Curated category
Greek mythological heroes
- Menelaus"Of moderate stature, auburn-haired, and handsome," with "a pleasing personality": that is how the writer Dares the Phrygian once described Menelaus, a king…
- OdysseusOdysseus, the legendary king of Ithaca, spent ten years trying to get home after a war that had already lasted a decade.
- AeneasAeneas was twice pulled back from death by gods who would not let him die. In Homer's Iliad, Aphrodite and Apollo snatch him from a duel with Diomedes of…
- HectorHector, prince of Troy, stands at the center of one of the oldest stories in Western literature. In Homer's Iliad, he leads the Trojan army against the…
- AchillesAchilles, the central figure of Homer's Iliad, carried a name that meant something like 'he who has the people distressed' - a striking label for a warrior…
- TheseusTheseus, the legendary hero of Athens, walked into a labyrinth armed with nothing but a hidden sword and a ball of thread.
- OrestesThe Greek name Orestes derives from two ancient words. The first word means mountain. The second word means to stand. Ancient scholars believed the combined…
- PerseusPerseus, the legendary founder of Mycenae and slayer of the Gorgon Medusa, occupies a place in Greek myth unlike almost any other hero.
- OedipusOedipus, the mythical king of Thebes, stands at the center of one of the most harrowing stories ever told. He killed his father without knowing it.
- TriptolemusA young boy named Triptolemus lay sick in the palace of Eleusis. Demeter, disguised as an old woman named Doso, found him weak and dying.
- AgamemnonAgamemnon, king of Mycenae, led the greatest military coalition the ancient Greek world had ever seen to the shores of Troy.
- JasonJason, the Greek mythological hero at the center of one of antiquity's great adventure stories, arrives in the city of Iolcus wearing only one sandal.
- BellerophonBellerophon was ranked among the greatest heroes of ancient Greek mythology, placed alongside Cadmus and Perseus as one of "the greatest hero and slayer of…
- HeraclesHeracles, born Alcaeus and later known to Rome as Hercules, is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Alcmene. His birth alone was the product of divine…
- IphigeniaThe name Iphigenia means strong-born or born to strength. Ancient lexicons define it as she who causes the birth of strong offspring.
- PatroclusIn the quiet town of Opus, a young boy named Patroclus stood over the body of his playmate Clysonymus. The game of dice had turned deadly when Patroclus…
- DiomedesA young boy named Diomedes stood four years old when his father Tydeus died in the battle against Thebes. His grandfather Oeneus ruled Calydon, but Tydeus…
- OrpheusOrpheus was a Thracian bard whose music, the ancient Greeks believed, could move rivers from their courses and coax rocks into dance.
- CadmusCadmus, the legendary Phoenician prince credited with founding Thebes, carried something far more consequential than a royal title: the alphabet.
- MeleagerA Calydonian prince named Meleager stood at the center of a family tree that ancient sources could not agree upon. Apollodorus records him as the son of…
- Seven against ThebesSeven against Thebes: the name alone carries the weight of a doomed expedition. Seven champions, chosen by Adrastus the king of Argos, marched on a walled…
- TelephusIn the Louvre, a marble statue from the mid second century AD shows Heracles holding an infant named Telephus alongside a deer.
- MemnonMemnon, the king of Aethiopia, arrived at Troy with an army so vast that ancient sources described it as too large to be counted. He was no ordinary ally.
- AtalantaAtalanta is a heroine from Greek mythology who was left on a mountain to die as a newborn, raised by a bear and hunters in the wild, fought monsters with her…