantis (βριζόμαντις).

Brizo, in ancient greek Βριζώ / Brizṓ, derives from the verb βρίζω signifiant « to slumber ».

According to the hellenistic author Semus of Delos, Brizo was worshipped by the women of Delos, who set out food offerings in small boats. Brizo would accept anything but fish. Prayers were addressed to her to grant everything that was good, but especially to safeguard ships. Along with the offerings, Lillian Lawler has suggested that a dance done by sailors at Delos was in honour of Brizo. Brizo also granted oracular dreams. The people of Delos maybe slept in the oracular sanctuary (manteion) mentioned in a delian inscription to receive prophetic dreams from the goddess, or perhaps they had those dreams in their own homes. Given the maritime nature of Brizo's cult, it is highly likely that the Delians who experienced oracular dreams were people about to set sail and women whose husbands were lost at sea.

Domain: the Sea and Dreams

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Boeotus was the eponym of Boeotia in Greece. Poseidon fathered both Aeolus and Boeotus with Arne (Melanippe). It was then through Boeotus that Arne became the ancestress of the Boeotians. In some traditions, Boeotus is the father of Ogyges.

A late source tells the story of Boeotus' marriage to Eurythemista. Boeotus was planning to get married and had difficulty choosing between two candidates, both equally noble maidens (one of them was Eurythemista and the other one's name is not given). He arranged to meet both on top of a nameless mountain; when they came, he saw a star fall on Eurythemista's shoulder and immediately vanish, and chose her. The mountain was named Asterion (from astēr, "star") to commemorate the event, but was later renamed Cithaeron in honor of the young Cithaeron who was loved by Tisiphone, one of the Erinyes, and killed by her for not answering her feelings, the same source relates.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Sikanos is a Sicilian who gave his name to the Sicans (Greek Σικανοί, Sikanoi), an ancient people who settled in Sicily. He was son of the giant Briareus and brother Aetna. Sikanos had three sons: Kyklops, Antipates and Polyphemos.

Chapter Text

Constellations are the different groups of stars that are up in the night sky. There are different explanations for these constellations that are seen on a starry night.

One of those Constellations is Capricorn, which is explained by the story of Pricus and his children.

In Greek mythology, Pricus was known as a ruler of time and a sea-goat. A sea-goat has a front half that is a goat. The lower or other half is the tail of a fish. Pricus was the first of the sea goats and he could live forever.

This eventually made his life difficult, though. However, the Gods liked Pricus and the sea-goats. In fact, Pricus was created by Cronos, the God of Time.

Pricus also had sea-goat children who were just like him that could also speak. Unfortunately, Pricus' children were interested in going onto the land instead of staying with their father at sea. They were able to climb onto the land by using their front legs and feet. They would lay out in the sun. Once they were on the land they lost their powers and weren't as smart. They eventually had legs instead of their fish tails. Basically, they'd become regular goats on land.

In one part of the mythology, Pricus tried to turn back time so he could have his children back with him at sea. However, whenever he did this, his sea-goat children still decided to go to the land and became regular goats again. He would try to warn them or even tell they weren't allowed to go to the land, but nothing he did worked. He eventually realized he couldn't stop their destiny. Pricus stopped reversing time and allowed his children to be on the land.

Finally, Pricus asked his creator Cronos, the God of Time, to help him out. Pricus told Cronos he didn't want to be the only sea-goat and so he asked Cronos to help him die. Unfortunately, Pricus was unable to die since he was immortal. So instead, Cronos threw Pricus up into the night's sky with the stars.

The immortal Pricus became a constellation of stars and was able to watch over his children from up above. He is even able to see his goat children that are on the mountaintops. The constellation Pricus became is known as Capricorn in the night sky. Capricorn is often considered to be a fish-goat or regular goat.

Chapter Text

Boreas is the Greek god of the cold north wind, storms, and winter. Although he was normally taken as the north wind, the Roman writers Aulus Gellius and Pliny the Elder both took Boreas as a northeast wind, equivalent to the Roman god Aquilo or Septentrio. Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man or sometimes as a young man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell and wearing a billowing cloak. Boreas's most known myth is his abduction of the Athenian princess Oreithyia.

Boreas, like the rest of the wind gods, was said to be the son of Eos, the goddess of the dawn, by her husband Astraeus, a minor star-god. He is thus brother to the rest of the Anemoi (the wind gods), the five star-gods and the justice goddess Astraea.

Boreas was closely associated with horses, storms, and winter. He was said to have fathered twelve colts, after taking the form of a stallion, to the mares of Erichthonius, king of Dardania. These were said to be able to run across a field of grain without trampling the plants. Pliny the Elder (Natural History iv.35 and viii.67) thought that mares might stand with their hindquarters to the North Wind and bear foals without a stallion. The Greeks believed that his home was in Thrace, and Herodotus and Pliny both describe a northern land known as Hyperborea "Beyond the North Wind" where people lived in complete happiness and had extraordinarily long lifespans.

He is said to have fathered three giant Hyperborean priests of Apollo by Chione. Pausanias wrote that Boreas had snakes instead of feet, though in art he was usually depicted with winged human feet. In ancient art, he is usually depicted as a bearded older man.

Boreas was said to have kidnapped Orithyia, an Athenian princess, from the Ilisos. Boreas had taken a fancy to Orithyia and had initially pleaded for her favours, hoping to persuade her. When this failed, he reverted to his usual temper and abducted her as she danced on the banks of the Ilisos. Boreas wrapped Orithyia up in a cloud, raped her, and with her, Boreas fathered two sons—the Boreads, Zethes and Calais, who were part of the crew of the Argo as Argonauts —and two daughters—Chione and Cleopatra.

From then on, the Athenians saw Boreas as a relative by marriage. When Athens was threatened by Xerxes, he people prayed to Boreas, who was said to have then caused winds to sink 400 Persian ships. A cult was established in Athens in 480 B. C. E. in gratitude to the Boreas for destroying the approaching Persian fleet. A similar event had occurred twelve years earlier, and Herodotus writes:

Now I cannot say if this was really why the Persians were caught at anchor by the stormwind, but the Athenians are quite positive that, just as Boreas helped them before, so Boreas was responsible for what happened on this occasion also. And when they went home they built the god a shrine by the River Ilissus.
Two other cases of Boreas being honored by Greek states for similar assistance have been described, in Megalopolis (against Laconia) and in Thurii (against Syracuse). The latter case had Boreas being granted citizenship and a land plot.

The abduction of Orithyia was popular in Athens before and after the Persian War, and was frequently depicted on vase paintings. In these paintings, Boreas was portrayed as a bearded man in a tunic, with shaggy hair that is sometimes frosted and spiked. The abduction was also dramatized in Aeschylus's lost play Oreithyia.

In some versions of Hyacinthus's story, Boreas supplants his brother Zephyrus as the wind-god that bore a one-sided love for the beautiful Spartan prince, who preferred Apollo over him.

In other accounts, Boreas was the father of Butes (by another woman) and the lover of the nymph Pitys. In one story, both Pan and Boreas vied for Pitys's affections, and tried to make her choose between them. To impress her, Boreas uprooted all the trees with his might. Pan only laughed, and Pitys chose him instead of Boreas. Angry, Boreas chased Pitys down and threw her off a cliff, killing her. Gaia, pitying the girl, changed her dead body into a pine tree.

During the journey of the Argo, Argonauts Zetes and Calais, Boreas's sons, describe Apollo as "beloved of our sire", perhaps implying a romantic connection between the two gods.

King Erichthonius of Troy had in his possession three thousand mares. Boreas fell in love with them as they pastured in the grasslands, and took the form of a dark-maned stallion in order to mate with them. Thus he fathered twelve colts on these mares. In the words of William Smith, this was "commonly explained as a mere figurative mode of expressing the extraordinary swiftness of those horses."

Boreas is featured in the oldest tale concerning the creation of the cypress tree; the myth goes that in order to honour his dead daughter Cyparissia, Boreas planted a new tree, the cypress. The inclusion of Boreas in the story continues the pattern of a wind god appearing in the story of a plant (like he does in the story of Pitys, or Zephyrus in the stories of Cyparissus and Hyacinthus).

When the goddess Leto, pregnant with Artemis and Apollo, was due, Boreas was ordered by Zeus to bring her to Poseidon, who in turn led her to the island of Ogygia where she could give birth to the twins, as Zeus' wife Hera had ordered all places and land to shun Leto.

In an Aesop fable, Boreas and his uncle Helios the sun god argued about which one between them was the strongest god. They agreed that whoever was able to make a passing traveller remove his cloak would be declared the winner. Boreas was the one to try his luck first; but no matter how hard he blew, he could not remove the man's cloak, instead making him wrap his cloak around him even tighter. Helios shone bright then, and the traveller, overcome with the heat, removed his cloak, giving him the victory (the moral being that persuasion is better than force).

According to Pausanias, Boreas blessed Musaeus with the gift of flight.

When Sirius, the dog star, began to burn hot after he could not have his beloved Opora, a minor goddess connected to the harvest, Boreas dealt with the intense heat by ordering his sons to deliver Opora to Sirius, while he cooled the earth down with blast of cold wind.

The Roman equivalent of Boreas was Aquilo. This north (and slightly east) wind was associated with winter. The poet Virgil writes:

Interea magnum sol circumvolvitur annum,
et glacialis hiemps aquilonibus asperat undas.

Translation:
Now had the sun rolled through the year's full circle,
and the waves were rough with icy winter's northern gales

For the wind which came directly from the north the Romans sometimes used the name Septentrio, which refers to the seven (septem) stars of the Plow or Big Dipper constellation. The name "Septentrio" gave rise to the pre-modern compass point Septentrionalis.

Greek deities were abundantly used in Greco-Buddhist art, so too Boreas and its velificatio depiction element. Boreas became the Japanese wind god Fujin through the Greco-Buddhist Wardo/Oado and Chinese Feng Bo/Feng Po ("Uncle Wind"; among various other names).

Abode: Sky, Mount Olympus

Symbol: Conch shell

Parents: Eos and Astraeus

Siblings: Winds (Eurus, Notus and Zephyrus), Eosphorus, the Stars, Memnon, Emathion, Astraea

Consort: Oreithyia

Children: Boreads, Chione, Cleopatra, Butes, Heamus, Upis, Cyparissia, twelve colts

Roman: Aquilo

Domain: the north wind, storms, and winter

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Eleusis was the eponymous hero of the town of Eleusis.

Eleusis was a son of Hermes and the Oceanid Daeira, or of Ogygus. Panyassis wrote of him as father of Triptolemus, adding that "Demeter came to him"; this version of the myth is found in the works of Hyginus and Servius. In other accounts, Eleusis had no offspring.

King Eleusis and Cothonea (Cyntinia), parents of Triptolemus, are visited by Demeter, who rears their son, feeding him divine milk by day and placing him into the fire at night, which makes Triptolemus grow faster than mortal children normally do. She eventually kills Eleusis for intervening when the fire ritual is performed. The myth is closely parallel with the one that deals with Demeter visiting Celeus and Metaneira (also possible parents of Triptolemus) and nursing their son Demophon.

In other accounts, Eleusis appears as a female character.

Other names: Eleusinus

Abode: Eleusis

Parents: (1) Hermes and (2) Daeira; (3) Ogygus

Siblings: half-siblings: (2) Immaradus and Semele; (3) Cadmus, Aullis, Alalcomenia, and Thelxinia

Consort: Cothonea

Offsping: Triptolemus

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Iacchus (also Iacchos, Iakchos) was a minor deity, of some cultic importance, particularly at Athens and Eleusis in connection with the Eleusinian Mysteries, but without any significant mythology. He perhaps originated as the personification of the ritual exclamation Iacche! cried out during the Eleusinian procession from Athens to Eleusis. He was often identified with Dionysus, perhaps because of the resemblance of the names Iacchus and Bacchus, another name for Dionysus. By various accounts he was a son of Demeter (or apparently her husband), or a son of Persephone, identical with Dionysus Zagreus, or a son of Dionysus.

During the Greco-Persian Wars, when the Attic countryside, deserted by the Greeks, was being laid waste by the Persians, a ghostly procession was supposed to have been seen advancing from Eleusis, crying out “Iacchus”. This miraculous event was interpreted as a sign of the eventual Greek victory at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC). Iacchus was also possibly involved in an Eleusinian myth in which the old woman Baubo, by exposing her genitals, cheered up the mourning Demeter.

Iacchus was one of the deities, along with Demeter and Kore (Persephone), worshipped as part of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The late 1st-century BC geographer strabo called him the ἀρχηγέτην ("leader-in-chief" or "founder") "of the mysteries".

There was a statue of Iacchus kept in a temple at Athens. According to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the statue held a torch and was by the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. A passage from Aristophanes' The Frogs (405 BC) suggests it wore a crown of myrtle. According to Pausanias, the statue was kept in a temple of Demeter located near the Dipylon gate, the main entrance to ancient Athens. The temple was perhaps the one that Plutarch referred to as the "so called Iaccheion". Nearby was the Pompeion, the building which was the assembly point for the procession celebrating the Eleusinian Mysteries. According to the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda, Iacchus was also the name of his "feast" day, presumably the day that Iacchus was carried to Eleusis as part of the Eleusinian procession.

Iacchus and his statue played an important part in the Eleusinian procession. Plutarch referred to the procession as ἐξαγόντων Ἴακχον (“leading out Iacchus”). On 19 Boedromion (probably), the statue of Iacchus was taken from its temple and carried as part of the procession of the participants in the Mysteries who walked from Athens to Eleusis, arriving on 20 Boedromion (corresponding to the 28th or 29 September). Along the way, the participants in the procession would cry out the cultic exclamation, Iacche!

