Curated playlist
Mythological rapists
- ZeusZeus was hidden in a cave as a baby so his father could not swallow him. Rhea gave Cronus a wrapped stone instead.
- Jupiter (god)Rome's high priest of Jupiter could not swear an oath. He also could not ride a horse or touch raw meat.
- OdinOdin hung himself from a tree for nine nights to win secret knowledge. The Norse god also gave up an eye for wisdom.
- FreyrThe Norse god Freyr gave away the one sword that could have saved him. He traded it to win a giantess as his wife.
- ApolloApollo killed the serpent Python with a single arrow at Delphi. Then he had to be purified for the blood crime.
- HadesBy around the 5th century BC, the Greeks had largely stopped saying Hades's name aloud.
- PoseidonThe oldest records of Poseidon do not show a sea god at all. Bronze Age tablets from Pylos call him "earth shaker."
- Mars (mythology)Mars, the Roman god of war, also guarded crops and cattle. Farmers asked him to drive off "rust" from the harvest.
- DionysusZeus sewed the unborn Dionysus into his thigh after the child's mother died. That is why Dionysus is called twice-born.
- HephaestusHephaestus answered being thrown out of heaven by forging his mother a golden throne.
- AchillesAchilles's famous weak heel is not in Homer's Iliad. In Book 21, a thrown spear draws blood from his elbow.
- HermesOn his first day of life, the Greek god Hermes stole Apollo's cattle. He also invented the lyre by nightfall.
- Neptune (mythology)Neptune's Roman festival fell in the worst summer heat, not at sea. Romans drank spring water and wine in shelters.
- LaiusLaius, king of Thebes, is a key personage in the Theban founding myth, and his story ends on a road he never finished travelling. Greek tradition remembers him less for what he ruled than for what he was told. A voice at Delphi gave him a…
- Sextus TarquiniusSextus Tarquinius entered a woman's chamber with a drawn sword, and Rome lost its kings.
- ThyestesThe phrase "Thyestean feast" describes a meal at which human flesh is served. It comes from Thyestes, a king of Olympia in Greek mythology, and from the worst dinner of his life. His family tree reads like a chain of crimes, each one…
- GebAncient Egyptians said the earth god Geb laughed earthquakes into existence.