All about history book of myths and legends. ( PDFDrive )

THE GOLDEN AGE During the Golden Age, the world was ruled by Cronus (known to the Romans as Saturn). It was a time of peace and ...

Athenians but also to those with whom they traded – so the tree could both nourish the people of Athens and make them rich. They ...

POSEIDON AND ODYSSEUS Homer’s Odyssey describes the return of the tragic hero Odysseus from Troy to Ithaca as a series of mishap ...

The god of wine, Dionysus was an anarchic figure who presided over drunkenness and other irrational or altered states, such as r ...

THE WINE-DARK SEA As he travelled around the Mediterranean, Dionysus told those who met and followed him how to harvest the grap ...

A powerful war goddess, Athena was usually depicted with her shield or protective cloak, known as the aegis. She was also a patr ...

ATHENA Arachne turning into a spider Athena took pity on Arachne and turned her into a spider, so that she could go on spinning ...

The goddess of love Usually depicted as a beautiful young woman, Aphrodite is often shown naked. Because she represented physica ...

APHRODITE’S BIRTH Aphrodite is said to be the daughter of the Titan Uranus. Gaia and Uranus had many children, including the Cyc ...

The Greeks had many goddesses who played a variety of roles in their mythology. Some were primal, shadowy figures, such as Gaia ...

ARTEMIS The goddess Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo and the daughter of Leto and Zeus. She was the patroness of hunting, a ...

The hero Orpheus was famed for two major qualities. The first was his remarkable musicianship, which, according to some, he had ...

ORPHEUS AND HIS MUSIC The beguiling beauty of Orpheus’s music was famous. It was said that when he played his lyre or sang, rive ...

The hero Heracles, renowned for his great strength, was the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus’s wife, Hera, was jea ...

THE MONSTERS OF GREECE Like other Greek heroes, such as Perseus, Heracles was tested during confrontations with numerous creatur ...

In the middle of the labyrinth, Theseus confronted the beast and killed it with a blow from his father’s golden sword. He then r ...

THE LABYRINTH King Minos ordered the building of the labyrinth as a prison for the Minotaur. He entrusted the design of the laby ...

Like most Greek heroes, Bellerophon was given a seemingly impossible task – killing a monster called the Chimaera. With divine a ...

BELLEROPHON AND PEGASUS OVERREACHERS In Classical mythology there is a clear hierarchy, with gods at the top, mortals below, and ...

Perseus – one of the greatest Greek heroes – was the son of Zeus and Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius, the King of Argos. An orac ...