There was a special official associated with Iacchus and his statue called the Ἰακχαγωγός ('leader/bearer of Iacchus'), whose function presumably was to carry or accompany the statue of Iacchus during the procession. The Ἰακχαγωγός is listed as one of the Eleusinian officials receiving an endowment (c. 160–170 AD), appears in a list of Eleusinian priests given by the 2nd-century AD Julius Pollux, and had a reserved seat in the prohedria ("seats in front") of the Theater of Dionysus at Athens. An incumbent of the office (126/7 AD) is mentioned on four dedications.

A parody of the Eleusinian procession appears in Aristophanes' comedy The frogs, set in Hades (the underworld). There a chorus of dead mystics, singing and dancing in procession, chant their "hymn to Iacchus": "O Iacchus, Iacchus O!", and sing,

Iacchus, here abiding in temples most reverend,
Iacchus, O Iacchus,
come to dance in this meadow;
to your holy mystic bands
Shake the leafy crown
around your head, brimming
with myrtle,
Boldly stomp your feet in time
to the wild fun-loving rite,
with full share of the Graces, the holy dance, sacred
to your mystics.
and,

Awake, for it has come tossing torches in hand,
Iacchos, Oh Iacchos,
the light-bringing star of our nocturnal rite.
Now the meadow brightly burns
Old men's knees start to sway.
They shake away their pains
and the long cycles of ancient years
Through your holy rite.
Beaming with your torch,
lead forth to the flowering stretch of marsh
the youth that makes your choruses, o blessed one!
and,

Now then
Summon the god of the hour with your songs
the partner of this dance of ours.
Iacchus, honored by all, deviser of our festal song
most sweet, follow us here
to the goddess and show us how
you travel a long road with ease.
Iacchus, lover of the dance, lead me onward,
Iacchus also played a role in the Lenaia, the winter Athenian festival of Dionysus. According to the scholiast on the Frogs of Aristophanes, participants at the Lenaia responded to the command to "Invoke the god" with the invocation, "Hail, Iacchos, son of Semele, thou giver of wealth." According to the scholiast, the command to call on the god was proclaimed by the Daduchos, a high Eleusinian official.

The name Iacchus—identified with Dionysus—was also possibly associated with cultic ritual at Delphi. sophoncle' Antigone, referring to nocturnal rites occurring on Mount Parnassus above Delphi, contains the invocation:

O Leader of the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire, overseer of the chants in the night, son begotten of Zeus, appear, my king, with your attendant Thyiads, who in night-long frenzy dance and sing you as Iacchus the Giver!

Iacchus seems to have originated as the personification of the cultic exclamation, Iacche, cried out by participants during the Eleusinian procession, with the exclamation itself, having apparently derived from ιαχή ("cry"), ιάχω ("to cry"). It has been suggested that the cry "iacche’’ over time came to be interpreted as the vocative form of a name "Iacchus". In addition to being the cultic cry, "iacchus" was also a term for a kind of song or hymn of worship, possibly unassociated with the god.

Iacchus is associated with Dionysus at least as early as the 5th century BC. The association may have arisen because of the homophony of the names Iacchus and Bacchus, one of the names of Dionysus. Two black-figure lekythoi (c. 500 BC) may represent the earliest evidence for such an association. The nearly-identical vases, one in Berlin and the other in Rome, depict Dionysus along with the inscription IAKXNE, a possible miswriting of IAKXE.

More certain early evidence can be found in the works of the 5th-century BC Athenian tragedians Sophocles and Euripides. In sophoncle' Antigone (c. 441 BC), an ode to Dionysus begins by addressing Dionysus as the "God of many names" (πολυώνυμε), who rules over the glens of Demeter's Eleusis, and ends by identifying him with "Iacchus the Giver", who leads "the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire" and whose "attendant Thyiads" dance in "night-long frenzy". And in a fragment from a lost play, Sophocles describes Nysa, Dionysus' traditional place of nurture: "From here I caught sight of Nysa, haunt of Bacchus, famed among mortals, which Iacchus of the bull's horns counts as his beloved nurse". In Euripides' Bacchae (c. 405 BC), a messenger, describing the Bacchic revelries on mount Cithaeron, associates Iacchus with Bromius, another of the names of Dionysus, saying, they "began to wave the thyrsos ... calling on Iacchus, the son of Zeus, Bromius, with united voice."

An inscription found on a stone stele (c. 340 BC), found at Delphi, contains a paean to Dionysus, which describes the travels of Dionysus to various locations in Greece where he was honored. From Thebes, where he was born, he first went to Delphi where he displayed his "starry body", and with "Delphian girls" took his "place on the folds of Parnassus", then next to Eleusis, where he is called "Iacchus":

And in your hand brandishing your night-
lighting flame, with god-possessed frenzy
you went to the vales of Eleusis
...
where the whole people of Hellas'
land, alongside your own native witnesses
of the holy mysteries, calls upon you
as Iacchus: for mortals from their pains
you have opened a haven without toils.
Strabo says that Greeks "give the name 'Iacchus' not only to Dionysus but also to the leader-in-chief of the mysteries". For the identification of Iacchus with Dionysus in an Orphic context see Orphic Hymn 42.4, 49.3.

In particular Iacchus was identified with Dionysus Zagreus, who was a son of Zeus and Persephone. This Orphic Dionysus was, as an infant, attacked and dismembered by the Titans, but later reborn as Dionysus, the wine-god son of Zeus and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, the first king of Thebes. As noted above, Sophocles mentions "Iacchus of the bull's horns", and according to the 1st-century BC historian Diodorus Siculus, it was this older Dionysus who was represented in painting and sculpture with horns, because he “excelled in sagacity and was the first to attempt the yoking of oxen and by their aid to effect the sowing of the seed”. Arrian, the 2nd-century Greek historian, wrote that it was to this Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone, "not the Theban Dionysus, that the mystic chant ‘Iacchus’ is sung". And the 2nd-century poet Lucian refers to the "dismemberment of Iacchus".

The 4th- or 5th-century poet Nonnus, associates the name Iacchus with a "third" Dionysus. He describes the Athenian celebrations given to the first Dionysus Zagreus son of Persephone, the second Dionysus Bromios son of Semele, and the third Dionysus Iacchus:

They [the Athenians] honoured him as a god next after the son of Persephoneia, and after Semele's son; they established sacrifices for Dionysos late born and Dionysos first born, and third they chanted a new hymn for Iacchos. In these three celebrations Athens held high revel; in the dance lately made, the Athenians beat the step in honour of Zagreus and Bromios and Iacchos all together.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Zelus or Zelos was the daimon that personifies dedication, emulation, eager rivalry, envy, jealousy, and zeal. The English word "zeal" is derived from his name.

Zelus was the son of Pallas (the Titan) and Styx (an Oceanid). His siblings were Nike (Victory), Kratos (Strength), and Bia (Force).

Zelus together with his siblings were winged enforcers who stood in attendance at Zeus' throne and formed part of his retinue.

And Styx the daughter of Okeanos (Oceanus) was joined to Pallas and bare Zelos (Zelus, Emulation) and trim-ankled Nike (Victory) in the house. Also she brought forth Kratos (Cratus, Strength) and Bia (Force), wonderful children. These have no house apart from Zeus, nor any dwelling nor path except that wherein God leads them, but they dwell always with Zeus the loud-thunderer. For so did Styx the deathless daughter of Okeanos plan on that day when the Olympian Lightener called all the deathless gods to great Olympos (Olympus), and said that whosoever of the gods would fight with him against the Titanes, he would not cast him out from his rights, but each should have the office which he had before amongst the deathless gods. And he declared that he who was without office and rights as is just. So deathless Styx came first to Olympos with her children through the wit of her dear father. And Zeus honoured her, and gave her very great gifts, for her he appointed to be the great oath of the gods, and her children to live with him always. And as he promised, so he performed fully unto them all.

Nike, Kratos (Cratus), Zelos (Zelus), and Bia were born to Pallas and Styx. Zeus instituted and oath to be sworn by the waters of Styx that flowed from a rock in Haides' realm, an honor granted in return for the help she and her children gave him against the Titanes (Titans).

Zelus’ Roman name was Invidia, which, in Latin, meant "to look against in a hostile manner". Because of its relation to Zelus, his Roman form was sometimes associated with the seven deadly sins.

Among the men of the fifth age . . . There will be no favour for the man who keeps his oath or for the just (dikaios) or for the good (agathos); but rather men will praise the evil-doer (kakos) and his violent dealing (hybris). Strength will be right (dike) and reverence (aidos) will cease to be; and the wicked will hurt the worthy man, speaking false words against him, and will swear an oath upon them. Envy (zelos), foul-mouthed, delighting in evil, with scowling face, will go along with wretched men one and all. And then Aidos (Aedos, Shame) and Nemesis (Indignation), with their sweet forms wrapped in white robes, will go from the wide-pathed earth and forsake mankind to join the company of the deathless gods: and bitter sorrows (lugra algea) will be left for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil.

O father Zeus, how fierce a heart hath Zelos (Zelus, Rivalry)! Him hast thou made, O lord, mightier than nature to behold and has given him the bitter force of fire, and in his right hand hast vouchsafed to him to wear a sword of adamant. He preserves not, when he comes, dear children to their loving parents, he knows nor comrade nor kin nor cousin, when he intervenes grievous and unspeakable. He also in former times arrayed against their own children heroes themselves and hobble heroines.
Zelos may have also been identified with Agon, the personification of competition, and was closely connected with Eris. He was sometimes associated with Phthonus,, the daimon of romantic jealousy.

It is considered that later the Catholic Church adapted him to its doctrine (considering only its aspect related to religious fervor), providing Zelo with wings and replacing the lamp and the whip with a gospel and a flaming sword.

According to the interpretatio graeca, he is also associated with the rider of the white horse, which represents conquest or glory.

abode: Mount Olympus

Parents: Pallas and Styx

Siblings: Nike, Bia, Kratos

Domain: Personification of zeal, dedication, emulation, envy, rivalry, and jealousy

Chapter Text

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is a minor character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse god Víðarr of the Æsir.

Aeneas is the Romanization of the hero's original Greek name Αἰνείας (Aineías). Aineías is first introduced in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite when Aphrodite gives him his name from the adjective αὶνóν (ainon, "terrible"), for the "terrible grief" (αὶνóν ἄχος) he has caused her by being born a mortal who will age and die. It is a popular etymology for the name, apparently exploited by Homer in the Iliad. Later in the Medieval period there were writers who held that, because the Aeneid was written by a philosopher, it is meant to be read philosophically. As such, in the "natural order", the meaning of Aeneas's name combines Greek ennos ("dweller") with demas ("body"), which becomes ennaios or "in-dweller"—i.e. as a god inhabiting a mortal body. However, there is no certainty regarding the origin of his name.

In imitation of the Iliad, Virgil borrows epithets f Homer, including: Anchisiades, magnanimum, magnus, heros, and bonus. Though he borrows many, Virgil gives Aeneas two epithets of his own, in the Aeneid: pater and pius. The epithets applied by Virgil are an example of an attitude different from that of Homer, for whilst Odysseus is poikilios ("wily"), Aeneas is described as pius ("pious"), which conveys a strong moral tone. The purpose of these epithets seems to enforce the notion of Aeneas's divine hand as father and founder of the Roman race, and their use seems circumstantial: when Aeneas is praying he refers to himself as pius, and is referred to as such by the author only when the character is acting on behalf of the gods to fulfill his divine mission. Likewise, Aeneas is called pater ("father") when acting in the interest of his men.

The story of the birth of Aeneas is told in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, one of the major Homeric Hymn. Aphrodite has caused Zeus the king of the Gods to fall in love with mortal women. In retaliation, Zeus decided to put a desire over her heart for the mortal Prince Anchises, who is tending his cattle among the hills near Mount Ida. When Aphrodite saw him, she was immediately smitten. She adorns herself as if for a wedding among the gods and appears before him. He is overcome by her beauty, believing that she is a goddess, but Aphrodite identifies herself as a Phrygian princess. After they make love, Aphrodite reveals her true identity to him and Anchises fears what might happen to him as a result of their liaison. Aphrodite assures him that he will be protected and tells him that she will bear him a son to be called Aeneas. However, she warns him that he must never tell anyone that he has lain with a goddess. When Aeneas is born, Aphrodite takes him to the nymphs of Mount Ida, instructing them to raise the child to age five, then take him to Anchises. According to other sources, Anchises later brags about his encounter with Aphrodite, and as a result is struck in the foot with a thunderbolt by Zeus. Thereafter he is lame in that foot, so that Aeneas has to carry him from the flames of Troy.

Aeneas is a minor character in the Iliad, where he is twice saved from death by the gods as if for an as-yet-unknown destiny but is an honorable warrior in his own right. Having held back from the fighting, aggrieved with Priam because in spite of his brave deeds he was not given his due share of honor, he leads an attack against Idomeneus to recover the body of his brother-in-law Alcathous at the urging of Deilphobus. He is the leader of the Trojans' Dardanian allies, as well as a third cousin and principal lieutenant of Hector, son and heir of the Trojan king Priam.

Aeneas's mother Aphrodite frequently comes to his aid on the battlefield, and he is a favorite of the Sun God Apollo. Aphrodite and Apollo would frequently rescue Aeneas from combat with Diomedes of Argos, who nearly kills him, and carry him away to Pergamos for healing. Even the Sea God Poseidon, who usually favors the Greeks, comes to Aeneas's rescue after he falls under the assault of Achilles, noting that Aeneas, though from a junior branch of the royal family, is destined to become king of the Trojan people.

