Electra was a daughter of Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. After the murder of Agamemnon, she sent her brother, Orestes, away to the safety of the court of an uncle. She stayed behind to live in poverty under constant surveillance while Clytemnestra and Aegisthus ruled the kingdom. She sent constant reminders to Orestes that he must return to avenge the death of their father. After seven years, Orestes and Pylades returned to avenge Agamemnon. Electra later married Pylades.
Oedipus, king of Thebes, the son of Laius and Jocosta, king and queen of Thebes. An oracle warned Laius that his own son would kill him. Determined to avert his fate, he bound together the feet of his newborn child and left him to die on a lonely mountain. The infant was rescued by a shepherd, however, and given to Polybus, king of Corinth, who named the child Oedipus (“Swollen-foot”) and raised him as his own son. The boy did not know that he was adopted, and when an oracle proclaimed that he would kill his father, he left Corinth. In the course of his wanderings he met and killed Laius, believing that the king and his followers were a band of robbers, and thus unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy.
Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus, king of Thebes, and Queen Jocasta. Antigone accompanied her father into exile but returned to Thebes after his death. In a dispute over the throne her brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, killed each other. The new king Creon gave Eteocles an honorable burial but ordered the body of Polynices, whom he regarded as a traitor, remained where it had fallen. Antigone, believing divine law must take precedence over earthly decrees, buried her brother. Creon condemned her to be buried alive. She hanged herself in the tomb, and her grief-stricken lover, Haemon, Creon’s son, killed himself.
Creon, brother of Jocasta, queen of Thebes. Creon served as a regent of Thebes after King Oedipus was exiled until his nephew Eteocles, Oedipus’s younger son claimed the throne. The elder son, Polyneices, angered at this usurpation of his legal right, led an invading army in the battle of seven against Thebes. Both brothers were killed in combat. Creon again took command of Thebes and said that all who fought against Thebes would be denied burial rights. Antigone, sister of polyneices, defied Creon and buried Polyneices, claiming she owed higher obedience to the gods then to man.
Theseus was the greatest Athenian hero, son of either Aegeus, king of Athens, or of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, king of Troezen. At 16 Theseus went to Athens to claim Aegeus as his Father. He made a hazardous journey by land, clearing the road of bandits and monsters. Theseus arrived at Athens wearing a sword and a pair of sandals that Aegeus had left in Athens for his son in Troezen. Medea, Aegeus’s wife, attempted to poison Theseus, but as soon as Aegeus recognized the heirlooms, he proclaimed Theseus his son and heir and banished Medea.
Theseus Slaying a Centaur
Hippolytus was the son of Theseus and Hippolyte, queen of the amazons. He was an excellent hunter and charioteer, and he was the devoted son of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Hippolytus spurned all women, and when his stepmother, Phaedra, fell in love with him, he rejected her advances. In despair at his refusal, Phaedra committed suicide, leaving a letter accusing Hippolytus of having attempted to ravish her. Theseus, believing his son guilty, invoked his father, Poseidon, god of the sea, to destroy Hippolytus. As the young man drove his chariot along the shore, Poseidon sent a sea monster that frightened his horses; they ran away, dashing the chariot to pieces. Mortally wounded, Hippolytus was carried to his father, who had in the meantime learned from Artemis that his son was innocent. As Hippolytus died, the grief-stricken father and son were reconciled.
Apollo, son of the god Zeus and Leto, daughter of a Titan. He was also called Delian, after Delos, the island of his birth, and Pythian, after his killing of Python, the fabled serpent that guarded a shrine on the mountains of Parnassus.
Zeus In Greek mythology, Zeus was the god of the sky and ruler of the Olympian gods. He was the rain god, and the cloud gatherer, who wielded the terrible thunderbolt. His breastplate was the aegis, his bird the eagle, his tree the oak. He is represented as the god of justice and mercy, the protector of the weak, and the punisher of the wicked. As husband to his sister Hera, he is the father of Ares, the god of war; Hebe, the goddess of youth; Hephaestus, the god of fire; and Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. Zeus' image was represented in sculptural works as a kingly, bearded figure. Zeus corresponds to the Roman god Jupiter.
