Skip to content
Curated category

LGBTQ themes 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…
  • 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…
  • DionysusDionysus stands as one of the most paradoxical figures in all of ancient Greek religion: the god who frees his followers from fear and self-consciousness…
  • ErosEros, the Greek god of love and sex, has been worshipped, argued over, and reimagined for roughly three thousand years, and the figure most people picture…
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • HermesHermes is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion, and his story begins in a cave on Mount Cyllene, in the dead of night, where Zeus secretly made love…
  • AgamemnonAgamemnon, king of Mycenae, led the greatest military coalition the ancient Greek world had ever seen to the shores of Troy.
  • 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…
  • LaiusThe year 320 to 310 BC captures a moment frozen in clay on an Apulian red-figure hydria. This ancient vessel depicts King Laius of Thebes carrying off the…
  • 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…
  • OrpheusOrpheus was a Thracian bard whose music, the ancient Greeks believed, could move rivers from their courses and coax rocks into dance.
  • MarsyasA young satyr named Marsyas stood near the river Meander in Phrygia. He found a double reed instrument called an aulos lying on the ground.