Demigods and Monsters (26 page)

Volcano in eastern Sicily. Mount Etna was the highest volcano known to the Greeks. Reaching almost 11,000 feet, it is snow-capped much of the year. It is also frequently volcanically active, although its damage does not usually spread far. In its fiery depths Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, was said to have his main furnace, where he hammered away at his magical forge with the assistance of
one-eyed giant Cyclopes. The philosopher and magus Empedocles met his death by throwing himself into Etna's molten mouth.

Highest mountain in Greece. Rising to 9,677 feet, Mount Olympus' peaks are often shrouded in clouds or covered in snow. This led the early Greeks to consider the mountain the home of their main deities, the twelve “Olympian” gods. (Only Hades, lord of the Underworld, shunned it, preferring his own gloomy realm.) Life in the palaces built by Hephaestus on Olympus was splendid. At their great banquets the gods drank ambrosia, their divine liquor, served by Ganymede, their beautiful cupbearer, while Apollo played the lyre and the Muses sang. Mortals and demigods were permitted to visit occasionally, but Olympus was no heaven in a Christian sense; the spirits of dead humans descended to Hades' Underworld.

Mountain in north-central Greece. Mount Othrys was seized by the Titans in the war that they fought against Zeus and his brother gods, the Titanomachia. But Zeus had already occupied the far grander peak of Mount Olympus; Mount Othrys is only 5,610 feet high.

Nymphs who lived in fresh water, especially in streams and brooks. Like other nymphs, they were generally benevolent and were often worshipped by human beings. Though not always immortal, they had very long lives, and remained always young and beautiful.

Enormous lion that terrorized the area around Nemea. The Nemean Lion's hide was so thick that normal weapons—arrows, swords, clubs—were useless against it. Killing it was the first of the Twelve Labors performed by Hercules, and he finally succeeded by closing in and sticking his arm down the creature's throat to choke it to death. He then tried to skin it, but was unable to do so until the goddess Athena showed him how: by using the lion's own savage claws. Wearing the lion's hide made Hercules almost invincible.

Fifty sea nymphs, or mermaids, daughters of the sea nymph Doris and Nereus, the old man of the sea. The Nereids lived in the depths of the ocean, and loved to play amid the waves. Three Nereids were brought up by Aphrodite, the goddess of love: Acis, Arethusa, and Thetis, all of whom were golden-haired and beautiful. Thetis was especially attractive. She caught the eyes of mortals and gods, and was desired by both Zeus and his brother Poseidon. To avoid family quarrels, Zeus arranged for the (human) king of Thessaly, Peleus, to marry her. Thetis disliked Peleus, however, and tried to escape him. From their unhappy union was born the hero Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Trojan War.

Minor sea god renowned for his wisdom and prophetic powers and known as the “old man of the sea.” Nereus lived in the ocean's depths, but surfaced at times to help shipwrecked sailors. His daughters with the sea nymph Doris were known as the Nereids.

Minor female divinities personifying aspects of wild nature. They came in many different guises: Dryads and hamadryads were tree nymphs; lemoniads were meadow nymphs; oreads were mountain nymphs; naiads were fresh water nymphs; Nereids and oceanids were sea nymphs. All were beautiful and forever young, and so loved by both men and gods. (The Greek word
nymphe
also meant unmarried young woman.) Nymphs themselves also sometimes fell in love with mortals, occasionally abducting especially handsome boys. Nymphs often accompanied gods such as Dionysus, Pan, Artemis, and Apollo, while satyrs pursued them ardently if not always with success. Nymphs were often worshipped by mortals, and they could grant humans minor favors such as helping the sick and guiding lost hunters.

Titan, and the all-encompassing
Ocean
. This was a great freshwater river rather than a sea that, according to early Greek geography, encircled the whole inhabited Earth beyond the east and west, and fed all the Earth's rivers through subterranean sources. As a god, Oceanus was considered to be the son of Ouranos (the sky) and Gaia (the earth), the two primeval deities. He was the father of the oceanids, sea nymphs, and was considered a great, mainly benevolent cosmic force, essential for maintaining the Earth's natural life by renewing the rivers and streams.

