Heracles

Heracles, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus (Ζεύς) and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson (and half-brother) of Perseus (Περσεύς). He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae (Ἡρακλεῖδαι) and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonicmonsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman Emperors, in particular Commodus andMaximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal detail of their own, some of it linking the hero with the geography of the Central Mediterranean. Details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well.

Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among his characteristic attributes. Although he was not as clever as the likes of Odysseus or Nestor, Heracles used his wits on several occasions when his strength did not suffice, such as when laboring for the king Augeas of Elis, wrestling the giant Antaeus, or tricking Atlas into taking the sky back onto his shoulders. Together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae. His iconographic attributes are the lion skinand the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a playful figure who used games to relax from his labors and played a great deal with children. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have “made the world safe for mankind” and to be its benefactor. Heracles was an extremely passionate and emotional individual, capable of doing both great deeds for his friends (such as wrestling with Thanatos on behalf of Prince Admetus, who had regaled Heracles with his hospitality, or restoring his friend Tyndareus to the throne of Sparta after he was overthrown) and being a terrible enemy who would wreak horrible vengeance on those who crossed him, as Augeas, Neleus and Laomedon all found out to their cost.

Perseus

Perseus, the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians. Perseus was the Greek hero who killed the Gorgon Medusa, and claimed Andromeda, having rescued her from a sea monster sent byPoseidon in retribution for Queen Cassiopeia declaring herself more beautiful than the sea nymphs.

Odysseus

Odysseus was a legendary Greekking of Ithaca and the hero of Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer’s Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle.

King of Ithaca, husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and son of Laërtes and Anticlea, Odysseus is renowned for his guile and resourcefulness, and is hence known by the epithet Odysseus the Cunning (mētis, or “cunning intelligence”). He is most famous for the ten eventful years he took toreturn home after the ten-year Trojan War and his famous Trojan Horse trick.

Agamemnon

Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope; the brother of Menelaus and the husband of Clytemnestra; mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae orArgos, thought to be different names for the same area. When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was abducted by Paris of Troy, Agamemnon commanded the united Greek armed forces in the ensuing Trojan War.

Upon Agamemnon’s return from Troy he was murdered (according to the fullest version of the oldest surviving account, Odyssey Book 11, l.409f.) by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife Clytemnestra. In old versions of the story: “The scene of the murder, when it is specified, is usually the house of Aegisthus, who has not taken up residence in Agamemnon’s palace, and it involves an ambush and the deaths of Agamemnon’s followers too”. In some later versions Clytemnestra herself does the killing, or they do it together, in his own home.

Achilles

Achilles  was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer’s Iliad.

Achilles was named the most handsome of the heroes assembled against Troy by Plato.

Later legends (beginning with a poem by Statius in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. As he died because of a small wound on his heel, the term “Achilles’ heel” has come to mean a person’s principal weakness.

Sisyphus

Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. He is also found in Roman mythology.

The word “sisyphean” means “endless and unavailing, as labor or a task”.

Theseus

Theseus  was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus andPoseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were identified with an archaic religious and social order. As Heracles was the Dorian hero, Theseus was the Athenian founding hero, considered by them as their own great reformer: his name comes from the same root as θεσμός (“thesmos”), Greek for institution. He was responsible for the synoikismos (“dwelling together”)—the political unification of Attica under Athens, represented emblematically in his journey of labours, subduing highly localized ogres and monstrous beasts. Because he was the unifying king, Theseus built and occupied a palace on the fortress of the Acropolis that may have been similar to the palace that was excavated in Mycenae.Pausanias reports that after the synoikismos, Theseus established a cult of Aphrodite Pandemos (“Aphrodite of all the People”) and Peitho on the southern slope of the Acropolis.

In The Frogs, Aristophanes credited him with inventing many everyday Athenian traditions. If the theory of a Minoan hegemony is correct, he may have been based on Athens’ liberation from this political order rather than on an historical individual.

Plutarch’s vita of Theseus makes use of varying accounts of the death of the Minotaur, Theseus’ escape and the love of Ariadne for Theseus, in order to construct a literalistic biography, a vita. Plutarch’s sources, not all of whose texts have survived independently, included Pherecydes(mid-sixth century BC), Demon (ca 300 BC), Philochorus and Cleidemus (both fourth century BC).

Jason and the Argonauts

Jason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero from the late 10th Century BC, famous as the leader of theArgonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus. He was married to the sorceress Medea.

Jason appeared in various literature in the classical world of Greece and Rome, including the epic poem Argonautica and tragedy, Medea. In the modern world, Jason has emerged as a character in various adaptations of his myths, such as the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts and the 2000 TV miniseries of the same name.

Jason has connections outside of the classical world, as he is seen as being the mythical founder of the city of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

Zeus

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus is the “Father of Gods and men”  who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He is the god of sky andthunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.

Zeus was the child of Cronus and Rhea, and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to Hera, although, at the oracle of Dodona, his consort was Dione: according to the Iliad, he is the father of Aphrodite by Dione. He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo and Artemis, Hermes, Persephone (by Demeter), Dionysus,Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses (by Mnemosyne); by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe andHephaestus.

As Walter Burkert points out in his book, Greek Religion, “Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence.” For the Greeks, he was the King of the Gods, who oversaw the universe. As Pausanias observed, “That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men”. In Hesiod’s Theogony Zeus assigns the various gods their roles. In the Homeric Hymns he is referred to as the chieftain of the gods.

His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical “cloud-gatherer” also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward, with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.

Poseidon

Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as “Earth-Shaker,” of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon. Linear Btablets show that Poseidon was venerated at Pylos and Thebes in pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, but he was integrated into theOlympian gods as the brother of Zeus and Hades. Poseidon has many children. There is a Homeric hymn to Poseidon, who was the protector of many Hellenic cities, although he lost the contest for Athens to Athena.