Curated playlist
Deities in the Iliad
- ZeusZeus was hidden in a cave as a baby so his father could not swallow him. Rhea gave Cronus a wrapped stone instead.
- HeraThe Greek goddess Hera renewed her virginity every year in a spring near Nauplia. The rites were not to be spoken of.
- AphroditeAphrodite has two birth stories that contradict each other. One makes her Zeus's daughter, the other has no mother.
- ArtemisNo ancient Greek records describe the goddess Artemis as a moon deity. Romans linked her to the moon through Diana.
- DemeterGrief over her stolen daughter made the goddess Demeter let crops wither and mortals starve.
- ApolloApollo killed the serpent Python with a single arrow at Delphi. Then he had to be purified for the blood crime.
- HadesBy around the 5th century BC, the Greeks had largely stopped saying Hades's name aloud.
- PoseidonThe oldest records of Poseidon do not show a sea god at all. Bronze Age tablets from Pylos call him "earth shaker."
- AthenaThe Greek goddess Athena won Athens by offering the first olive tree. Poseidon's gift was a spring of salty water.
- DionysusZeus sewed the unborn Dionysus into his thigh after the child's mother died. That is why Dionysus is called twice-born.
- NyxNyx is the Greek goddess who personifies the night, and in Homer's Iliad even Zeus, king of the gods, is said to be in awe of displeasing her. The Romans called her Nox, which also means Night. Poets placed her among the very first beings…
- HephaestusHephaestus answered being thrown out of heaven by forging his mother a golden throne.
- Rhea (mythology)Rhea tricked her husband Cronus into swallowing a stone instead of their baby. The real baby was hidden on Crete.
- ThetisAn early Spartan hymn by Alcman calls Thetis the creator of the universe. Later myths made her Achilles's mother.
- HermesOn his first day of life, the Greek god Hermes stole Apollo's cattle. He also invented the lyre by nightfall.
- CronusCronus swallowed five of his own children to avoid a prophecy. Rhea saved the sixth, Zeus, by handing him a stone.
- AresZeus called his own son Ares, the war god, the most hateful of all the gods on Olympus.
- ThemisAphrodite asked the goddess Themis why her son Eros would not grow. Themis said he was lonely and needed a brother.
- EosEos got her lover Tithonus immortality but forgot eternal youth. In the end she turned him into a cicada.
- Tethys (mythology)Hesiod counted three thousand river gods, and another three thousand Oceanids, among the children of the Titan Tethys. In his telling, three thousand simply means too many to count. Yet the mother of this vast family has almost no story of…
- ErinyesIn Aeschylus's Oresteia, Athens put a man on trial for killing his mother. The Erinyes accused him.
- Eris (mythology)Eris, the Greek goddess of strife, plants herself beside the ship of Odysseus and lets out a scream. In Book 11 of the Iliad, Zeus sends her to the Achaean camp carrying a portent of war. Odysseus's black ship sits in the middle of the…
- HeliosHeracles once aimed his bow at Helios, the Greek sun god, for scorching him. Helios then lent him a golden cup.
- Iris (mythology)Iris, the Greek personification of the rainbow, has no temple, no shrine and no festival that anyone can name. Yet she turns up everywhere in ancient storytelling. She appears in epic poems, in tragedies, and even in a comedy about birds…
- OceanusOceanus, a Titan, rode a winged steed to visit his chained nephew Prometheus. Prometheus mocked him anyway.