Curated category
Metamorphoses characters
- 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…
- HeraHera is the goddess of marriage, women, and family in ancient Greek religion, and the protector of women during childbirth.
- AphroditeAphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love, has two birth stories that contradict each other, and the people who told them knew it.
- Jupiter (god)Jupiter, king of the Roman gods, takes his name from two ancient words: the Proto-Italic djous, meaning "day" or "sky," and pater, meaning "father." Sky…
- ArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated goddesses in the ancient Greek world, and she contained contradictions that still puzzle scholars today.
- Juno (mythology)Juno stands at the center of Roman state religion as both the special counsellor of Rome and the queen its people called Regina.
- DemeterDemeter once let everything on earth die. Not through carelessness or neglect, but through a grief so total that crops withered, harvests failed, and mortals…
- Mercury (mythology)Mercury stands at a crossroads that no map can show: the boundary between the living and the dead, between buyer and seller, between the world of gods and…
- CoeusLatona, that Titaness whom Coeus sired, whoever he may be. Ovid in Metamorphoses VI.185 poses this question about a figure who played no active part in Greek…
- ApolloApollo carries more names than any other Olympian. He is the archer god, the healer, the prophet, the musician, the shepherd's patron, the founder of cities…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- AthenaAthena leaped from the forehead of her father Zeus, fully grown and armed, and the gods stood awestruck. Helios, the god of the sun, stopped his chariot in…
- Mars (mythology)Mars, the Roman god of war, was not simply a deity of battle. He was also a guardian of crops, a father of the Roman people, and a protector whose sacred…
- 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…
- HephaestusHephaestus refused to come home. The Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, and fire had been thrown out of heaven by his own mother, Hera, and his answer was…
- 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…
- MedusaMedusa is a figure so potent that her name alone has come to mean monster in common usage, even as the details of her story are largely forgotten.
- ThetisThetis is a figure from Greek mythology whose power ran deeper than most mortals, or even gods, ever understood. She was one of the fifty Nereids, daughters…
- 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…
- MedeaMedea, daughter of King Aeetes of Colchis, first appears in Hesiod's Theogony around 700 BC. She carries a lineage that traces back to Helios, the sun god…
- 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…
- PersephonePersephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, holds two thrones in ancient Greek mythology: one in the sunlit world of the living, and one in the darkness…
- AresAres, the Greek god of war, was one of the most feared and least loved of the Twelve Olympians. Son of Zeus and Hera, he embodied something that made even…
- 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.
- EosEos, the Greek goddess of the dawn, rose every morning from the edge of the river Oceanus and scattered light across the sky before her brother Helios, the…
- IphigeniaThe name Iphigenia means strong-born or born to strength. Ancient lexicons define it as she who causes the birth of strong offspring.
- Tethys (mythology)In the ancient Greek cosmos, Tethys emerged as one of the Titans, the children born from the union of Uranus and Gaia. Hesiod lists her among twelve siblings…
- DeucalionIn the shadowed halls of ancient genealogies, a young man named Deucalion stood as son to Prometheus. Ancient sources name his mother variously as Clymene…
- 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…
- ErinyesThe Erinyes live in Erebus, older than any Olympian god, and their job is to make sure no oath goes unpunished. A formulaic curse in the Iliad names them…
- HeliosThe word helios comes from a Proto-Indo-European root that ancient scholars trace back to the dawn of language itself. Walter Burkert noted in his 1985 book…
- PasiphaëPasiphaë was the queen of Crete, a daughter of the sun god Helios, and one of the most unsettling figures in all of Greek mythology.
- Iris (mythology)The ancient Greek noun for rainbow also meant the halo of the Moon. An inscription from Corinth reveals an original form with a digamma that eventually…
- IxionIxion ruled the ancient tribe of Thessaly known as the Lapiths. His lineage traces back to Perimele and either Ares, Leonteus, Antion, or Phlegyas.
- OceanusOceanus once heard himself mocked by his own kin: "How did you summon courage to quit the stream that bears your name and the rock-roofed caves you yourself…
- CadmusCadmus, the legendary Phoenician prince credited with founding Thebes, carried something far more consequential than a royal title: the alphabet.
- CybeleA corpulent female figure sits flanked by large felines on a stone slab from Çatalhöyük, dated to the 6th millennium BC.
- AlcmeneAlcmene, whose name in Greek means "strong in wrath," is one of the most remarkable mortal women in all of Greek mythology.
- AdonisThe name Adonis comes from a Canaanite word meaning lord. This single term connects the Greek god to ancient Near Eastern traditions stretching back…
- CassandraApollo stood before the young princess of Troy and offered her a choice. She could have the gift of true prophecy, but only if she promised to be his lover.
- 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.
- 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.
- MnemosyneMnemosyne was a Titaness in Greek mythology, and her name comes directly from the Greek word mnēmē, meaning remembrance or memory.
- 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…