King of Ithaca, a tiny island. Odysseus is the focus of Homer's second grand poem,
The Odyssey
, which relates Odysseus' adventures on his long way home from the Trojan War (the real distance from
Troy to Ithaca is small but the legendary distance is vast). The poem opens with Odysseus still held captive by Calypso, a bewitching nymph, after ten years. Released on Zeus' orders, he set out with his companions on an epic journey. On the way he encountered Cyclopes, one-eyed man-eating monsters; sailed past Sirens, whose songs lured sailors to their death; outwitted the witch Circe, who turned men into pigs; and visited the Underworld. A colorful, wily hero, he survived more by his wits than his strength. Finally shipwrecked, with all his crew drowned, Odysseus reached the land of the Phaecians. There the beautiful princess Nausicaa found and befriended him, and introduced him to the king. The Phaecians listened to his tales, gave him gifts, and sent him back to Ithaca. But his adventures did not end when his ship touched his native shores, for in his twenty-year absence his faithful wife Penelope had been pestered by suitors. Thinking Odysseus dead, they wanted to marry her and gain the kingdom. In disguise, Odysseus returned to his palace to take revenge—by killing all the suitors with a great bow that he alone had the strength to draw. Then at last he and Penelope were reunited in the great marriage bed he had made long ago.

Second of Homer's great epic poems.
The Odyssey
relates the adventures of Odysseus on his long way home from the Trojan War to Ithaca.

Son of Laius, king of Thebes. To avert a prophecy that his son would kill him, Laius ordered a shepherd to expose baby Oedipus on a mountainside. But the shepherd saved Oedipus, who was brought up by the king of Corinth as his own. Oedipus, warned by an oracle
that he would kill his father and marry his mother, fled Corinth to avoid this. But at a crossroads near Thebes he met and killed Laius, who he failed to recognize, and won a debate with the Sphinx, an enigmatic lion-like creature. Reaching Thebes, Oedipus was hailed as king and married the widowed queen Jocasta. Years later, as plague ravaged Thebes, Oedipus heard from the Delphic Oracle that the killer of Laius was the plague's cause. Finally he realized that
he
had killed his own father. Hearing the news of her husband's murder and her own incest, Jocasta committed suicide. Oedipus blinded himself and went into exile.

Calypso's island home, where Odysseus washed ashore after his men perished. There is much speculation regarding Ogygia's location. Some associate Ogygia with present-day Gozo, in the Mediterranean Sea. Others associate Ogygia with the lost Atlantis.

Hybrid monster whose front resembled a bull's and whose rear resembled a serpent's. This creature, which was among Gaia's weirdest offspring, became an ally of Zeus and was killed with an adamantine axe by Briares, one of the Titan's allies, during their war against the gods of Olympus. The Ophiotaurus' entrails, when set alight, produced a fire so great that it could have destroyed any of the gods, even Zeus. After the Ophiotaurus' death, it was placed by a grateful Zeus in the heavens as the combined constellations Taurus (bull) and Cetus (whale).

Places where the Greeks asked advice from the gods. There were several important oracles: Dodona in northwest Greece, reputedly the oldest oracle, where Zeus spoke from a grove of sacred oak trees; the
island Delos, where Apollo was honored; Siwah, in the western desert of Egypt, where Amon, the Egyptian equivalent of Zeus, was worshipped, and which Alexander the Great visited in 331 B.C.; and above all the Pythian Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the most sacred site in the Greek world.