Bruce Louden presents Aeneas as an archetype: The sole virtuous individual (or family) spared from general destruction, following the mytheme of Utnapishtim, Baucis and Philemon, Noah, and Lot. Pseudo-Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca explains that "... the Greeks [spared] him alone, on account of his piety." Heinrich Schliemann wrote that it seemed "extremely probable that, at the time of Homer's visit [to the Troad], the King of Troy declared that his race was descended in a direct line from Æneas."

Abode: Alba Longa

Parents: Anchises and Aphrodite

Siblings: Lyrus

Consort: Creusa, Dido, Lavinia

Offspring: Ascanius (by Creusa), Silvius (by Lavinia)

Chapter Text

According to Greek mythology, the Korybantes, also spelled Corybantes or Corybants, were the armed and crested dancers who worshipped the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. They are also called the Kurbantes in Phrygia.

The name Korybantes is of uncertain etymology. Edzard Johan Furnée and R. S. P. Beekes have suggested a Pre-Greek origin.

Others refer the name to *κορυβή (korybé), the Macedonian version of κορυφή (koryphé) "crown, top, mountain peak", explaining their association with mountains, particularly Olympus.

The Korybantes were the offspring of Apollo by either the Muse Thalia, or the nymph Rhetia, or the nymph Danais. One account attests the parentage to Zeus and the Muse Calliope, or to Helios and Athena, or lastly, to Cronus.

The Kouretes (Κουρῆτες), also spelled Kuretes were nine dancers who venerated Rhea, the Cretan counterpart of Cybele. A fragment from Strabo's Book VII gives a sense of the roughly analogous character of these male confraternities, and the confusion rampant among those not initiated:

Many assert that the gods worshipped in Samothrace as well as the Kurbantes and the Korybantes and in like manner the Kouretes and the Idaean Daktyls are the same as the Kabeiroi, but as to the but as to the Kabeiroi they are unable to tell who they are.

Grant Showerman in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition addressed the confusion, stating that the Korybantes "are distinguished only [from the Kuretes] by their Asiatic origin and by the more pronouncedly orgiastic nature of their rites".

According to Oppian, the Curetes, who had been tasked with guarding the young Zeus, were turned into lions by Cronus. Zeus then made them into the kings of the animals, while his mother Rhea yoked them to her chariot.

These armored male dancers kept time to a drum and the rhythmic stamping of their feet. Dance, according to Greek thought, was one of the civilizing activities, like wine-making or music. The dance in armor (the "Pyrrhic dance" or pyrrhichios [Πυρρίχη]) was a male coming-of-age initiation ritual linked to a warrior victory celebration. Both Jane Ellen Harrison and the French classicist Henri Jeanmaire have shown that both the Kouretes (Κουρῆτες) and Cretan Zeus, who was called "the greatest kouros (κοῦρος)", were intimately connected with the transition of boys into manhood in Cretan cities.

The English "Pyrrhic Dance" is a corruption of the original Pyrríkhē or the Pyrríkhios Khorós "Pyrrhichian Dance". It has no relationship with the king Pyrrhus of Epirus, who invaded Italy in the 3rd century BC, and who gave his name to the Pyrrhic victory, which was achieved at such cost that it was tantamount to a defeat.

The Pyrygian Korybantes were often confused by Greeks with other ecstatic male confraternities, such as the Idaean Dactyls or the Cretan Kouretes, spirit-youths (kouroi) who acted as guardians of the infant Zeus. In Hesiod's telling of Zeus's birth, when Great Gaia came to Crete and hid the child Zeus in a "steep cave", beneath the secret places of the earth, on Mount Aigaion with its thick forests; there the Cretan Kouretes' ritual clashing spears and shields were interpreted by Hellenes as intended to drown out the infant god's cries, and prevent his discovery by his cannibal father Cronus. Emily Vermeule observed,

This myth is Greek interpretation of mystifying Minoan ritual in an attempt to reconcile their Father Zeus with the Divine Child of Crete; the ritual itself we may never recover with clarity, but it is not impossible that a connection exists between the Kouretes' weapons at the cave and the dedicated weapons at Arkalochori.

Among the offerings recovered from the cave, the most spectacular are decorated bronze shields with patterns that draw upon north Syrian originals and a bronze gong on which a god and his attendants are shown in a distinctly Near Eastern style.

Korybantes also presided over the infancy of Dionysus, another god who was born as a babe, and of Zagreus, a Cretan child of Zeus, or child-doublet of Zeus. The wild ecstasy of their cult can be compared to the female Maenads who followed Dionysus.

Ovid, in Metamorphoses, says the Kouretes were born from rainwater (Uranus fertilizing Gaia). This suggests a connection with the Hyades.

Chapter Text

Hecate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, or snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied. She is variously associated with crossroads, night, light, magic, witchcraft, drugs, and the Moon. Her earliest appearance in literature was in Hesiod's Theogony in the 8th century BCE as a goddess of great honour with domains in sky, earth, and sea. She had popular followings amongst the witches of Thessaly, and an important sanctuary among the Carians of Asia Minor in Lagina. The earliest evidence for Hecate's cult comes from Selinunte, in Sicily.

Hecate was one of several deities worshipped in ancient Athens as a protector of the oikos (household), alongside Zeus, Hestia, Hermes, and Apollo. In the post-Christian writings of the Chaldean Oracles (2nd–3rd century CE) she was also regarded with (some) rulership over earth, sea, and sky, as well as a more universal role as Savior (Soteira), Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul (Anima Mundi). Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, "she is more at home on the fringes than in the centre of Greek polytheism. Intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition."

The Romans often knew her by the epithet of Trivia, an epithet she shares with Diana, each in their roles as protector of travel and of the crossroads (trivia, "three ways"). Hecate was closely identified with Diana and Artemis in the Roman era.

Potential Greek source words have been suggested for the goddess's name. The word ἑκών, meaning "willing" (thus, "she who works her will" or similar), may be related to the name Hecate. However, no sources suggested list will or willingness as a major attribute of Hecate, which calls this assertion into question. Another Greek word suggested as the origin of the name Hecate is Ἑκατός Hekatos, an obscure epithet of Apollo interpreted as "the far-reaching one" or "the far-darter". This has been suggested in comparison with the attributes of the goddess Artemis, strongly associated with Apollo and frequently equated with Hecate in the classical world. Supporters of this etymology suggest that Hecate was originally considered an aspect of Artemis prior to the latter's adoption into the Olympian pantheon. Artemis would have, at that point, become more strongly associated with purity and maidenhood, on the one hand, while her originally darker attributes like her association with magic, the souls of the dead, and the night would have continued to be worshipped separately under her title Hecate. Though often considered the most likely Greek origin of the name, the Ἑκατός theory does not account for her worship in Asia Minor, where her association with Artemis seems to have been a late development, and the competing theories that the attribution of darker aspects and magic to Hecate were themselves not originally part of her cult. R. S. P. Beekes rejected a Greek etymology and suggested a Pre-Greek origin.

In Early Modern English, the name was also pronounced disyllabically (as /hek.It/) and sometimes spelled Hecat. It remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables, even when spelled with final e, well into the 19th century.

The spelling Hecat is due to Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and this spelling without the final E later appears in plays of the Elizabethan-Jacobean period. Webster's Dictionary of 1866 particularly credits the influence of Shakespeare for the then-predominant disyllabic pronunciation of the name.

Evidence suggests that Hecate originated among the Carians of Anatolia, the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, the father of Mausolus, are attested, and where Hecate remained a Great Goddess into historical times, at her unrivalled cult site in Lagina. In particular, there is some evidence that she might be derived from the local Sun goddesses (see also Arinna) based on similar attributes. The monuments to Hecate in Phrygia and Caria are numerous, but of a later date.

If Hecate's cult spread from Anatolia into Greece, then it possibly presented a conflict, as her role was already filled by other more prominent deities in the Greek pantheon, above all by Artemis and Selene. This line of reasoning lies behind the widely accepted hypothesis that she was a foreign deity who was incorporated into the Greek pantheon. Other than in the Theogony, the Greek sources do not offer a consistent story of her parentage or of her relations in the Greek pantheon.

A possible theory of a foreign origin for the name may be Heqet (ḥqt), a frog-headed Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth, who, like Hecate, was also associated with hq, ruler. The word heka in the Egyptian language is also both the word for "magic" and the name of the god of magic and medicine, Heka.

Hecate was generally represented as three-formed or triple-bodied, though the earliest known images of the goddess are singular. Her earliest known representation is a small terracotta statue found in Athens. An inscription on the statue is a dedication to Hecate, in writing of the style of the 6th century, but it otherwise lacks any other symbols typically associated with the goddess. She is seated on a throne, with a chaplet around her head; the depiction is otherwise relatively generic. Farnell states: "The evidence of the monuments as to the character and significance of Hecate is almost as full as that of to express her manifold and mystic nature." A 6th century fragment of pottery from Boetia depicts a goddess which may be Hecate in a maternal or fertility mode. Crowned with leafy branches as in later descriptions, she is depicted offering a "maternal blessing" to two maidens who embrace her. The figure is flanked by lions, an animal associated with Hecate both in the Chaldean Oracles, coinage, and reliefs from Asia Minor. In artwork, she is often portrayed in three statues standing back to back, each with its own special attributes (torch, keys, daggers, snakes, dogs).

The 2nd-century travel writer Pausanias stated that Hecate was first depicted in triplicate by the sculptor Alcamenes in the Greek Classical period of the late 5th century BCE, whose sculpture was placed before the temple of the Wingless Nike in Athens. Though Alcamenes's original statue is lost, hundreds of copies exist, and the general motif of a triple Hecate situated around a central pole or column, known as a hekataion, was used both at crossroads shrines as well as at the entrances to temples and private homes. These typically depict her holding a variety of items, including torches, keys, serpents, and daggers. Some hekataia, including a votive sculpture from Attica of the 3rd century BCE, include additional dancing figures identified as the Charites circling the triple Hecate and her central column. It is possible that the representation of a triple Hecate surrounding a central pillar was originally derived from poles set up at three-way crossroads with masks hung on them, facing in each road direction. In the 1st century CE, Ovid wrote: "Look at Hecate, standing guard at the crossroads, one face looking in each direction."

Apart from traditional hekataia, Hecate's triplicity is depicted in the vast frieze of the great Pergamon Altar, now in Berlin, wherein she is shown with three bodies, taking part in the battle with the Titans. In the Argolid, near the shrine of the Dioscuri, Pausanias saw the temple of Hecate opposite the sanctuary of Eileithyia; He reported the image to be the work of Scopas, stating further, "This one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite, also of Hecate, were made respectively by Polycleitus and his brother Naucydes, son of Mothon."

While Greek anthropomorphic conventions of art generally represented Hecate's triple form as three separate bodies, the iconography of the triple Hecate eventually evolved into representations of the goddess with a single body, but three faces. In Egyptian-inspired Greek esoteric writings connected with Hermes Trismegistus, and in the Greek Magical Papyri of Late Antiquity, Hecate is described as having three heads: one dog, one serpent, and one horse. In other representations, her animal heads include those of a cow and a boar.

The east frieze of a Hellenistic temple of hers at Lagina shows her helping protect the newborn Zeus from his father Cronus; this frieze is the only evidence of Hecate's involvement in the myth of his birth.

Dogs were closely associated with Hecate in the Classical world. They were one of her most important attributes, with a fragment of Euripides describing them as her sacred animal. The sacrifice of dogs to her is attested in Thrace, Samothrace, Colophon, and Athens, and is known to have played a significant role in purification rites to her. A 4th-century BCE marble relief from Crannon in Thessaly was dedicated by a race-horse owner. It shows Hecate, with a hound beside her, placing a wreath on the head of a mare. It has been claimed that her association with dogs is suggestive of her connection with birth, for the dog was sacred to Eileithyia, Genetyllis, and other birth goddesses. Images of her attended by a dog are also found when she is depicted alongside the god Hermes and the goddess Cybele in reliefs.

Although in later times Hecate's dog came to be thought of as a manifestation of restless souls or Daemons who accompanied her, its docile appearance and its accompaniment of a Hecate who looks completely friendly in many pieces of ancient art suggests that its original signification was positive and thus likelier to have arisen from the dog's connection with birth than the dog's underworld associations." The association with dogs, particularly female dogs, could be explained by a metamorphosis myth in Lycophron: the friendly-looking female dog accompanying Hecate was originally the Trojan Queen Hecuba, who leapt into the sea after the fall of Troy and was transformed by Hecate into her familiar.

Animals: Dog, polecat

Symbol: Paired torches, dogs, serpents, keys, knives, and lions.

Parents: Perses and Asteria

Domain: magic, spells, the moon, the night, and crossroads

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, a Cetus is a large sea monster. Perseus slew a Cetus to save Andromeda from being sacrificed to it. Later, before the Trojan War, Heracles also killed one to rescue Hesione. The term cetacean (for whale) derives from cetus. In Greek art, ceti were depicted as serpentine fish. The name of the mythological figure Ceto is derived from kētos. The name of the constelllation Cetus also derives from this word.

In Ancient Greek ketos (κῆτος, plural kete/ketea, κήτη/κήτεα), Latinized as cetus (pl. ceti or cete = cetea), is any huge sea monster.

