ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE
MYTHOLOGY
»Aphrodite (Venus) Goddess of love and beauty. The curvy lady of the shell
was said to have been born whole on the waves. When she wasn’t cuckolding her
unfortunate husband, Hephaestus, she and her cherubic son Eros (Cupid) were
enflaming hearts and causing trouble (cue the Trojan War).
»ApolloGod of music, the arts and fortune-telling, Apollo was also the god of
light and an expert shot with a bow and arrow. It was his steady hand which guided
Paris’ arrow towards Achilles’ only weak spot – his heel – thus killing him.
»Artemis (Diana) The goddess of the hunt and twin sister of Apollo was,
ironically, patron saint of wild animals. By turns spiteful and magnanimous, she
was closely associated with the sinister Hecate, patroness of witchcraft.
»Ares (Mars)God of war. Zeus’ least favourite of his progeny. Not surprisingly,
Ares was worshipped by the bellicose Spartans and may today have felt at home
among soccer hooligans.
»Hermes (Mercury) Messenger of the gods, patron saint of travellers, the
handsome one with a winged hat and sandals. He was always on hand to smooth
over the affairs of Zeus, his father.
»Hephaestus (Vulcan)God of craftsmanship, metallurgy and fire, this deformed
and oft derided son of Zeus made the world’s first woman of clay, Pandora, as a
punishment for man. Inside that box of hers were the evils of mankind.
»Hestia (Vest a)Goddess of the hearth, she protected state fires in city halls
from where citizens of Greece could light their brands. She remained unmarried,
inviolate.The Myths, the Myths!
Some of the greatest stories of all time – and some say the wellspring of
story itself – are to be found in the Greek myths; even today contempo-
rary writers reinterpret them for children’s books and fi lms. Here are a
few of the most famous heroes and their stories to refresh your memory,
but this is only the start of that rich, fantastical tapestry, that stretches
all the way from the mists of Mt Olympus down to the farthest reaches
of Hades.HERACLES (HERCULES)
The most celebrated, endearing hero of ancient Greece. The bearded one
was set 12 labours of penitence for mistakenly killing his family (Hera
blinded him with madness). These included slaying the Nemean Lion
and the Lernian Hydra; capturing the Ceryneian Hind and the Eryman-
thian Boar; cleaning the Augean Stables in one day; slaying the Stym-
phalian Birds; capturing the Cretan Bull; stealing the man-eating Mares
of Diomedes; obtaining the Girdle of Hippolyta and the oxen of Geryon;
stealing the Apples of the Hesperides; and capturing Cerberus (see p 736 ).THESEUS
The Athenian hero volunteered himself as a one of seven men and maid-
ens in the annual sacrifi ce to the Minotaur (p 736 ), the crazed half-bull-
half-man off spring of King Minos of Crete. Once inside its forbidding
labyrinth (from which none had returned) Theseus, aided by Princess
Ariadne (who had a crush on him courtesy of Aphrodite’s dart), loosened
a spool of thread to fi nd his way out once he’d killed the monster. (Daeda-
lus is said to be the legendary architect of King Minos’ Cretan labyrinth,
the Palace of Knossos (see the colour section, p 454 ).ICARUS
Along with Deadalus (his father and a brilliant inventor), Icarus fl ew off
the cliff s of Crete pursued by King Minos and his troops. Using wings
made of feathers and wax, his father instructed him to fl y away from the
midday sun. Boys will be boys, Icarus thinks he’s Jonathan LivingstonH e r aAthenaPoseidon