MYTHS ABOUT THE MAIN GODS:

Zeus:

When he was born, his father Cronus intended to swallow him as he had all of Zeus's siblings: Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter and Hera. But Rhea hid the newborn in a cave on Mount Dicte in Crete. (To this day, the guides at the "cave of Zeus" use their flashlights to cast shadow puppets in the cave, creating images of baby Zeus from the myth.)

When he had grown up, Zeus caused Cronus to vomit up his sisters and brothers, and these gods joined him in fighting to wrest control of the universe from the Titans and Cronus, their king. Having desposed his father and the otherTitans, Zeus imprisoned most of them in the underworld of Tartarus. Then he and his brothers Poseidon and Hades divided creation between them. Poseidon received the sea as his domain, Hades got the Underworld and Zeus took the sky. Zeus alsowas accorded supreme authority on earth and on Mount Olympus.

Hera:

Hera hated the great hero Heracles since he was the son of her husband Zeus and a mortal woman. When he was still an infant, she sent snakes to attack him in his crib. Later she stirred up the Amazons against him when he was on one of his quests.

Apollo:

As god of music, Apollo is often depicted playing the lyre. He did not invent this instrument, however, but was given it by Hermes in compensation for cattle theft. Some say that Apollo did invent the lute, although he was best known for his skill on the lyre. He won several musical contests by playing this instrument. In one case he bested Pan, who competed on his own invention, the shepherd'spipe. On this occasion, King Midas had the bad sense to say that he preferred Pan's music,which caused Apollo to turn his ears into those of an donkey.

Aphrodite:

Aphrodite involved herself on other occasions in the affairs of mortal heroes. When Jason asked permission of the king of Colchis to remove the Golden Fleece from the grove in which it hung, the king was clearly unwilling.So the goddess Hera, who sponsored Jason's quest, asked her fellow-Olympian Aphrodite to intervene. The love goddess made the king's daughter Medea fall in love with Jason, and Medea proved instrumental in Jason's success.

Elsewhere in classical art she has no distinctive attributes other than her beauty. Flowers and vegetation motifs suggest her connection to fertility. Aphrodite was associated with the dove. Another of her sacred birds was the goose, on which she is seen to ride in a vase painting from antiquity. Hesiod's reference to Aphrodite's having been born from the sea inspired the Renaissance artist Botticelli's famous painting of the goddess on a giant scallop shell. Equally if not better known is the Venus de Milo, a statue which lost its arms in ancient times.

Ares:

Though an immortal deity, he was bested by Heracles in battle and was almost killed when stuffed into a jar by two giants. When another hero wounded him during the Trojan War, he received scant sympathy from his father Zeus.

Artemis:

Niobe, queen of Thebes, once boasted that she was better than Leto because she had many children while the goddess had but two. Artemis and Apollo avenged his insult to their mother by killing all or most of Niobe's children with their arrows. The weeping Niobe was transformed into stone, in which form she continued to weep. When Apollo noticed that Artemis was spending a great deal of time hunting with the giant Orion, he decided to put an end to the relationship. He challenged Artemis to prove her skill at archery by shooting at an object floating far out at sea. Her shot was perfect. The target turned out to be the head of Orion.

Athena:

Zeus was once married to Metis, a daughter of Ocean who was renowned for her wisdom.When Metis became pregnant, Zeus was warned by Earth that a son born to Metis would overthrow him, just as he had usurped his own father's throne. So Zeus swallowed Metis. In time he was overcome with a splitting headache and summoned help from the craftsman god Hephaestus (or, some say, the Titan Prometheus). Hephaestus cleaved Zeus's forehead with an ax, and Athena sprang forth fully armed. Athena aided the heroes Perseus, Jason, Cadmus, Odysseus and Heracles in their quests.

Demeter:

Demeter as the sister of Zeus and the mother of Persephone. Persephone was gathering flowers in a meadow one day when a huge crack opened up in the earth and Hades, King of the Dead, emerged from the Underworld. He siezed Persephone and carried her off in his chariot, back down to his his realm below, where she became his queen. Demeter was heartbroken. She wandered the length and breadth of the earth in search of her daughter, during which time the crops withered and it became perpetual winter.

At length Hades was persuaded to surrender Persephone for one half of every year, the spring and summer seasons when flowers bloom and the earth bears fruit once more. The half year that Persephone spends in the Underworld as Hades' queen coincides with the barren season. When depicted in art, Demeter is often shown carrying a sheaf of grain.