A cetus was variously described as a sea monster or sea serpent. Other versions describe a cetus as a sea monster with the head of a wild boar or greyhound and the body of a whale or a dolphin with divided, fan-like tails. Ceti were said to be colossal beasts the size of a ship, their skulls alone measuring 40 feet (12 meters) in length, their spines being a cubit in thickness, and their skeletons taller at the shoulder than any elephant.

There are notable physical and mythological similarities between a cetus and a drakōn (the dragons in Greek mythology), and, to a lesser extent, other monsters of Greek myth, such as Scylla, Charybdis, and Medusa and her gorgon sisters.

Cetus are often depicted fighting Perseus or as the mount of a Nereid.

Queen Cassiopeia boasted that she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than the Nereids, invoking the wrath of Poseidon who sent the sea monster Cetus to attack Aethiopia. Upon consulting a wise oracle, King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia were told to sacrifice Andromeda to the Cetus. They had Andromeda chained to a rock near the ocean so that the cetus could devour her. After finding Andromeda chained to the rock and learning of her plight, Perseus managed to slay the Cetus when the creature emerged from the ocean to devour her. According to one version, Perseus slew Cetus with the harpe lent to him by Hermes. According to another version, he used Medusa's head to turn the sea monster to stone.

In a different story, Heracles slew a Cetus to save Hesion.

A Cetus had also been portrayed to support Ino and Melicertes when they threw themselves into the sea instead of a dolphin to carry Palaemon.

In both cases, the ruler annoyed Poseidon.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Hesperus is the Evening Star, the planet Venus in the evening. A son of the dawn goddess Eos (Roman Aurora), he is the half-brother of her other son, Phosphorus (also called Eosphorus; the "Morning Star"). Hesperus' Roman equivalent is Vesper (cf. "evening", "supper", "evening star", "west"). By one account, Hesperus' father was Cephalus, a mortal, while Phosphorus was the star god Astraeus. Other sources, however, state that Hesperus was the brother of Atlas, and thus the son of Iapetus.

Hesperus is the personification of the "evening star", the planet Venus in the evening. His name is sometimes conflated with the names for his brother, the personification of the planet as the "morning star" Eosphorus (Greek Ἐωσφόρος, "bearer of dawn") or Phosphorus (Ancient Greek: Φωσφόρος, "bearer of light", often translated as "Lucifer" in Latin), since they are all personifications of the same planet Venus. "Heosphoros" in the Greek Septuagint and "Lucifer" in Jerome's Latin Vulgate were used to translate the Hebrew "Helel" (Venus as the brilliant, bright or shining one), "son of Shahar (Dawn)" in the Hebrew version of Isaiah 14:12.

Eosphorus/Hesperus was said to be the father of Ceyx and Daedalion. In some sources, he is also said to be the father of the Hesperides.

Maurus Servius Honoratus, in his commentaries on Virgil's Eclogues, mentions that Hesperus inhabited Mount Oeta in Thessaly and that there he had loved the young Hymenaeus, son of Dionysus and Ariadne. ervius makes no distinction between the Evening Star and the Morning Star, calling them both Hesperus and the Lucifer of Ida.

In the philosophy of language, "Hesperus is Phosphorus" is a famous sentence in relation to the semantics of proper names. Gottlob Frege used the terms "the evening star" (der Abendstern) and "the morning star" (der Morgenstern) to illustrate his distinction between sense and reference, and subsequent philosophers changed the example to "Hesperus is Phosphorus" so that it utilized proper names. Saul Kripke used the sentence to posit that the knowledge of something necessary (in this case the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus) could be empirical rather than knowable a priori.

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hermaphroditus is a child of Aphrodite and Hermes. According to Ovid, he was born a remarkably beautiful boy whom the naiad Salmacis attempted to rape and prayed to be united with forever. A god, in answer to her prayer, merged their two forms into one and transformed him into what is known today as someone who is intersex. His name is compounded of his parents' names, Hermes and Aphrodite, and is the origin of the term hermaphrodite.

Because Hermaphroditus was a child of Hermes, and consequently a great-grandchild of Atlas (Hermes's mother Maia was the daughter of Atlas), he is sometimes called Atlantiades (Greek: Ἀτλαντιάδης).

Hermaphroditus, the two-sexed child of Aphrodite and Hermes (Venus and Mercury), had long been a symbol of androgyny or effeminacy, and was portrayed in Greco-Roman art as a female figure with male genitals.

Theophrastus's account also suggests a link between Hermaphroditus and the institution of marriage. The reference to the fourth day of the month is telling (see Literature section below): this is the luckiest day to have a wedding. Herm­aphro­ditus's association with marriage seems to have been that, by embodying both masculine and feminine qualities, he symbolized the coming together of men and women in sacred union. Another factor linking Hermaphroditus to weddings was his parents' role in protecting and blessing brides.

Hermaphroditus's name is derived from those of their parents Hermes and Aphrodite. All three of these gods figure largely among erotic and fertility figures, and all possess distinctly sexual overtones. According to Photius, Hermaphroditus is the same divinity as Aphroditus, a version of Aphrodite which is considered male because of its phallic features.

Ovid's account relates that Hermaphroditus was nursed by naiads in the caves of Mount Ida, a sacred mountain in Phrygia (present day Turkey. At the age of fifteen, he grew bored with his surroundings and traveled to the cities of Lycia and Caria. It was in the woods of Caria, near Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey) that he encountered the nymph Salmacis, in her pool. She was overcome by lust for the boy, who was very beautiful but still young, and tried to flirt with him, but was rejected. When he thought she had left, Hermaphroditus undressed and entered the waters of the empty pool. Salmacis sprang out from behind a tree and jumped into the pool. She wrapped herself around the youth, forcibly kissing him and touching his breast, attempting to rape him. While he struggled, she called out to the gods that they should never part. Her wish was granted, and their bodies blended into one form, "a creature of both sexes". Hermaphroditus prayed to Hermes and Aphrodite that anyone else who bathed in the pool would be similarly transformed, and his wish was granted.

Hungarian classical philologist Karoly Kerenyi wrote: "In this form the story was certainly not ancient". He related it to the Greek myths involving male youths (ephebes), noting the legends of Narcissus and Hyacinth, who had archaic hero-cults, and also those involving Hymen (Hymenaios).

Diodrus Siculus, in his work Library of History, mentions that some say that Hermaphroditus is a god and appears at certain times among men, but there are some who declare that such creatures of two sexes are monstrosities, and coming rarely into the world as they do have the quality of presaging the future, sometimes for evil and sometimes for good.

In a description found on the remains of a wall in Halicarnassus ated to around 2nd century BC, Hermaphroditus' mother, Aphrodite, names Salmacis as the nymph who nursed and took care of an infant Hermaphroditus after being placed in her care, a very different version than the one presented by Ovid.

The satirical author Lucian of Samosata also implies that Hermaphroditus was born like that, rather than becoming later in life against his will, and blames it on the identity of the child's father, Hermes.

The oldest traces of the cult in Greek countries are found in Cyprus. Here, according to Macrobius (Satunalia, iii. 8), there was a bearded statue of a male Aphrodite, called Aphroditus by Aristophanes. Philochorus in his Atthis (ap. Macrobius loc. cit.) further identified this divinity, at whose sacrifices men and women exchanged garments, with the Moon. A terracotta plaque from the 7th century BC depicting Aphroditos, which was found in Perachora, suggests it was an archaic Greek cult.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Astraeus or Astraios is the son of Crius and Eurybia, and the consort of Eos. He is said to be the father of the winds.

His name "Astraeus" (Ancient Greek Ἀστραῖος, translit. Astraîos) is derived from the Greek word ἀστήρ (astḗr) "star". Ἀστήρ itself is inherited from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂ster- "star", from *h₂eh₁s- "to burn".

According to Hesiod's Theogony and the Bibliotheca, Astraeus is one of the children of Crius and Eurybia. However, Hyginus wrote that he was descended directly from Tartarus and Gaia and referred to him as one of the Gigantes.

Astraeus married Eos, the goddess of the dawn. Together as nightfall and daybreak, they produced many children associated with what occurs in the sky during twilight. In Hesiod's Theogony, Astraeus and Eos produce the winds—namely Zephyrus, Boreas, and Notus, with the fourth one, Eurus, eing included as his son in later sources—as well as Eosphorus and the stars. A few sources mention another daughter, Astraea, the goddess of innocence and, occasionally, justice.

Nonnus's epic poem Dionysiaca, written in the fifth century, is the only work in which Astraeus has a significant appearance not related to the genealogy of the gods. In it Astraeus is presented as an oracular god whom the goddess Demeter visits, concerned about her daughter Persephone's future as she had started to attract a significant number of admirers on Olympus and worried that she might end up marrying Hephaestus. Astraeus then warned her that soon enough, Persephone would be ravished by a serpent and bear fruit from that union, which greatly upset Demeter.

Servius, perhaps conflating him with the Giant like Hyginus did, wrote that he took arms and fought against the gods. He is also sometimes associated with Aeolus, the Keeper of the Winds, since winds often increase around dusk.

Parents: Crius and Eurybia

Siblings: Perses, Pallas

Consort: Eos

Children: Zephyrus, Boreas, Notus, Eurus, Astraea, Eosphorus

Chapter Text

Metis (Ancient Greek: Μῆτις, romanized: Mêtis; Modern Greek: Μήτις, meaning 'Wisdom', 'Skill', or 'Craft'), in ancient Greek religion and mythology, was the pre-Olympian goddess of wisdom, counsel and deep thought, and a member of the oceanids. She is notable for being the advisor and first wife of Zeus, the king of the gods. She first helped him to free his siblings from their father Cronus's stomach and later helped their daughter Athena to escape from the forehead of Zeus, who swallowed both mother and child after it was foretold that she would bear a son mightier than his father.

Metis has been applied as a concept of literary criticism, notably by Jean-Pierre Vernant, along with Marcel Detienne.

By the era of Greek philosophy in the 5th century BC, Metis had become the first deity of wisdom and deep thought, but her name originally connoted "magical cunning" and was as easily equated with the trickster powers of Prometheus as with the "royal metis" of Zeus, who is titled Metieta (Ancient Greek: Μητίετα,  'the wise counsellor') in the Homeric poems. The Stoic commentators allegorised Metis as the embodiment of "prudence", "wisdom" or "wise counsel", in which form she was inherited by the Renaissance.

The Greek word metis meant a quality that combined wisdom and cunning. This quality was considered to be highly admirable, the hero Odysseus being the embodiment of it, for example using such a strategy against Polyphemus, son of Poseidon. In the Classical era, metis was regarded by Athenians as one of the notable characteristics of the Athenian character.

Metis was an Oceanid, one of the 3000 daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys, and a sister of the river-gods, which also numbered 3000. Metis gave her cousin Zeus an emetic potion to cause his father Cronus, the supreme ruler of the cosmos, to vomit out his siblings- Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon- whom their father had swallowed out of fear of being overthrown. After Zeus and his siblings won the Tianomachy, the 10-year war among the Titans and the Olympus, he pursued Metis and they got married.

Metis was both an indispensable aid and a threat to Zeus. He lay with her, but immediately feared the consequences, for it had been prophesied by Gaia and Uranus that Metis would bear a daughter who would be wiser than her mother, and then a son more powerful than his father, who would eventually overthrow Zeus and become the king of the cosmos in his place. In order to forestall these consequences, Zeus tricked Metis into turning herself into a fly and promptly swallowed her. However, she was already pregnant with their first and only child, Athena, whom Metis raised in Zeus's mind. It is from this position that Metis continues to give Zeus advice as a ruler.

Once Athena fully grew up, Metis crafted robes, an armor, a shield, and a spear for her daughter, who banged her spear and shield together in order to give her father a terrible headache. Soon, Zeus could not take his headache anymore and had the smith god Hephaestus - a son of Hera, now Zeus's queen – cut his head open to let out whatever was in there on the river Triton's banks. Athena emerged from Zeus's mind full grown, wearing the armor her mother made for her. She was soon made the goddess of wisdom, warfare, and crafts.

But Zeus lay with the fair-cheeked daughter of Ocean and Tethys apart from Hera

... deceiving Metis although she was full wise. But he seized her with his hands and put her in his belly, for fear that she might bring forth something stronger than his thunderbolt: therefore did Zeus, who sits on high and dwells in the aether, swallow her down suddenly. But she straightway conceived Pallas Athena: and the father of men and gods gave her birth by way of his head on the banks of the river Trito. And she remained hidden beneath the inward parts of Zeus, even Metis, Athena's mother, worker of righteousness, who was wiser than gods and mortal men.
According to a scholiast on the Theogony, Metis had the ability of changing her shape at will. Zeus tricked her and swallowed his pregnant wife when she transformed into a πικρὰν (pikràn). As Keightley notes, πικρὰ ("bitter") makes little or no sense in that context, and it has been variously corrected to μυῖαν (muîan, meaning "fly") or μικρὰν (mikràn, meaning "small thing") instead.

According to Apollodorus, Metis was raped by Zeus and changed many forms in order to escape him after he pursued her.

An alternative version of the same myth makes the Cyclopes Brontes rather than Zeus the father of Athena before Metis is swallowed.

Hesiod's account is followed by Acusilaus and the Orphic tradition, which enthroned Metis side by side with Eros as primal cosmogenic forces. Plato makes Poros, or "creative ingenuity", a son of Metis.

The similarities between Zeus swallowing Metis and Cronus swallowing his children have been noted by several scholars. This also caused some controversy in regard to reproduction myths.

