Curated playlist
Greek underworld
- DemeterGrief over her stolen daughter made the goddess Demeter let crops wither and mortals starve.
- HadesBy around the 5th century BC, the Greeks had largely stopped saying Hades's name aloud.
- DionysusZeus sewed the unborn Dionysus into his thigh after the child's mother died. That is why Dionysus is called twice-born.
- HermesOn his first day of life, the Greek god Hermes stole Apollo's cattle. He also invented the lyre by nightfall.
- CerberusOne ancient Greek writer said Cerberus was not a dog at all, but a large venomous snake.
- PersephonePersephone was gathering flowers when Hades burst through the earth and carried her off.
- StyxThe name Styx means Shuddering, and the Greeks gave it to both a goddess and a river of the Underworld. Few figures in mythology were a person and a place at the same time. Why would the rulers of Olympus bind their promises to a stream?…
- TartarusIn Hesiod's Theogony, Tartarus was a god as well as a pit. It ranked third among the first gods.
- ErinyesIn Aeschylus's Oresteia, Athens put a man on trial for killing his mother. The Erinyes accused him.
- HecateIn the 1st century CE, Ovid wrote of Hecate: "Look at Hecate, standing guard at the crossroads, one face looking in each direction." Hecate belonged to ancient Greek religion and mythology. Artists usually showed her with torches, a key,…
- Chaos (cosmogony)The English word gas comes from the ancient Greek idea of chaos. A Dutch chemist coined it in the 17th century.