Demigods and Monsters (28 page)

Greatest war in Greek myth and the subject of Homer's grand epic,
The Iliad
(although the Greeks themselves thought of it as history, not myth at all). The Trojan War began when Paris, handsome son of King Priam of Troy, left Sparta with Helen, beautiful queen of Sparta. Menelaus, Sparta's king and Helen's husband, was the brother of Agamemnon, the most powerful Greek ruler, and Agamemnon summoned all Greece to help him revenge the insult to his family's honor. The Trojans responded by calling on their allies across Asia. When the Greeks landed on the beach near Troy, they had no way of capturing the high-walled city. So the war became a series of individual combats between heroes that could become full-scale battles. At times the Greeks were victorious, nearing the gates of Troy; at times the Trojans, led by Priam's eldest son, Prince Hector, drove the Greeks almost back to their ships. (Paris did little fighting.) The Greek cause was harmed by quarrels between Agamemnon and young Prince Achilles, their finest warrior, when Achilles refused to fight. Only after Patroclus, Achilles' best friend, was killed did Achilles return to the war, slaying Hector before being killed himself. Troy was finally captured using the now-famous Trojan Horse ruse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a huge wooden horse as an offering to the gods. Delighted, the Trojans took the horse inside their city. But the horse was hollow, and filled with warriors. That night the Greeks inside emerged from its wooden belly to open the gates and let other Greeks in.

Troy was sacked and its people killed or enslaved—except for Helen, who was restored to Menelaus, and Aeneas, hero of
The Aeneid
, who escaped with his father.

Monstrous son of Gaia (earth) and the god Tartarus. Typhon was as large as a mountain, with a hundred dragon heads, a snake's body, and blazing eyes. He fathered other monsters, such as the Hydra and chimera, and for a time so frightened many Greek gods that they fled to Egypt, disguising themselves as animals (this is how the Greeks explained Egypt's animal-headed gods such as Anubis). Zeus and Hermes finally trapped Typhon under Mount Etna in Sicily, from the volcanic depths of which he still spouted fire and sent forth sudden storms:
typhoons
, which were named for him.

Gloomy realm beneath the earth to which the spirits of almost all the dead went, ruled by the god Hades who name the Greeks preferred not to utter. (Hades also became another name for the Underworld.)
(See Aeneas, Cerberus, Charon, Circe, Demeter, Elysian Fields/Elysium, Fields of Asphodel, Hades, Helm of Darkness, Hercules, Kronos, Mount Olympus, Odysseus, Orpheus, Persephone, Poseidon, River Lethe, River Styx, Tartarus, Theseus, Zeus)

God of the west wind, the gentlest of the four winds, associated with the soft, sweet-smelling showers of spring. (The others were Boreas,
the north wind; Notus, the south wind; and Eurus, the east wind.) Zephyr's wife was the flower goddess Chloris, and their son was Carpus, which meant harvest or fruits. But Zephyr also married Chloris's sister Iris, goddess of the rainbow.

King of the gods and lord of the sky. Zeus was the supreme patriarchal god, who ruled both Mount Olympus, home of the twelve Olympian gods, and the world of men below. Zeus was the son of the Titans Rhea and Kronos. Kronos had swallowed his other sons for fear they would overthrow him, but Rhea saved Zeus by offering her husband a stone instead and hiding the baby on Mount Ida in Crete, where he was brought up by nymphs. Zeus later deposed Kronos, making him vomit the other gods back up. Among them were Poseidon and Hades, with whom Zeus divided the world: Zeus took the skies, Poseidon the oceans, and Hades the Underworld. The other Titans revolted against this new order but were suppressed in battle. From then on Zeus governed the cosmos. His thunderbolt was his most dramatic weapon, with which he blasted any who opposed him, but all men, including kings, and all the other gods had to obey him. Zeus was a king, however, not a tyrant. He himself obeyed the cosmic laws of Fate. Zeus was the supreme guardian of justice, human and divine, punishing wrong-doers, and was the protector of strangers and of beggars. He married Hera, his sister, whose heart he had won by taking the form of a cuckoo, and she became queen of Olympus. The divine couple did not get along, however. Hera objected violently to Zeus' colorful love life, for he was a notorious seducer of women, both mortal and divine, often taking the shape of animals to do so. Among his conquests were Leto, a Titaness and the mother of Apollo and Artemis, who became Olympian gods; Themis, another Titaness, who gave birth to the Horae, the goddesses of the hours; Europa, the daughter of the
Phoenician (Lebanese) king Agenor, whom Zeus carried off while in the guise of a bull to Crete, where she gave birth to Minos and Rhadamanthys; and Leda, whom he seduced disguised as a swan, and who gave birth to the incomparably beautiful Helen, later the cause of the Trojan War. Having Zeus as a lover could be dangerous for mortals. The Theban princess Semele, whom Zeus always visited in the dark, insisted on seeing him in his full glory. When he finally revealed his divinity, she was burnt up. However, Zeus did save her unborn child, who became Dionysus, the wine god. Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, was Zeus' most original offspring, for she sprang, fully formed and already armed, from his forehead. Zeus was identified with the Roman Jupiter and has obvious affinities with the Sanskrit (early Hindu) sky god Dyaus Pater. Zeus was worshipped across Greece, and the grandest temples and most opulent statues—such as the huge gold and ivory statue made by the sculptor Pheidias at Olympia, site of the Olympic Games—were created in his honor. The oldest oracle in Greece was that of Zeus at Dodona, where the god's pronouncements were written on oak leaves.

Nigel Rodgers, who has a degree in history and history of art from the University of Cambridge in England, has written widely on history, art, mythology, and philosophy. Among his most recent books are
The Ancient Greek World
(Lorenz, 2008),
Roman Empire
(Lorenz, 2006), and
Philosophers Behaving Badly
(Peter Owen, 2005). His Web site is
http://nigelrodgers.co.uk
.