Parents: Oceanus and Tethys

Siblings: Oceanids, River gods

Spouse: Zeus

Offspring: Athena, Porus

Domain: wisdom, counsel and deep thought

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Nycteus was a king of Thebes. His rule began after the death of Polydorus and ended when he was succeeded by his brother Lycus.

Nycteus and his brother Lycus were the sons of either Chthonius, one of the Spartoi, or of the nymph Clonia and Hyrieus, the son of Poseidon and the Atlantid Alkyone, or of Poseidon and the Pleiad Celaeno. Nycteus had two daughters by Polyxo, Nycteis and Antiope.

Nycteus and Lycus fled from Euboea after they murdered King Phlegyas, settling in Hyria and then moving to Thebes, because they were friends with Pentheus, its king. Nycteus's daughter, Nycteis married Polydorus, who was the successor of Pentheus, and their son was Labdacus. However, Pentheus and Polydorus both died soon after, and Nycteus became regent for Labdacus.

After Antiope was impregnated by Zeus and fled to marry king Epopeus in Sicyon, the Bibliotheca reports that Nycteus killed himself in shame, after asking Lycus to punish her. Pausanias, however, states that Nycteus led the Thebans against Epopeus, but was wounded and carried back to Thebes, where he died after asking Lycus to continue the battle. Lycus succeeded him as regent of Thebes.

Chapter Text

In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Eurus is the god and personification of the east wind, although sometimes he is also said to be southeast specifically. He is one of the four principal wind gods, the Anemoi, alongside his brothers Boreas (north wind), Zephyrus (west wind) and Notus south wind).

Eurus is featured rarely in ancient literature and art, mostly appearing together with his three brothers as part of a whole if at all, and virtually has no individual mythology of his own. Often he is excluded from the group entirely, leaving Boreas, Zephyrus and Notus to represent the Anemoi. His Roman equivalent is the god Vulturnus.

The ancient Greek noun εὖρος (eûros) refers to the wind that blows from the east. Its ultimate etymology is not clear, although it has been variously connected to the Greek words for the dawn (Ancient Greek: ἠώς, ēṓs) and aura (Ancient Greek: αὔρα, aúra).

Eurus is traditionally the god of the east or south-east wind. He has been both described as rain-bringing and a dry type of wind.

Eurus, unlike the three other principal wind gods, is often skipped by ancient authors. He is the only one not to be mentioned by Hesiod at all, who makes the three beneficial winds the children of Eos (the dawn goddess) and her husband Astraeus, and says that all the other, non-beneficial for humanity winds are the sons of Typhon. Instead of Eurus, Hesiod only speaks of "Argestes" for the fourth, which could also refer to Apeliotes occasionally (the god of the southeast wind). Similarly, he is the only one among the four who does not have an Orphic Hymn sang in his honour.

It is thus Nonnus, a fifth-century AD author from Panopolis who made Eurus one of the children of Eos and Astraeus in his Dionysiaca.

In his few appearances in mythology, Eurus is usually paired with Notus, the south wind, like Zephyrus is paired with Boreas. Like Notus and unlike Zephyrus/Boreas, Eurus has little to no mythology of his own, and only appears as part of a whole when the Anemoi feature in some tale.

According to the Odyssey the winds seem to dwell on the island of Aeolia, as Zeus has made Aeolus the keeper of the winds. Aeolus receives Odysseus and his crew warmly, and keeps them as guests for a month. As they part, Aeolus gives Odysseus a bag containing all the winds, except for the gentle Zephyrus who blows them back home. Although warned not to open the bag under any circumstances, Odysseus's crewmates however foolishly open the bag, thinking it to contain some treasure, and set free Eurus along with all the other winds as well, who then blow the ships back to Aeolia, whereupon Aeolus refused to help them a second time.

Some time later, he and Notus strand Odysseus on Thrinacia, the island of the sun-god Helios, for an entire month, following their departure from the island of Circe. After Odysseus left Calypso, the sea-god Poseidon in anger let loose all four of them, Eurus included, to cause a storm and raise great waves in order to drown him.

In the Dionysiaca, he and his confirmed brothers live with their father Astraeus; Eurus serves nectar in cups when Demeter pays the family a visit.

In the Pergamon Altar, which depicts the battle of the gods against the Giants, Eurus and the other three wind gods are shown in the shape of horses who pull Hera's chariot; traces of their equine form are also found in Quintus Smyrnaeus's works, where they pull Zeus's chariot instead.

Early attestation of Eurus and wind-related worship is found in the Mycenaean Greek words a-ne-mo-i-je-re-ja (Linear B: 𐀀𐀚𐀗𐀂𐀋𐀩𐀊) and a-ne-mo i-je-re-ja (Linear B: 𐀀𐀚𐀗𐄀𐀂𐀋𐀩𐀊), that is, "priestess of the winds", found on the KN Fp 1 and KN Fp 13 tablets. In post-Greek Dark Ages times, traces of Eurus's worship as part of the Four Winds is found in Titane in Corinthia where a sanctuary to the Winds stood, Sparta where Eurus was described as the 'saviour of Sparta,' Coronea where they had an altar, and Attica.

For the Romans, Eurus was identified with the god Vulturnus ("he from Vultur", a mountain in Apulia, perhaps related to the world "vulture"), closely associated with dry and warm weather. He was also called Africanus (meaning "he from Africa") occasionally, due to the dry type of east wind the ancients knew.

Greek: Εὖρος

Abode: sky

Parents: Astraeus and Eos

Siblings: winds (Boreas, Zephyrus and Notus), Eosphorus, the Stars, Memnon, Emathion, Astraea

Roman: Vulturnus

Domain: west wind

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, dreams were sometimes personified as Oneiros or Oneiroi (Ὄνειροι, 'dreams'). In the Iliad of Homer, Zeus sends an Oneiros to appear to Agamemnon in a dream, while in Hesiod's Theogony, the Oneiroi are the sons of Nyx (Night), and brothers of Hypnos (Sleep).

For the ancient Greeks, dreams were not generally personified. However, a few instances of the personification of dreams, some perhaps solely poetic, can be found in ancient Greek sources.

In Homer's Iliad, Zeus decides to send a "baleful dream" to Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army during the Trojan War. An Oneiros is summoned by Zeus, and ordered to go to the camp of the Greeks at Troy and deliver a message from Zeus urging him to battle. The Oneiros goes quickly to Agamemnon's tent, and finding him asleep, stands above Agamemnon's head; taking the shape of Nestor, a trusted counselor to Agamemnon, the Oneiros speaks to Agamemnon, as Zeus had instructed him.

The Odyssey locates a "land of dreams" past the streams of Oceanus, close to Asphodel Meadows, where the spirits of the dead reside. In another passage of the Odyssey, truthful dreams are said to come through a gate made of horn, while deceitful dreams come through a gate made of ivory (see Gates of horn and ivory).

Hesiod, in his genealogical poem the Theogony, makes the "tribe of Dreams" (φῦλον Ὀνείρων), among the many offspring of Nyx (Night), without a father. Their siblings include: Moros (Doom), Ker (Destiny), Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), Momus (Blame), Oizys (Pain), Keres (Destinies), Nemesis (Retribution), Eris (Discord), and other abstract personifications.

Euripides, in his play Hecuba, has Hecuba call "lady Earth" the "mother of black-winged dreams". The second-century AD geographer Pausanias mentions seeing statues of an Oneiros and Hypnos lulling a lion to sleep. He writes that the statue was surnamed Epidotes.

Related figures are the Somnia (Dreams), the thousand sons that the Latin poet Ovid gave to Somnus (Sleep), who appear in dreams. Ovid named three of the sons of Somnus: Morpheus, who appears in human guise, Phobetor, called Icelos by the gods, who appears as beasts, and Phantasos, who appears as inanimate objects.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Tethys was one of the Titans, the children of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), the sister and wife of the Titan Oceanus, and the mother of the river gods and the Oceanids. Although Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults, she was depicted in mosaics decorating baths, pools, and triclinia in the Greek East, particularly in Antioch and its suburbs, either alone or with Oceanus.

Tethys was one of the Titan offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Hesiod lists her Titan siblings as Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Cronus. Tethys married her brother Oceanus, an enormous river encircling the world, and was by him the mother of numerous sons (the river gods) and numerous daughters (the Oceanids).

According to Hesiod, there were three thousand (i.e. innumerable) river gods. These included Achelous, the god of the Achelous River, the largest river in Greece, who gave his daughter in marriage to Alcmaeon and was defeated by Heracles in a wrestling contest for the right to marry Deianira; Alpheus, who fell in love with the nymph Arethusa and pursued her to Syracuse, where she was transformed into a spring by Artemis; and Scamander who fought on the side of the Trojans during the Trojan War and, offended when Achilles polluted his waters with a large number of Trojan corpses, overflowed his banks nearly drowning Achilles.

According to Hesiod, there were also three thousand Oceanids. These included Metis, Zeus's first wife, whom Zeus impregnated with Athena and then swallowed; Eurynome, Zeus's third wife, and mother of the Charites; Doris, the wife of Nereus and mother of the Nereids; Callirrhoe, the wife of Chrysaor and mother of Geryon; Clymene the wife of Iapetus, and mother of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus; Perdeis, wife of Helios and mother of Circe and Aeetes; Idyia, wife of Aeetes and mother of Medea; and Styx, goddess of the river Styx, and the wife of Pallas and mother of Zelus, Nike, Kratos, and Bia.

Passages in book 14 of the Iliad, called the Deception of Zeus, suggest the possibility that Homer knew a tradition in which Oceanus and Tethys (rather than Uranus and Gaia, as in Hesiod) were the primeval parents of the gods. Twice Homer has Hera describe the pair as "Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys". According to M. L. West, these lines suggests a myth in which Oceanus and Tethys are the "first parents of the whole race of gods." However, as Timothy Gantz points out, "mother" could simply refer to the fact that Tethys was Hera's foster mother for a time, as Hera tells us in the lines immediately following, while the reference to Oceanus as the genesis of the gods "might be simply a formulaic epithet indicating the numberless rivers and springs descended from Okeanos" (compare with Iliad 21. 195-197). But, in a later Iliad passage, Hypnos also describes Oceanus as "genesis for all", which, according to Gantz, is hard to understand as meaning other than that, for Homer, Oceanus was the father of the Titans.

Plato, in his Timaeus, provides a genealogy (probably Orphic) which perhaps reflected an attempt to reconcile this apparent divergence between Homer and Hesiod, in which Uranus and Gaia are the parents of Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys are the parents of Cronus and Rhea and the other Titans, as well as Phorcys. In his Cratylus, Plato quotes Orpheus as saying that Oceanus and Tethys were "the first to marry", possibly also reflecting an Orphic theogony in which Oceanus and Tethys—rather than Uranus and Gaia—were the primeval parents. Plato's apparent inclusion of Phorkys as a Titan (being the brother of Cronus and Rhea), and the mythographer Apollodorus's inclusion of Dione, the mother of Aphrodite by Zeus, as a thirteenth Titan, suggests an Orphic tradition in which Hesiod's twelve Titans were the offspring of Oceanus and Tethys, with Phorkys and Dione taking the place of Oceanus and Tethys.

According to Epimenides, the first two beings, Night and Aer, produced Tartarus, who in turn produced two Titans (possibly Oceanus and Tethys) from whom came the world egg.

Tethys played no active part in Greek mythology. The only early story concerning Tethys is what Homer has Hera briefly relate in the Iliad's Deception of Zeus passage. There, Hera says that when Zeus was in the process of deposing Cronus, she was given by her mother Rhea to Tethys and Oceanus for safekeeping and that they "lovingly nursed and cherished me in their halls". Hera relates this while dissembling that she is on her way to visit Oceanus and Tethys in the hopes of reconciling her foster parents, who are angry with each other and are no longer having sexual relations.

Originally Oceanus's consort, at a later time Tethys came to be identified with the sea, and in Hellenistic and Roman poetry Tethys's name came to be used as a poetic term for the sea.

The only other story involving Tethys is an apparently late astral myth concerning the polar constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear), which was thought to represent the catasterism of Calllisto who was transformed into a bear and placed by Zeus among the stars. The myth explains why the constellation never sets below the horizon, saying that since Callisto had been Zeus's lover, she was forbidden by Tethys from "touching Ocean's deep" out of concern for her foster-child Hera, Zeus's jealous wife.

Claudian wrote that Tethys nursed two of her nephlings in her breast, Helios and Selene, the children of her siblings Hyperion and Theia, during their infancy, when their light was weak and had not yet grown into their older, more luminous selves.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Tethys turns Aesacus into a diving bird.

Tethys was sometimes confused with another sea goddess, the sea-nymph Thetis, wife of Peleus and the mother of Achilles.

M. L. West detects in the Iliad's Deception of Zeus passage an allusion to a possible archaic myth "according to which [Tethys] was the mother of the gods, long estranged from her husband," speculating that the estrangement might refer to a separation of "the upper and lower waters ... corresponding to that of heaven and earth," which parallels the story of "Apsu and Tiamat in the Babylonian cosmology, the male and female waters, which were originally united (En. El. I. 1 ff.)," but that, "By Hesiod's time the myth may have been almost forgotten and Tethys remembered only as the name of Oceanus' wife." This possible correspondence between Oceanus and Tethys, and Apsū and Tiamat has been noticed by several authors, with Tethys's name possibly having been derived from that of Tiamat.

Symbol: Winged brow

Siblings: Titans, Hecatoncheires, Cycopes, Gigantes, Erinys (the Furies), Meliae, and some half-siblings

Consort: Oceanus

Offspring: Many river gods, many Oceanids

Domain: freshwater, nursing, and the fertile flow of rivers

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the goddess of harmony and concord. Her Greek opposite is Eris and her Roman counterpart is Concordia. Harmonia is most well-known for her marriage to Cadmus and the many misfortunes that haunted her descendants, particularly those related to the fabled Neckles of Harmonia.