Hephaestus:

Hephaestus accomplished numerous prodigies of craftsmanship, such as the marvelous palaces that he built for the gods atop Mount Olympus, or the armor that he made for Achilles during the siege of Troy (the description of which occupies a great many lines of Homer's epic of the Trojan War).

Hephaestus also created the first woman, Pandora, at the command of Zeus, in retaliation for the various tricks by which the Titans.Prometheus had benefited mortal men at the expense of the gods. Pandora was given to theTitan's brother, Epimetheus, as his wife. For her dowry she brought a jar filled with evils from which she removed the lid, thereby afflicting men for the first time with hard work andsickness. Only hope remained inside the jar.

Dionysus:

Dionysus rescued Ariadne after she had been abandoned by Theseus. Dionysus also saved his mother from the Underworld, after Zeus showed her his true nature as storm god and consumed her in lightning. It was Dionysus who granted Midas the power to turn whatever he touched into gold, then was kind enough to take the power back when it proved inconvenient.

Hermes:

Some say that Hermes loaned Perseus a helmet of invisibility as well. Also known as the helmet of darkness, this was the same headgear that Hermes himself had worn when he vanquished the giant Hippolytus. This was on the occasionwhen the gargantuan sons of Earth rose up in revolt against the gods of Olympus.

Poseidon:

Poseidon was not so well-disposed toward another famous hero. Because Odysseus blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus, who was Poseidon's son, the god not only delayed the hero's homeward return from the Trojan War but caused him to face enormous perils. At one point he whipped up the sea with his trident and caused a storm so severe that Odysseus was shipwrecked. Poseidon similarly cursed the wife of King Minos. Minos had proved his divine right to rule Crete by calling on Poseidon to send a bull from the sea, which the king promised to sacrifice. Poseidon sent the bull, but Minos liked it too much to sacrifice it. So Poseidon asked Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to make Minos's queen, Pasiphae, fall in love with the bull. The result was the monstrous Minotaur, half-man, half-bull.

As god of horses, Poseidon often adopted the shape of a steed. It is not certain that he was in this form when he wooed Medusa. But when Perseus later killed the Gorgon, the winged horse Pegasus sprang from her severed neck. Poseidon sometimes granted the shape-shifting power to others. And he ceded to the request of the maiden Caenis that she be transformed into the invulnerable, male warrior Caeneus.

MYTHS ABOUT OTHERS IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY:

Hercules:

When he had come of age and already proved himself an unerring marksman with a bow and arrow, a champion wrestler and the possessor of superhuman strength, Heracles was driven mad by Hera. In a frenzy, he killed his own children. To atone for this crime, he was sentenced to perform a series of tasks, or "Labors", for his cousin Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and Mycenae. By rights, Hercules should have been king himself, but Hera had tricked her husband Zeus into crowning Eurystheus instead. Zeus's queen Hera was jealous of Heracles, and when he was still an infant she sent two snakes to kill him in his crib. Heracles was found prattling delighted baby talk, a strangled serpent in each hand.

Theseus:

It was by lifting a boulder that Theseus, grandson of the king of Troezen, first provedhimself a hero. Theseus was sixteen at the time.He had been raised by his grandfather and his mother, Princess Aethra. One day the princess called Theseus to her side. It was time, she said, that he learned of his father, who was the rulerof a mighty kingdom. This was news to Theseus, who had been under the impression that his father was one of the gods. "Before I divulge his identity," said the princess, "you must meet the challenge your father has set you." Years ago, the king had hefted a mighty stone. Underneath he had placed something for his son to find - if he could lift the weight.

Cupid:

Cupid was the god of love in Roman mythology. The name Cupid is a variation on Cupido ("desire"), and this god was also known by the name Amor ("love"). It was commonly believed that Cupid was the son of Venus - the Roman goddess of love - and this association between Venus and Cupid was quite popular in myth, poetry, literature, and art.

Bellona:

Bellona was a goddess of war in Roman mythology. Although this goddess did not play a significant role in either myth or legend, she was important enough in Roman religion to be honored with her own temple. This temple of Bellona was located in the Campus Martius (which was, of course, in the ancient city of Rome) and was situated in close proximity to the altar of Mars.

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