Curated playlist
Kings in Greek mythology
- ZeusZeus is the supreme deity of the Greek pantheon, and yet even the gods rise from their seats when he enters the room. That detail, preserved in ancient sources, says everything about the order of things on Mount Olympus. He is the king who…
- PriamPriam, the last king of Troy, kissed the hands of the man who killed his son. That act, described in book XXIV of Homer's Iliad, stands as one of the most shattering moments in all of Greek mythology. An elderly king, around eighty years…
- OdysseusOdysseus, the legendary king of Ithaca, spent ten years trying to get home after a war that had already lasted a decade. By the time he arrived, his wife had been fending off suitors for years, his son was grown, and the only creature to…
- HadesHades is the god of the dead and the King of the underworld in ancient Greek religion and mythology. His name became so feared that by around the 5th century BC, the Greeks had largely stopped saying it aloud, pressing euphemisms into…
- PoseidonPoseidon is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, a god of such terrifying breadth that sailors prayed to him for safe passage while farmers credited him with the growth of their crops. He ruled the sea,…
- 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. He married his mother without knowing it. And when the truth finally surfaced, he tore out…
- CeleusIn the ancient city of Eleusis, King Celeus welcomed a weary old woman named Doso into his home. This stranger was actually Demeter, goddess of the harvest, searching for her lost daughter. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter records this meeting…
- CronusCronus, leader of the Titans and ruler of the mythological Golden Age, was the deity Greeks credited with bringing the harvest and feared for devouring his own children. He overthrew his father Uranus by castrating him with a stone sickle,…
- Uranus (mythology)Uranus is one of the oldest divine figures in Greek religion, a being so ancient and so vast that he was not a god who ruled the sky but the sky itself. In Hesiod's Theogony, the foundational text that Greeks came to treat as the standard…
- 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 monsters" before the days of Heracles. He rode a winged horse, killed a…
- AtreusTantalus, son of Zeus and the maiden Pluto, sat at a dinner table with gods who understood his crime. He had slain his own son Pelops to test their omniscience. Most deities refused the meat, appalled by its nature. Demeter ate unknowingly…
- AnchisesAphrodite descended to the hills of Mount Ida while Anchises herded his cattle. The mortal man possessed beauty that rivaled an immortal god. She bathed in Cyprus before returning to the Troad disguised as a Phrygian princess. Hermes had…
- 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 had been exiled for killing relatives before finding refuge at Argos. King Adrastus…
- ThyestesPelops and Hippodamia gave birth to Thyestes in the city of Olympia. Their union carried a heavy burden from the moment Myrtilus died. The servant of King Oenomaus had been promised half the kingdom and the bride's virginity after Pelops…
- TlepolemusTlepolemus, son of Heracles, killed an aged man named Licymnius, and the myth never settled on why. One account held it was an accident. Another said the blow was deliberate, driven by anger. That killing sent him into exile, onto a new…
- CadmusCadmus, the legendary Phoenician prince credited with founding Thebes, carried something far more consequential than a royal title: the alphabet. The ancient historian Herodotus credited him with introducing Phoenician letters to the…
- TantalusTantalus stands in a pool of water, chin-deep, beneath boughs heavy with fruit. Every time he reaches upward, the branches pull away. Every time he bends to drink, the water drains beneath him. This image, drawn from the Odyssey, the…
- TelephusTelephus, son of Heracles and king of the Mysian land of Teuthrania, spent years with a wound that refused to heal. An oracle gave him the only route to a cure, and that route led him into the center of the enemy camp. His name became…
- 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. He was the son of Eos, goddess of the dawn, and Tithonus, a mortal man once carried…
- PentheusPentheus, king of Thebes in Greek mythology, met his end at the hands of his own mother. She carried his severed head on a stick back to the city, convinced she had killed a wild animal. Only when she met her father Cadmus did the…
- SisyphusSisyphus, the founder and king of Ephyra, now known as Corinth, is one of the most recognizable figures in all of Greek mythology. Not for his power, not for his victories, but for a single, unending action: pushing an immense boulder up a…
- Nestor (mythology)Nestor of Gerenia, legendary king of Pylos, survives in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as a voice that never stops. Dares the Phrygian described him as large, broad and fair, with a long hooked nose and the bearing of a wise adviser. Beyond…