Son of the god Apollo and the Muse Calliope. Orpheus was the archetypal poet, whose music had magical powers. He accompanied Jason and the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece, and proved useful when his music was able to refloat their ship when it stranded, and when he was able to counter the song of the Sirens with his own, thus saving the ship's crew from certain death. He loved his wife Eurydice so deeply that when she died from a snakebite, he descended to the Underworld. His singing charmed the ferryman Charon, the infernal watchdog Cerberus, and even Hades himself. The god agreed to let Eurydice return with Orpheus provided he did not look back at her until they had left the Underworld. But he could not resist glancing round at her on the long path towards daylight, and so lost her forever. Grieving, he retired to the wilderness, where his music charmed the animals. Still mourning Eurydice, he spurned all women, until the Maenads, enraged by his celibacy, tore him to pieces. However, his head, still singing, floated over the waters to the island of Lesbos. Many mystical poems about immortality, written after his death, were later attributed to him.

Two-headed dog owned by Geryon. Orthus was the brother of Cerberus, the two-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades, and guarded Geryon's magnificent red cattle. He was slain by Hercules.
(See Eurytion, Geryon)

Divine personification of the starry sky, also known as Uranus. The son of Gaia, the earth goddess, he was also her husband. They had twelve sons, the Titans, one of whom, Kronos, castrated his father and threw his genitals into the sea. From the resulting foam was born Aphrodite, the Olympian love goddess.

Rustic god, son of the Olympian messenger god Hermes and a nymph. He was the patron god of shepherds, woods, and wild animals, and also of goats and sheep. Born with goat-like cloven feet, horns, and legs, Pan haunted the woods and pastures of Arcadia (a wild part of southern Greece), playing his pan pipes, or
syrinx
, that he had cut from reeds. He loved and pursued several nymphs, including Echo. The Athenian runner Phidippedes, on his way back from begging Sparta for help against the invading Persians, encountered Pan, who promised Athens victory. When the Athenians won—the god induced “panic” in the Persian ranks at the battle of Marathon—the city built a temple to him. Pan's name—
pan
means “all” in Greek—later led to some Greeks' belief that he must be the god of all things, and they worshipped him as the one true god of all the universe.

An ancient Greek fighting style resembling a blend of boxing and wrestling. It is said that Hercules and Theseus created this form of martial arts, which Theseus used to defeat the Minotaur in the labyrinth. Pankration was also an event in the Olympic games, and part of combat training for Greek soldiers.

Wife of Minos, king of Crete. Minos prayed for a specially fine bull to sacrifice to the sea god Poseidon, but then decided to keep it for himself. Angered, Poseidon made Pasiphae fall in love with the bull. To consummate her passion, she got Daedalus, the Athenian master craftsman, to build a cow in which she lay to seduce the bull. From this monstrous mismatch was born a monster, the half-bull, half-man Minotaur, who was hidden away in the Labyrinth.

Immortal winged horse that sprung from the severed head of Medusa. Tamed by the hero Bellerophon with the aid of a gold bridle given him by the goddess Athena, Pegasus carried Bellerophon on his mission to kill the chimera. Pegasus could create springs by stamping his foot—doing so caused water to spring forth from the earth.

Daedalus' nephew and apprentice, credited with creating the first saw. Athena turned Perdix into a partridge in order to save him when Daedalus pushed him from a tall tower out of jealousy of the boy's ingenuity.

Daughter of Demeter, the goddess of wheat, and Zeus. Persephone's original name was Kore, meaning simply “girl.” Persephone lived happily on Earth until one day while she was picking flowers, Hades, the god of the Underworld, burst out of the ground and carried Persephone off in his chariot to his miserable realm, where she became his reluctant queen. Demeter frantically searched the Earth for her missing daughter, blighting the crops in her despair until
Zeus sent Hermes to persuade Hades to release Persephone. This Hades did, but not before he had tricked Persephone into eating some special pomegranate seeds, so that she still had to spend the winter months of each year with him. As queen of the Underworld, Persephone wielded great power, but she was also worshipped when she was above the earth alongside Demeter at the city of Eleusis near Athens, where the citizens had told Demeter about Hades' abduction of Persephone and so had been rewarded with the divine secrets of fertility.