Athene was the goddess of wisdom. Her mother, Metis, was the first wife of Zeus. When Zeus saw that Metis was pregnant, he was afraid that the child, if allowed to live, would be his doom. He swallowed Metis to prevent the birth. It didn’t work. Athene sprang, fully armed and armored, from the head of Zeus but Metis was never seen again.
Poseidon was the Greek god of the sea and earthquakes. Poseidon was depicted as a bearded man with long hair, holding a trident and accompanied by dolphins and fish. He had the reputation for having a very bad temper. The symbol of Poseidon's power was the three-pronged spear known as the trident.
Odysseus Was a legendary Greek hero and the king of Ithaca, a small island off the western coast of Greece. Odysseus was one of the many suitors of the beautiful Helen, the daughter of the king Tyndareus. Tyndareus feared that a fight could take place among the numerous suitors if he chose one of them as the future husband of Helen. Odysseus advised Tyndareus to convince each of them to promise to respect and assist whomever was chosen by him as Helen's future husband.
Achilleus was one of the most famous of the legendary heroes of ancient Greece and the central figure of Homer’s Iliad. He was said to have been the son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidones of Phthia in Thessaly, by Thetis, one of the Nereids. His grandfather Aeacus was, according to the legend, the son of Zeus himself. The story of the childhood of Achilles in Homer differs from that given by later writers. According to Homer, he was brought up by his mother at Phthia with his cousin and intimate friend Patroclus, and learned the arts of war and eloquence from Phoenix, while the Centaur Chiron taught him music and medicine. When summoned to the war against Troy, he set sail at once with his Myrmidones in fifty ships.
Herakles was the beloved son of Zeus and, the mortal, Alcmene, Herakles was the archetype for bravery and living proof that might-makes-right. According to Hesiod (The Shield of Herakles, 51), Alcmene bore two sons, not twins but brothers by blood. Herakles was fathered by Zeus and Iphikles was fathered by Alcmene’s lawful husband, Amphitryon.
With armor and shield forged by Hephaestus, Herakles was more than a match for men and gods alike. After his death Herakles was granted godhood and was welcomed to Mount Olympus by all the immortals. Even Hera put aside her jealously to receive our Hero. After he was on Olympus, Herakles married sweet stepping Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and Hera.
Herakles walks off towards Athena holding the tripod while Apollo holds on to one of its legs, Artemis stands behind him holding stylised flowers.
The other side of this vase shows a human struggle: men wrestling.
Centaurs were monsters represented as men from the head to the lions, while the rest of the body was that of a horse. The ancients were too fond of a horse to consider the union of his nature with man’s as forming a very degraded compound, and accordingly the centaur is the only one of the fancied monsters of antiquity to which good traits are assigned.
Paris (Alexandros) was the son of Priam and Hecuba, king and queen of Troy. A prophecy had warned that Paris would one day cause the ruin of Troy and, therefore, Priam exposed him on Mount Ida, where he was found and brought up by shepherds. He was tending his sheep when an argument arose among the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite as to who was the most beautiful. The three goddesses asked him to be the judge. Each tried to bribe him, Hera promising to make him ruler of Europe and Asia, Athena to help him lead Troy to victory against the Greeks, and Aphrodite to give him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. Paris favoured Aphrodite, even though at the time he was in love with the nymph Oenone. His decision made Hera and Athena bitter enemies of his country. This and the abduction of Helen, in Menelaus's absence, brought about the Trojan War.
Menelaus was the King of Sparta. One of the Greeks who besieged Troy to retrieve his wife Helen from the Trojan Paris. Helen had been bewitched by the Goddess of Love into eloping with Paris, and in the phrase of the poet Marlowe her face launched a thousand ships. These bore the Greek allies of Menelaus to the siege and ultimate downfall of Troy.
Bibliography
Internet
PC CD
Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia
Books
The Greek Myths: 1 – Robert Graves
The Greek Myths: 2 – Robert Graves