AEACUS: son of Zeus and Aegina, daugter of the river-god
Asopus. Zeus carried her off to an island off
Attica, which was called Aegina after her. Aeacus reigined afterwards in Aegina, and was
so renowned for his piety that after his death he was made one of the judges of the realms of Hades.
AEETES: son of Helios and and .Oceanid
AENEAS: one of ther Trojan leaders in the Homeric epics, and the hero of the
Aeneid, the latter Roman epic written (in Latine) by Vergil in imitation of the Homeric
poems. He was the son of Aphrodite and Anchises. In the Aeneid,
Aeneas escapes from burning Yroy, whre his wife had perished, carryign is old father, anchises
on his shoulders, and leading his little son by the hand. He goes through various peils and
adventures, and finally arrives at Latium in Italy, becomeing the ancestral father of the Roman
people, and particularly of the house of Caesar.
AEOLUS: according to some traditions, a son of Poseidon and ruler of the Aeolian island. He was given dominion over the winds, which he kept in vast caves. He gave Odysseus a bag of wind to help him on his voyage homewards, but Odysseus's men opened dthe bag and the winds escaped.
ANTIOPE: daughter of Ares and queen of the Amazons and sister of Hippolyte BELUS: son of Poseidon Libya, daughter of Epaphus BIA: in Greek myth, personification of brute force, on of Pallas and Styx and borther of Zelus and Nike.
. He invented the plow, to
which he attached a tear of oxen, and was the first to cultivate the soil. Demeter placed him, with
his plow and oxen, amoung the stars as the constellation Bootes BRIAREUS: one of theHekatoncheires CIRCE: daughter of Helios and an Oceanid
COTTUS: one of the Hekatoncheires
, the hundreded- armed giants.CYCLOPES: giants who were so called beacuse they had one round eye in the middle of their foreheads. According to Hesiod, they were Titans, and sons of Ouranos and GAIA. They were thrown into Tartarus by Kronos, but were later released by Zeus and worked at forging his thunderbolts. By association, they were later regarded as assisiting Hephaestus at his forge, which lay beneath Aetna or neighbouring volcanoes. Homer considers them a race of giants who devour men and hold Zeus of no regard. The best-known Cyclopes is Polyphemus
, who was blinded by Odysseus.DEIMOS: "fear," sometimes considered as a son of Ares, and accompanying him in
battle.
DEINO: one of the Graiae DORIS: one of the Oceanids
ECHINDNA: daughter of Ceto, with the head of a beautiful nymph and the body of a serpent. By Typhon
she became the mother of, amoung other monsters, Cerberus, the Lernean Hydra, the Chimaera and the Spinx.EPAPHUS: some of Zeus and Io, who bore him when she
arrived at the banks of the Nile after her wanderings and recovered her human form. He
became king of Egypt and founded the city of Memphis.
EURYNOME: an Oceanid GORGONS: the three frightful sisters, Sthenno
GRAIAE: the three "old women" or "gray ones," daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, and sisters of the Gorgons. They were gray- haired from birth, and had only one eye and one tooth amoung them, which they would share. They were named Enyo("horror"), Deino
("dread") and Pemphredo("alarm"). Enyo was sometimes considered as a war goddess who accompanied Ares in battle.GYGES: one of the Hekatoncheires
, the hundred- armed giants.HARMONIA: daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, and wife of Cadmus, founder and king of
Thebes. At her marriage, she recieved from Cadmus a jeweled necklace and garment, the work
of Hephaestus, which proved
fatal to those whoe wished to possess them.
HEKATONCHEIRES: the three hundred-armed giants, sons of Ouranos and Gaia: Briareus
HERCULES: Greek demigod, son of Zeus and Alcmene, wife of Amphitryon of Thebes. He was
famous for his great strength from his very birth, having strangled in his cradle two werpents sent
by Hera to distory him. He is
most famous for the Tweleve Labours which he had to perform while serving Eurystheus, king of
Tiryns. These were: 1) the killing of the monstrous Nemean lion; 2) the slaying of the Lernean Hydra; 3) the capture of the
Arcadian stag; 4) the capture of the Erymanthean boar; 5) the cleansing of the Augean stables;
6) the destruction of the Stymphalian birds; 7) the capture of the Cretan bull; 8) the capture of
the maneating mares of Diomedes; 9) the procuring of the girdle of HIPPOLYTE, queen of the
Amazons; 10) the capture of
the oxen of Geryon; 11) the
fetching of the golden apples of the Hesperides; 12) and they most
difficult, the bring up of Cerberus from the Underworld.
HESPERUS: the eveing star, son of Eos.
HIPPOLYTE: daughter of Ares, queen of the Amazons and sister of Antiope IACCHUS: the name by which Dionysus was hailed in the
Eleusian Mysteries, sometimes equated with Bacchus, although at Eleusis Dionysus was
regarded as the son of Zeus
and Demeter.
INACHUS: personified deity of the river of that name in Greece, the son of Oceanus and Tethys, and the father of Io.
MEDUSA: in Greek myth, the only mortal of the three Gorgons, which with aspect so
terrible that whoever looked upon her was turned to stone. According to one version, she was
originally a beauiful maiden, who desecrated Athena'a temple by lying there with
Poseidon. In revenge, Athena
turned her hair into snakes. Her head was cut off by Perseus NEREUS: son of Oceanus and Gaia, and father fo the Nereids by Doris OCEANID: nymphs of the great ocean, daughters of Oceanus.
ORPHEUS: son of the Oeagrus king of Thrace (or of Apollo) and the Muse Calliope. Apollo presented him
with the lyre, with which he made such enchangting music that he charmed the wild beasts and
made th trees and rocks move. His newly wedded wife Eurydice was killed by a serpent
bite, and Orpheus descended into the realms of Hades to fetch her back. There he
so charmed ther rulers fo the underworld by his music that he was allowed to lead Eurydice back
to earth on the condition that he would not look back upon her unitl they had reached the upper
world. But at the last momnet his desire overcame him, he looked back, and Eurydice was lost to
him forever. In his grief for her he lost all interest in women, and chramed the Thracian men with
his music. In revenge the women of Thrace tore him to pieces during their Bacchic revels. Hiss
head was carried by the river Hebrus to the sea, by which it was brought, still singing, to the
island of Lesbos, which became the first renowned seat of lyric poetry.
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This page was created by Megan Louise Estella Ross. Last updated on April 22, 1999