Harmonia's parentage varies between accounts. She has most often been named as a daughter of the gods Are and Aphrodite. This would make her the sister of other mythological figures such as Aeneas, Phobos, and Eros. In other accounts, Harmonia was born in Samothrace to Zeus and the Pleiad Electra. In this telling, Harmonia would have been the sister of Dardanus and Iasion, who, under the instruction of Zeus, were the founders of mystic rites on Samothrace.

In nearly all of her mythological accounts, Harmonia is married to Cadmus, the legendary hero and founder of Thebes. With Cadmus, she was the mother of Ino, Polydorus, Autonoe, Agave, Semele, and, in some accounts, Illyrius. Through her daughter Semele, Harmonia was the grandmother of Dionysus.

Mythological narratives surrounding Harmonia are deeply intertwined with those of her husband, Cadmus. Harmonia is commonly acquired by Cadmus as his bride in two different ways. In the version of the myth where Harmonia was born to Zeus and Electra on Samothrace, she was either given to Cadmus or carried off by him after he was initiated into the island's mysteries. In the version of the myth where she is the daughter of Are and Aphrodite, Zeus gifted her to Cadmus upon his founding of Thebes and the completion of his eight-year servitude to Ares after he slew a dragon sacred to the god.

The wedding of Harmonia and Cadmus was attended by all the gods. Many gifts were lavished upon the couple, most notably a peplos and a necklace (ὅρμος) wrought by Hephaestus. Common versions of the myth claim that Hephaestus created the necklace because he was angered by his wife, Aphrodite's, affair with Ares, and vowed to curse any children born of the union. Other traditions claim that the necklace and peplos were instead gifted by Athena, Aphrodite, or Cadmus's sister Europa, who had received them as a gift from Zeus. The necklace, commonly referred to as the Neckles of Harmonia or the Necklace of Eriphyle, was famed for bringing misfortune upon all those who wore it. This misfortune primarily fell upon queens and princesses of Thebes. Although no undisputed description of the Necklace exists, it is usually described in ancient Greek passages as being of beautifully wrought gold and inlaid with various jewels, typically emeralds.

Hyginus gives another version of the story. According to him, the thing which brought ill fate to the descendants of Harmonia was not a necklace, but the peplos "dipped in crime", given to Harmonia by Hephaestus and Hera.

When Cadmus was expelled from Thebes, Harmonia accompanied him. The pair went to Illyria to fight on the side of the Enchelii, and conquered the enemy. Cadmus then became king of the Illyrians. However, he was turned into a serpent soon afterwards. His transformation may have been related to the ill fortune which clung to him as a result of his having killed the sacred dragon; one day he remarked that if the gods were so enamored of the life of a serpent, he might as well wish that life for himself. Immediately he began to grow scales and change in form. Harmonia, seeing the transformation, stripped herself and begged the gods to share her husband's fate. As she was embraced by the serpent Cadmus in a pool of wine, the gods took pity, granted her request, and transformed her. The couple was sent to Elysium.

Harmonia was closely associated with Aphrodite Pandemos, an aspect of Aphrodite that personified order and civic unity. She was also associated with the Roman goddess Concordia.

All of Harmonia and Cadmus's children experienced great misfortune. Through Agave's son Pentheus, the necklace came into the possession of Jocasta, wife and mother of Oedipus, who committed suicide upon the discovery of his identity. Their son Polynices then inherited the necklace and peplos. He used both items to bribe Eriphyle so that she would persuade her husband, Amphiaraus, and her sons, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, to participate in the Seven against Thebes expedition. The expedition was a failure and Amphiaraus died during the battle. To avenge his father, Alcmaeon killed Eriphyle and the necklace and peplos came into his possession. He gifted it to his first wife, Alphesiboea, a daughter of Phegus, king of Psophis. When Alcmaeon attempted to take the items back from his wife, he was killed by Phegus's sons, Pronous and Agenor, and they took the necklace. Alcmeon's sons Amphiaraus and Acarnan then avenged their father by killing Phegus's sons, and dedicated the necklace to the temple of Athena in Delphi. It was later stolen by the Phocain general Phayllus, who gave it to his mistress. She wore it for a time, but at last her youngest son was seized with madness, and set fire to the house, in which she perished with all her treasures.

Abode: Thebe, Illyria

Parents: Ares and Aphrodite, or Zeus and Electra

Spouse: Cadmus

Children: Autonoe, Agave, Illyrius, Ino, Semele, and Polydorus

Domain: harmony and concord

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Ancaeus was both an Argonaut and a participant in the Calydonian Boar hunt, in which he met his end.

Ancaeus was the son of King Lycurgus of Arcadia either by Cleophlye or Eurynome or Antinoe. Ancaeus married Iotis and became the father of Agapenor who led the Arcadian forces during the Trojan War.

Ancaeus' arms were ominously hidden at home, but he set forth, dressed in a bearskin and armed only with a labrys (λάβρυς "doubled-bladed axe").

Chapter Text

In Orphic osmogony Phanes or Protogonos is a primeval deity who was born from the cosmic egg at the beginning of creation. He is referred by various names, including Erikepaios "Power" and Metis "Thought".

In Orphic cosmogony, Phanes is often equated with Eros or Mithras and has been depicted as a deity emerging from a cosmic egg entwined with a serpent: the Orphic egg. He had a helmet and had broad, golden wings. The Orphic cosmogony is quite unlike the creation sagas offered by Homer and Hesiod. Scholars have suggested that Orphism is "un-Greek", even "Asiatic", in conception because of its inherent dualism.

Chronos is said to have created the silver egg of the universe out of which burst the first-born deity Phanes, or Phanes-Dionysus. Phanes was an androgynous god, with both a penis and vagina.

Phanes was a deity of light and goodness, whose name meant "to bring light" or "to shine"; a first-born deity, he emerged from the abyss and gave birth to the universe. Nyx (Night) is variously said to be Phanes's daughter or older wife; she is the counterpart of Phanes and is considered by Aristophanes the first deity. According to Aristophanes, in a play where Phanes is called "Eros", Phanes was born from an egg created by Nyx and placed in the boundless lap of Erebus, after which he mates with Chaos and creates the flying creatures.

In Orphic literature, Phanes was believed to have been hatched from the world egg of Chronos and Ananke "Necessity, Fate" or Nyx in the form of a black bird and wind. His older wife Nyx called him Protogenos. As she created nighttime, Phanes created daytime and the method of creation by mingling. He was made the ruler of the deities. This new Orphic tradition states that Phanes passed the sceptre to Nyx; Nyx later gave the sceptre to her son Ouranos; Chonos seized the sceptre from his father Ouranos; and finally, the sceptre held by Cronus was seized by Zeus, who holds it at present. Some Orphic myths suggest that Zeus intends to pass the sceptre to Dionysus.

According to the Athenian scholiast Damascius, Phanes was the first god "expressible and acceptable to human ears" ("πρώτης ητόν τι ἐχούσης καὶ σύμμετρον πρὸς ἀνθρώπων ἀκοάς"). Another Orphic Hymn states:

You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought pure light. For this I call you Phanes, I call you Lord Priapos, I call you sparkling with bright eyes.

The Derveni papyrus refers to Phanes:

Of the First-born king, the reverend one; and upon him all the immortals grew, blessed gods and goddesses and rivers and lovely springs and everything else that had then been born; and he himself became the sole one.

In the Orphic Hymns, Phanes-Protogonus is identified with Dionysus, who is referred to under the names of Protogonus and Eubuleus several times in the collection.

Chapter Text

Hermes (/ˈhɜːrmiːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.

In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. He is regarded as "the divine trickster", about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account.

Hermes's attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, talaria (winged sandals), and winged helmet or simple petasos, as well as the palm tree, goat, the number four, several kinds of fish, and incense. However, his main symbol is the caduceus, a winged staff intertwined with two snakes copulating and carvings of the other gods.

In Roman mythology and religion many of Hermes's characteristics belong to Mercury, a name derived from the Latin merx, meaning "merchandise", and the origin of the words "merchant" and "commerce."

The earliest form of the name Hermes (Ἑρμῆς) is the Mycenaean Greek *hermāhās, written 𐀁𐀔𐁀 e-ma-a2 (e-ma-ha) in the Linear B syllabic script. Other forms of the name of Hermes are Hermeias (Ἑρμείας), Hermaōn (Ἑρμάων), Hermān (Ἑρμᾱν), Hermaios (Ἓρμαιος), and Hermaỵos (Ἓρμαιυος). Most scholars derive Hermes from Greek ἕρμα (herma), 'stone heap'. Hermax, ('heap of stones'), hermaīon, ('gift of Hermes'), hermaīos hill were holy to Hermes.

The etymology of ἕρμα itself is unknown, but is probably not a Proto-Indo-European word. R. S. P. Beekes rejects the connection with herma and suggests a Pre-Greek origin. However, the stone etymology is also linked to Indo-European *ser- ('to bind, put together'). Scholarly speculation that Hermes derives from a more primitive form meaning 'one cairn' is disputed. Other scholars have suggested that Hermes may be a cognate of the Vedic Sarama.

It is likely that Hermes is a pre-Hellenic god, though the exact origins of his worship, and its original nature, remain unclear. Frothingham thought the god to have existed as a Mesopotamian snake-god, similar or identical to Ningishzida, a god who served as mediator between humans and the divine, especially Ishtar, and who was depicted in art as a caduceus. Angelo (1997) thinks Hermes to be based on the Thoth archetype. The absorbing ("combining") of the attributes of Hermes to Thoth developed after the time of Homer amongst Greeks and Romans; Herodotus was the first to identify the Greek god with the Egyptian (Hermopolis) (Plutarch and Diodorus also did so), although Plato thought the gods were dissimilar (Friedlander 1992).

His cult was established in Greece in remote regions, likely making him originally a god of nature, farmers, and shepherds. It is also possible that since the beginning he has been a deity with shamanic attributes linked to divination, reconciliation, magic, sacrifices, and initiation and contact with other planes of existence, a role of mediator between the worlds of the visible and invisible. ccording to a theory that has received considerable scholarly acceptance, Hermes originated as a form of the god Pan, who has been identified as a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European pastoral god *Péh2usōn, in his aspect as the god of boundary markers. The PIE root *peh2 'protect' also shows up in Latin pastor 'shepherd' (whence the English pastoral). A zero grade of the full PIE form (*ph2usōn) yields the name of the Sanskrit psychopomp Pushan, who, like Pan, is associated with goats. Later, the epithet supplanted the original name itself and Hermes took over the role of psychopomp and as god of messengers, travelers, and boundaries, which had originally belonged to Pan, while Pan himself continued to be venerated by his original name in his more rustic aspect as the god of the wild in the relatively isolated mountainous region of Arcadia. In later myths, after the cult of Pan was reintroduced to Attica, Pan was said to be Hermes's son.

The image of Hermes evolved and varied along with Greek art and culture. In Archaic Greece he was usually depicted as a matured and bearded man, who dressed as a traveler, herald and shepherd. This image remained common on the Hermai, which served as boundary markers, roadside markers, and grave markers, as well as votive offerings.

In Classical and Hellenistic Greece, Hermes was usually depicted as a young, athletic man lacking a beard. When represented as Logios (Greek: Λόγιος, speaker), his attitude is consistent with the attribute. Hermes Ludovisi by Phidias or Myron possibly represent beardless Hermes Logios. Praxiteles showed him with the baby Dionysus in his arms.

At all times, however, through the Hellenistic periods, Roman, and throughout Western history into the present day, several of his characteristic objects are present as identification, but not always all together. Among these objects is a wide-brimmed hat, the petasos, widely used by rural people of antiquity to protect themselves from the sun, and that in later times was adorned with a pair of small wings; sometimes this hat is not present, and may have been replaced with wings rising from the hair.

Another object is the caduceus, a staff with two intertwined snakes, sometimes crowned with a pair of wings and a sphere. The caduceus, historically, appeared with Hermes, and is documented among the Babylonians from about 3500 BC. Two snakes coiled around a staff was also a symbol of the god Ningishzida, who, like Hermes, served as a mediator between humans and the divine (specifically, the goddess Ishtar or the supreme Ningirsu). In Greece, other gods have been depicted holding a caduceus, but it was mainly associated with Hermes. It was said to have the power to make people fall asleep or wake up, and also made peace between litigants, and is a visible sign of his authority, being used as a sceptre. A similar appearing but distinct symbol is the Rod of Asclepius, associated with the patron of medicine and son of Apollo, Asclepius, which bears only one snake. The Rod of Asclepius, occasionally conflated with the caduceus in modern times, is used by most Western physicians as a badge of their profession. After the Renaissance, the caduceus also appeared in the heraldic crests of several and currently is a symbol of commerce.

Hermes's sandals, called pédila by the Greeks and talaria by the Romans, were made of palm and myrtle branches but were described as beautiful, golden and immortal, made by sublime art, able to take the roads with the speed of wind. Originally, they had no wings, but late in the artistic representations, they are depicted. In certain images, the wings spring directly from the ankles. Hermes has also been depicted with a purse or a bag in his hands, wearing a robe or cloak, which had the power to confer invisibility. His weapon was a harpe, which killed Argos; it was also lent to Perseus to kill Medusa and Cetus.

Hermes began as a god with strong chthonic, or underworld, associations. He was a psychopomp, leader of souls along the road between "the Under and the Upper world". This function gradually expanded to encompass roads in general, and from there to boundaries, travelers, sailors, commerce, and travel itself. Hermes also in time became a figure associated with literary creation, rhetoric and story-telling.

Beginning with the earliest records of his worship, Hermes has been understood as a chthonic deity (heavily associated with the earth or underworld). As a chthonic deity, the worship of Hermes also included an aspect relating to fertility, with the phallus being included among his major symbols. The inclusion of phallic imagery associated with Hermes and placed, in the form of herma, at the entrances to households may reflect a belief in ancient times that Hermes was a symbol of the household's fertility, specifically the potency of the male head of the household in producing children.

The association between Hermes and the underworld is related to his function as a god of boundaries (the boundary between life and death), but he is considered a psychopomp, a deity who helps guide souls of the deceased to the afterlife, and his image was commonly depicted on gravestones in classical Greece.

In Ancient Greece, Hermes was a phallic god of boundaries. His name, in the form herma, was applied to a wayside marker pile of stones, and each traveler added a stone to the pile. In the 6th century BC, Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, replaced the cairns that marked the midway point between each village deme at the central agora of Athens with a square or rectangular pillar of stone or bronze topped by a bust of a bearded Hermes. An erect phallus rose from the base. In the more primitive Mount Kyllini or Cyllenian herms, the standing stone or wooden pillar was simply a carved phallus. "That a monument of this kind could be transformed into an Olympian god is astounding," Walter Burkert remarked. In Athens, herms were placed outside houses, both as a form of protection for the home, a symbol of male fertility, and as a link between the household and its gods with the gods of the wider community.

In 415 BC, on the night when the Athenian fleet was about to set sail for Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, all of the Athenian hermai were vandalized. The Athenians at the time believed it was the work of saboteurs, either from Syracuse or from the anti-war faction within Athens itself. Socrates's pupil Alcibiades was suspected of involvement, and one of the charges eventually made against Socrates, which led to his execution 16 years later, was that he had either corrupted Alcibiades or failed to guide him away from his moral corruption.

In association with his role as a psychopomp and god who is able to cross boundaries easily, Hermes is predominantly worshipped as a messenger and often described as the messenger of the gods (since he can convey messages between the divine realms, the underworld, and the world of mortals). As a messenger and divine herald, he wears winged sandals (or, in Roman art influenced by Etruscan depictions of Turms, a winged cap).

Hermes was known as the patron god of flocks, herds, and shepherds, an attribute possibly tied to his early origin as an aspect of Pan. In Boeotia, Hermes was worshiped for saving the town from a plague by carrying a ram or calf around the city walls. A yearly festival commemorated this event, during which a lamb would be carried around the city by "the most handsome boy" and then sacrificed to purify and protect the city from disease, drought, and famine. Numerous depictions of Hermes as a shepherd god carrying a lamb on his shoulders (Hermes kriophoros) have been found throughout the Mediterranean world, and it is possible that the iconography of Hermes as "The Good Shepherd" had an influence on early Christianity, specifically in the description of Christ as "the Good Shepherd" in the Gospel of John.

The earliest written record of Hermes comes from Linear B inscriptions from Pylos, Thebes, and Knossos dating to the Bronze Age Mycenaean period. Here, Hermes's name is rendered as e-ma-a (Ἑρμάhας). This name is always recorded alongside those of several goddesses, including Potnija, Posidaeja, Diwja, Hera, Pere, and Ipemedeja, indicating that his worship was strongly connected to theirs. This is a pattern that would continue in later periods, as worship of Hermes almost always took place within temples and sanctuaries primarily dedicated to goddesses, including Hera, Demeter, Hecate, and Despoina.

In literary works of Archaic Greece, Hermes is depicted both as a protector and a trickster. In Homer's Iliad, Hermes is called "the bringer of good luck", "guide and guardian", and "excellent in all the tricks". In Hesiod's Works and Days, Hermes is depicted giving Pandora the gifts of lies, seductive words, and a dubious character.

The earliest known theological or spiritual documents concerning Hermes are found in the Homeric Hymns composed c. the 7th century BC. In Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes describes the god's birth and his theft of Apollo's sacred cattle. In this hymn, Hermes is invoked as a god "of many shifts" (polytropos), associated with cunning and thievery, but also a bringer of dreams and a night guardian. He is said to have invented the chelys lyre, as well as racing and the sport of wrestling.

The cult of Hermes flourished in Attica, and many scholars writing before the discovery of the Linear B evidence considered Hermes to be a uniquely Athenian god. This region had numerous Hermai, or pillar-like icons, dedicated to the god marking boundaries, crossroads, and entryways. These were initially stone piles, later pillars made of wood, stone, or bronze, with carved images of Hermes, a phallus, or both. In the context of these herms, by the Classical period Hermes had come to be worshiped as the patron god of travelers and sailors. By the 5th century BC, Hermai were also in common use as grave monuments, emphasizing Hermes's role as a chthonic deity and psychopomp. This was probably his original function, and he may have been a late inclusion in the Olympic pantheon; Hermes is described as the "youngest" Olympian, and some myths, including his theft of Apollo's cows, describe his initial coming into contact with celestial deities. Hermes therefore came to be worshiped as a mediator between celestial and chthonic realms, as well as the one who facilitates interactions between mortals and the divine, often being depicted on libation vessels.

Due to his mobility and his liminal nature, mediating between opposites (such as merchant/customer), he was considered the god of commerce and social intercourse, the wealth brought in business, especially sudden or unexpected enrichment, travel, roads and crossroads, borders and boundary conditions or transient, the changes from the threshold, agreements and contracts, friendship, hospitality, sexual intercourse, games, data, the draw, good luck, the sacrifices and the sacrificial animals, flocks and shepherds and the fertility of land and cattle.

In Athens, Hermes Eion came to represent the Athenian naval superiority in their defeat of the Persians, under the command of Cimon, in 475 BC. In this context, Hermes became a god associated with the Athenian empire and its expansion, and of democracy itself, as well as all of those closely associated with it, from the sailors in the navy, to the merchants who drove the economy. A section of the agora in Athens became known as the Hermai, because it was filled with a large number of herms, placed there as votive offerings by merchants and others who wished to commemorate a personal success in commerce or other public affair. The Hermai was probably destroyed in the Siege of Athens and Piraeus (87–86 BC).

There was a popular, now lost play by the tragedian Astydamas with Hermes as the primary subject.

As Greek culture and influence spread following the conquests of Alexander the Great, a period of syncretism or interpretatio graeca saw many traditional Greek deities identified with foreign counterparts. In Ptolemaic Egypt, for example, the Egyptian god Thoth was identified by Greek speakers as the Egyptian form of Hermes. The two gods were worshiped as one at the Temple of Thoth in Khemenu, a city which became known in Greek as Hermopolis. This led to Hermes gaining the attributes of a god of translation and interpretation, or more generally, a god of knowledge and learning. This is illustrated by a 3rd-century BC example of a letter sent by the priest Petosiris to King Nechopso, probably written in Alexandria c. 150 BC, stating that Hermes is the teacher of all secret wisdoms, which are accessible by the experience of religious ecstasy.

An epithet of Thoth found in the temple at Esna, "Thoth the great, the great, the great", became applied to Hermes beginning in at least 172 BC. This lent Hermes one of his most famous later titles, Hermes Trismegistus (Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος), 'thrice-greatest Hermes'. The figure of Hermes Trismegistus would later absorb a variety of other esoteric wisdom traditions and become a major component of Hermeticism, alchemy, and related traditions.

As early as the 4th century BC, Romans had adopted Hermes into their own religion, combining his attributes and worship with the earlier Etruscan god Turms under the name Mercury. According to St. Augustin, the Latin name "Mercury" may be a title derived from "medio currens", in reference to Hermes's role as a mediator and messenger who moves between worlds. Mercury became one of the most popular Roman gods, as attested by the numerous shrines and depictions in artwork found in Pompeii. In art, the Roman Mercury continued the style of depictions found in earlier representations of both Hermes and Turms, a young, beardless god with winged shoes or hat, carrying the caduceus. His role as a god of boundaries, a messenger, and a psychopomp also remained unchanged following his adoption into the Roman religion (these attributes were also similar to those in the Etruscan's worship of Turms).

The Romans identified the Germanic god Odin with Mercury, and there is evidence that Germanic peoples who had contact with Roman culture also accepted this identification. Odin and Mercury/Hermes share several attributes in common. For example, both are depicted carrying a staff and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and both are travelers or wanderers. However, the reasons for this interpretation appear to go beyond superficial similarities: Both gods are connected to the dead (Mercury as psychopomp and Odin as lord of the dead in Valhalla), both were connected to eloquent speech, and both were associated with secret knowledge. The identification of Odin as Mercury was probably also influenced by a previous association of a more Odin-like Celtic god as the "Celtic Mercurius".

A further Roman Imperial-era syncretism came in the form of Hermanubis, the result of the identification of Hermes with the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis. Hermes and Anubis were both psychopomps the primary attribute leading to their conflation as the same god. Hermanubis depicted with a human body and a jackal head, holding the caduceus. In addition to his function of guiding souls to the afterlife, Hermanubis represented the Egyptian priesthood the investigation of truth.

Beginning around the turn of the 1st century AD, a process began by which, in certain traditions Hermes became euhemerised – that is, interpreted as a historical, mortal figure who had become divine or elevated to godlike status in legend. Numerous books of wisdom and magic (including astrology, theosophy, and alchemy) were attributed to this "historical" Hermes, usually identified in his Alexandrian form of Hermes Trismegistus. As a collection, these works are referred to as the Hermetica.

Though worship of Hermes had been almost fully suppressed in the Roman Empire following the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I in the 4th century AD, Hermes continued to be recognized as a mystical or prophetic figure, though a mortal one, by Christian scholars. Early medieval Christians such as Augustine believed that a euhemerised Hermes Trismegistus had been an ancient pagan prophet who predicted the emergence of Christianity in his writings. Some Christian philosophers in the medieval and Renaissance periods believed in the existence of a "prisca theologia", a single thread of true theology that could be found uniting all religions. Christian philosophers used Hermetic writings and other ancient philosophical literature to support their belief in the prisca theologia, arguing that Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses, or that he was the third in a line of important prophets after Enoch and Noah.

The 10th-century Suda attempted to further Christianize the figure of Hermes, claiming that "He was called Trismegistus on account of his praise of the trinity, saying there is one divine nature in the trinity."

There are only three temples known to have been specifically dedicated to Hermes during the Classical Greek period, all of them in Arcadia. Though there are a few references in ancient literature to "numerous" temples of Hermes, this may be poetic license describing the ubiquitous herms, or other, smaller shrines to Hermes located in the temples of other deities. One of the oldest places of worship for Hermes was Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, where some myths say he was born. Tradition holds that his first temple was built by Lycaon. From there, the Hermes cult would have been taken to Athens, from which it radiated to the whole of Greece. In the Roman period, additional temples to Hermes (Mercury) were constructed across the Empire, including several in modern-day Tunisia. Mercury's temple in Rome was situated in the Circus Maximus, between the Aventine and Palatine hills, and was built in 495 BC.

In most places, temples were consecrated to Hermes in conjunction with Aphrodite, as in Attica, Arcadia, Crete, Samos and in Magna Graecia. Several ex-votos found in his temples revealed his role as initiator of young adulthood, among them soldiers and hunters, since war and certain forms of hunting were seen as ceremonial initiatory ordeals. This function of Hermes explains why some images in temples and other vessels show him as a teenager.

As a patron of the gym and fighting, Hermes had statues in gyms and he was also worshiped in the sanctuary of the Twelve Gods in Olympia where Greeks celebrated the Olympic Games. His statue was held there on an altar dedicated to him and Apollo together. A temple within the Aventine was consecrated in 495 BC.

Pausanias wrote that during his time, at Megalopolis people could see the ruins of the temple of Hermes Acacesius. In addition, the Tricrena (Τρίκρηνα, meaning Three Springs) mountains at Pheneus were sacred to Hermes, because three springs were there and according to the legend, Hermes was washed in them, after birth, by the nymphs of the mountain. Furthermore, at Pharae there was a water sacred to Hermes. The name of the spring was Hermes's stream and the fish in it were not caught, being considered sacred to the god.

Sacrifices to Hermes involved honey, cakes, pigs, goats, and lambs. In the city of Tanagra, it was believed that Hermes had been nursed under a wild strawberry tree, the remains of which were held there in the shrine of Hermes Promachus, and in the hills Phene ran three waterways that were sacred to him, because he was believed to have been bathed there at birth.

Hermes's feast was the Hermaia, which was celebrated with sacrifices to the god and with athletics and gymnastics, possibly having been established in the 6th century BC, but no documentation on the festival before the 4th century BC survives. However, Plato said that Socrates attended a Hermaea. Of all the festivals involving Greek games, these were the most like initiations because participation in them was restricted to young boys and excluded adults.

In Boeotia there was a fest at Tanagra, and two temples. The first of Hermes kriophoros (ram-bearer) who was related to the festival and the second of Hermes promachos (champion) At Coroneia there was a sanctuary of Hermes epimelios(keeper of the flocks) and at Corseia a grove with a statue of Hermes. In Attica Hermes was worshiped together with other gods, especially with the nymphs. Inscriptions from the islands indicate that there were festivals of Hermes at Chios and Crete, where he had the epithet dromios (of the race-course). In Corinth he had a temple and two bronze statues and at Pherai an oracular shrine and a spring of Hermes agoraios (of the market) Hermes was specially worshiped at Pheneos where he had a temple and the games "Hermaia" were celebrated.

At Pellene there was a statue of Hermes dolios and an old established race. At Kyllene the statue of Hermes was a phallos. Near Tegea there was the temple of Hermes, Aepytus. At Megalopolis there was a temple of Hermes Akakesios, and a second near a stadium for athletic games. The myth of the birth of Hermes is related to the mountain Kyllene near Pheneos and the god had the surname Kyllenios. Pindar refers to games of Hermes at Kyllene that seem to be similar to the games of Pheneos.

Abode: Mount Olympus

Planet: Mercury

Symbol:Talaria, caduceus, tortoise, lyre, rooster, Petasos (winged helmet)

Day: Wednesday (hēméra Hermoû)

Parents: Zeus and Maia

Siblings: Several paternal half-siblings

Children: Evander, Pan, Hermaphroditus, Abderus, Autolycus, Eudoros, Angelia, Myrtilus, Palaestra, Aethalides, Arabius, Astacus, Bounos, Cephalus, Cydon, Pharis, Polybus, Prylis, Saon, Ceryx

Etruscan: Turms

Roman: Mercury

Egyptian: Thoth or Anubis

Domain: boundaries, roads, travelers, merchants, thieves, athletes, shepherds, commerce, speed, cunning, language, oratory, wit, and messages

Chapter Text

Palaestinus (Ancient Greek: Παλαιστῖνος) was in Greek mythology a son of Poseidon and father of Haliacmon. From grief at the death of his son, Palaestinus threw himself into the river, which was called after him Palaestinus, and subsequently Strymon.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Enyo (/ɪˈnaɪoʊ/; Ancient Greek: Ἐνυώ, romanized: Enuṓ) is a war-goddess, frequently associated with the war-god Ares. The Romans identified her with Bellona.

Enyo is also the name of one of the Graeae, one of three grey-haired sisters who share an eye and a tooth.

Enyo is called the "sister of War" (in Greek Polemos) by Quintus Smyrnaeus, in a role closely resembling that of Eris, the embodiment of strife and discord, with Homer, in particular, representing the two as the same. In some myths, she is identified as the mother of the war god Enyalius as well, and in these myths, Ares is indicated as the father, however, the masculine name Enyalius or Enyalios also may be used as a title for Ares.

As goddess of war, Enyo is responsible for orchestrating the destruction of cities, often accompanying Ares into battle. She is depicted as "supreme in war". She is so delighted in warfare that she even refused to take sides in the battle between Zeus and the monster Typhon:

Eris (Strife) was Typhon's escort in the mellee, Nike (Victory) led Zeus into battle… impartial Enyo held equal balance between the two sides, between Zeus and Typhon, while the thunderbolts with booming shots revel like dancers in the sky.

Enyo was involved in the war of the Seven against Thebes, and in Dionysus's war with the Indians as well. During the fall of Troy, Enyo inflicted terror and bloodshed in the war, along with Eris ("Strife"), Phobos ("Fear"), and Deimos ("Dread"), the latter two being sons of Ares. She, Eris, and the two sons of Ares are depicted on the shield of Achilles.

At Thebes and Orchomenos, a festival entitled Homolôïa, which was celebrated in honour of Zeus, Demeter, Athena, and Enyo, was said to have received the surname of Homoloïus from Homoloïs, a priestess of Enyo. A statue of Enyo, made by the sons of Praxiteles, stood in the temple of Ares at Athens.

Her name might be preserved on the cornice of one of the friezes of the Gigantomachy altar, among those of fourteen others.

Chapter Text

In Greek mythology, Medusa (/mɪˈdjuːzə, -sə/; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα, romanized: Médousa, lit. 'guardian, protectress'), also called Gorgo (Ancient Greek: Γοργώ) or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her was turned to stone. Medusa and her Gorgon sisters Euryale and Stheno were usually described as daughters of Phorcys and Ceto; of the three, only Medusa was mortal.

Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity, the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.

According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. The 2nd-century BC novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth as part of their religion.

The three Gorgons—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were described by Hesiod and Apollodorus as offspring of the sea-God Phorcys and his sister Ceto; according to Hyginus, however, their parents were "Gorgon" and Ceto. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, which places both trios of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain":

Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged
With snakes for hair—hatred of mortal man.

In most versions of the story, Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus's mother. The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help. He received a mirrored shield from Athena, sandals with gold wings from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus and Hades's helm of invisibility. Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her; he did so while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon. When Perseus beheaded her, Pegasus, a winged horse, and Chrysaor, a giant wielding a golden sword, sprang from her body.

Jane Ellen Harrison argues that "her potency only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended... the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus object, a ritual mask misunderstood." In the Odyssey xi, Homer does not specifically mention the Gorgon Medusa:

Lest for my daring Persephone the dread,
From Hades should send up an awful monster's grisly head.

Harrison's translation states that "the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon."

According to Ovid, in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed Atlas into a stone when Atlas tried to attack him. In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside the shore during his short stay in Ethiopia where he saved and wed his future wife, the lovely princess Andromeda, who was the most beautiful woman in the world at that time. Furthermore, the venomous vipers of the Sahara, in the Argonautica 4.1515, Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.770 and Lucan's Pharsalia 9.820, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood. The blood of Medusa also spawned the Amphisbaena (a horned dragon-like creature with a snake-headed tail).

Perseus then flew to Seriphos, where his mother was being forced into marriage with the king, Polydectes, who was turned into stone by the head. Then Perseus gave the Gorgon's head to Athena, who placed it on her shield, the Aegis.

While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century BC began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC, Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa".

In a late version of the Medusa myth, by the Roman poet Ovid, Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Neptune (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Poseidon) mated with her in the temple of Minerva (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena), the goddess punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes. Although no earlier versions mention this, ancient depictions of Medusa as a beautiful maiden instead of a horrid monster predate Ovid. In classical Greek art, the depiction of Medusa shifted from hideous beast to an attractive young woman, both aggressor and victim, a tragic figure in her death. The earliest of those depictions comes courtesy of Polygnotus, who drew Medusa as a comely woman sleeping peacefully as Perseus beheads her. As the act of killing a beautiful maiden in her sleep is rather unheroic, it is not clear whether those vases are meant to elicit sympathy for Medusa's fate, or to mock the traditional hero.

Some classical references refer to three Gorgons; Harrison considered that the tripling of Medusa into a trio of sisters was a secondary feature in the myth:

The triple form is not primitive, it is merely an instance of a general tendency... which makes of each woman goddess a trinity, which has given us the Horae, the Charites, the Semnai, and a host of other triple groups. It is immediately obvious that the Gorgons are not really three but one + two. The two unslain sisters are mere appendages due to custom; the real Gorgon is Medusa.

Several early classics scholars interpreted the myth of Medusa as a quasi-historical – "based on or reconstructed from an event, custom, style, etc., in the past", or "sublimated" memory of an actual invasion.

According to Joseph Campbell:

The legend of Perseus beheading Medusa means, specifically, that "the Hellenes overran the goddess's chief shrines" and "stripped her priestesses of their Gorgon masks", the latter being apotropaic faces worn to frighten away the profane. That is to say, there occurred in the early thirteenth century B.C. an actual historic rupture, a sort of sociological trauma, which has been registered in this myth, much as what Freud terms the latent content of a neurosis is registered in the manifest content of a dream: registered yet hidden, registered in the unconscious yet unknown or misconstrued by the conscious mind.

In 1940, Sigmund Freud's "Das Medusenhaupt (Medusa's Head)" was published posthumously. In Freud's interpretation: "To decapitate = to castrate. The terror of Medusa is thus a terror of castration that is linked to the sight of something. Numerous analyses have made us familiar with the occasion for this: it occurs when a boy, who has hitherto been unwilling to believe the threat of castration, catches sight of the female genitals, probably those of an adult, surrounded by hair, and essentially those of his mother." In this perspective the "ravishingly beautiful" Medusa (see above) is the mother remembered in innocence; before the mythic truth of castration dawns on the subject. Classic Medusa, in contrast, is an Oedipal/libidinous symptom. Looking at the forbidden mother (in her hair-covered genitals, so to speak) stiffens the subject in illicit desire and freezes him in terror of the Father's retribution. There are no recorded instances of Medusa turning a woman to stone.

Archetypal literary criticism continues to find psychoanalysis useful. Beth Seelig chooses to interpret Medusa's punishment as resulting from rape rather than the common interpretation of having willingly consented in Athena's temple, as an outcome of the goddess' unresolved conflicts with her own father Zeus.

In the 20th century, feminists reassessed Medusa's appearances in literature and in modern culture, including the use of Medusa as a logo by fashion company Versace. The name "Medusa" itself is often used in ways not directly connected to the mythological figure but to suggest the gorgon's abilities or to connote malevolence; despite her claimed origins as a beauty, the name in common usage "came to mean monster." The book Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power by Mary Valentis and Anne Devane notes that "When we asked women what female rage looks like to them, it was always Medusa, the snaky-haired monster of myth, who came to mind ... In one interview after another we were told that Medusa is 'the most horrific woman in the world' ... [though] none of the women we interviewed could remember the details of the myth."

Medusa's visage has since been adopted by many women as a symbol of female rage; one of the first publications to express this idea was a feminist journal called Women: A Journal of Liberation in their issue one, volume six for 1978. The cover featured the image of the Gorgon Medusa by Froggi Lupton, which the editors on the inside cover explained "can be a map to guide us through our terrors, through the depths of our anger into the sources of our power as women."

In issue three, Fall 1986 for the magazine Woman of Power an article called Gorgons: A Face for Contemporary Women's Rage, appeared, written by Emily Erwin Culpepper, who wrote that "The Amazon Gorgon face is female fury personified. The Gorgon/Medusa image has been rapidly adopted by large numbers of feminists who recognize her as one face of our own rage." Griselda Pollock analyses the passage from horrorism to compassion in the figure of the Medusa through Adriana Cavarero's philosophy and Bracha Ettinger's art and Matrixial theory.

Elana Dykewomon's 1976 collection of lesbian stories and poems, They Will Know Me by My Teeth, features a drawing of a Gorgon on its cover. Its purpose was to act as a guardian for female power, keeping the book solely in the hands of women. Stephen Wilk, author of Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon, questioned Medusa's enduring status among the feminist movement. He believes that one reason for her longevity may be her role as a protector, fearsome and enraged. "Only the Gorgon has the savage, threatening appearance to serve as an immediately recognized symbol of rage and a protector of women's secrets," wrote Wilk.

Even in contemporary pop culture, Medusa has become largely synonymous with feminine rage. Through many of her iterations, Medusa pushes back against a story that seeks to place the male, Perseus, at its center, blameless and heroic. Author Sibylle Baumbach described Medusa as a "multimodal image of intoxication, petrifaction, and luring attractiveness", citing her seductive contemporary representation, as well as her dimensionality, as the reason for her longevity.

Elizabeth Johnston's November 2016 Atlantic essay called Medusa the original 'Nasty Woman.' Johnston goes on to say that as Medusa has been repeatedly compared to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, she proves her merit as an icon, finding relevance even in modern politics. "Medusa has since haunted Western imagination, materializing whenever male authority feels threatened by female agency," writes Johnston. Beyond that, Medusa's story is, Johnston argues, a rape narrative. A story of victim blaming, one that she says sounds all too familiar in a current American context.

Medusa is widely known as a monstrous creature with snakes in her hair whose gaze turns men to stone. Through the lens of theology, film, art, and feminist literature, my students and I map how her meaning has shifted over time and across cultures. In so doing, we unravel a familiar narrative thread: In Western culture, strong women have historically been imagined as threats requiring male conquest and control, and Medusa herself has long been the go-to figure for those seeking to demonize female authority.

— Elizabeth Johnston

The Medusa story has also been interpreted in contemporary art as a classic case of rape-victim blaming, by the goddess Athena. Inspired by the #metoo movement, contemporary figurative artist Judy Takács returns Medusa's beauty along with a hashtag stigma in her portrait, #Me(dusa)too.

Feminist theorist Hélène Cixous famously tackled the myth in her essay "The Laugh of the Medusa." She argues that men's retelling of the narrative turned Medusa into a monster because they feared female desire. "The Laugh of the Medusa" is largely a call to arms, urging women to reclaim their identity through writing as she rejects the patriarchal society of Western culture. Cixous calls writing "an act which will not only 'realize' the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal." She claims "we must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing. Inscribe the breath of the whole woman." Cixous wants to destroy the phallogocentric system, and to empower women's bodies and language. "You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her," writes Cixous. "And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing."

Medusa has sometimes appeared as representing notions of scientific determinism and nihilism, especially in contrast with romantic idealism. In this interpretation of Medusa, attempts to avoid looking into her eyes represent avoiding the ostensibly depressing reality that the universe is meaningless. Jack London uses Medusa in this way in his novel The Mutiny of the Elsinore: I cannot help remembering a remark of De Casseres. It was over the wine in Mouquin's. Said he: "The profoundest instinct in man is to war against the truth; that is, against the Real. He shuns facts from his infancy. His life is a perpetual evasion. Miracle, chimera and to-morrow keep him alive. He lives on fiction and myth. It is the Lie that makes him free. Animals alone are given the privilege of lifting the veil of Isis; men dare not. The animal, awake, has no fictional escape from the Real because he has no imagination. Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie."

— Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore

Parents: Phorcys and Ceto

Siblings: The Hesperides, Stheno, Euryale, The Graeae, Thoosa, Scylla, and Ladon

Consort: Poseidon

Children: Pegasus and Chrysaor