The Amazons were tribe
of female warriors, supposedly descended from ¿RES, the Greek war god, and the naiad Harmonia Their home was situated beyond the Black Sea. It is thought that their name refers ro their breast less condition, for Amazons voluntarily removed their right breasts in order that the)'might more easily draw a bow. The ancient Greeks believed these fierce warriors periodically mated with the men from another Eribe, afterwards rearing their female children but discarding or maiming all the males.
During the Trojan War they fought against the Greeks. Although he killed the Amazon queen Penthesilea, ACHILLES never succeeded in shaking off the rumour that he had been in love with her. He even slew a comrade who mentioned it Fascination with Amazon power affected other heroes besides Achilles. The adventures of both HERACLES and THESEUS involved battles with Amazons. One of Heracles' famous labours was the seizure of a girdle belonging to the Amazon queen Hippolyta, a theft that required considerable nerve.
Amulius, in Roman mythology, was a descendant of the Trojan hero AENEAS. He usurped the throne of Alba Longa from his younger brother Numitor and forced Numitor's daughter RHEA SILVIA to become a Vestal Virgin so as to deny her father an heir. When Rhea Silvia was raped by the war god MARS, Amulius imprisoned her and ordered that her twin sons, REMUS AND ROMULUS, be drowned in the Tiber But the two boys escaped a watery death and grew up in the countryside Once they realized their parentage, Romulus and Remus returned to Alba Longa and killed their uncle Amulius.
Andromache, the daughter of Eetion, a king of Mysia in Asia Minor, was the wife of HECTOR, the foremost Trojan warrior. Her entire family - parents, brothers, husband and son - was killed during the Trojan War. After the sack of Troy, Andromache was taken off into captivity by Neoptolemus, the son of the great Greek hero ACHILLES Neoptolemus had shown the same
ANTIGONE (above) sprinkles earth on the body of her brother, Potynices, as a symbolic act of burial For the Greeks, burial was a sacred duty, without which a sou! could not rest; yet Creon, her uncle, had denied Pofynices a burial, violating divine law (7llus™t70n br Nick Beale, 1995)
ANDROMEDA (left), chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster, can only pray, while high overhead, the hero Perseus is on his way Swooping down on the winged horse, Pegasus, he cuts Andromeda free and slays the monster (Perseus Releases Andromeda by Joachim Wiewael, canvas, 1630)
ANTIGONE (above) sprinkles earth on the body of her brother, Potynices, as a symbolic act of burial For the Greeks, burial was a sacred duty, without which a sou! could not rest; yet Creon, her uncle, had denied Pofynices a burial, violating divine law (7llus™t70n br Nick Beale, 1995)
ANDROMEDA (left), chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster, can only pray, while high overhead, the hero Perseus is on his way Swooping down on the winged horse, Pegasus, he cuts Andromeda free and slays the monster (Perseus Releases Andromeda by Joachim Wiewael, canvas, 1630)
andromeda was the daughter of Cassiope and Cepheus, king of the Ethiopians When Cassiope boasted that Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids, the sea nymphs, they complained to the sea god poseidon He avenged this insult by flooding the land and sending a sea monster to devastate Cepheus' kingdom To avoid complete disaster it was decided to sacrifice Andromeda to the beast and she was chained to a rock at the foot of a cliff. There perseus saw her as he flew past on winged sandals carrying the head of the Gorgon Medusa He fell in love with Andromeda, and obtained both her and her father's consent to marriage if he defeated the monster. This Perseus did by using Medusa's head, the sight of which turned all living things to stone. After some time, Perseus and Andromeda settled in Tiryns, which Perseus ruled. The constellation of Andromeda lies close to that of Pegasus, and both Cepheus and Cassiope were also commemorated in the stars.
antigone was the daughter of OEDIPUS, king of Thebes, and his wife and mother Jocasta On learning of their unwitting incest, Oedipus tore out his eyes while Jocasta hanged herself. The penitent Oedipus was then guided by Antigone in his wanderings round Greece. She was with him at the sanctuary of Colonus, near Athens, when her distraught father gained some kind of peace just before his death. She returned to Thebes, but her troubles were not over. Her brother Polynices had been killed in an uprising against the new ruler creon, and his body was condemned to rot unburied outside the city. Antigone refused to accept this impiety and sprinkled earth over the corpse as a token burial For this she was walled up in a cave, where she hanged herself like her mother Jocasta. There are a number of different versions of the myth, but they all cast Antigone as the heroic victim of a family wrecked by a terrible deed.
antiope see lovers of zeus aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, beauty and fertility. Unlike her Roman counterpart venus, with whom she was identified, Aphrodite was not only a goddess of sexual love but also of the affection that sustains social life. The meaning of her name is uncertain, although the ancient Greeks came to believe it referred to foam Quite possibly this belief arose from the story of Aphrodite's
APHRODITE, goddess of love and beauty, was bom from the foam of the sea; she rose from the waves on a seasHel!, stepping ashore on Cyprus At her side, the west wind, Zephyrus, and Flora, the spring, blow her gently ashore in a shower of roses, her sacred flower. (The birth of Venus bv Sandro botticelli, tempera. c 1482)
APHRODITE, goddess of love and beauty, was bom from the foam of the sea; she rose from the waves on a seasHel!, stepping ashore on Cyprus At her side, the west wind, Zephyrus, and Flora, the spring, blow her gently ashore in a shower of roses, her sacred flower. (The birth of Venus bv Sandro botticelli, tempera. c 1482)
birth. When the Titan CRONOS cut off the penis of his father Ouranos with a sharp sickle, he cast the immortal member into the sea, where it floated amid white foam Inside the penis Aphrodite grew and was then washed up at Paphos on Cyprus. There were in fact sanctuaries dedicated to her on many islands, which suggests that she was a West Asian goddess who was brought to Greece by sea-traders.
Once she arrived, the ancient Greeks married her in their mythology to the crippled smith god HEPHAISTOS. But Aphrodite was not content to be a faithful wife and she bore children by several other gods, including DIONYSUS and ARES. When Hephaistos found out about Aphrodite's passion for the war god Ares, the outraged smith god made a mesh of gold and caught the lovers in bed together. He called the other gods from Mount Olympus to see the pair, but they only laughed at his shame, and POSEIDON, the god of the sea, persuaded Hephaistos to release Aphrodite and Ares.
Perhaps Aphrodite's greatest love was for the handsome youth Adonis, another West Asian deity. Killed by a wild boar, Adonis became the object of admiration for both Aphrodite and PERSEPHONE, queen of the dead. Their bitter quarrel was only ended by ZEUS, who ruled that for a third of the year Adonis was to dwell with himself, for a third part with Persephone, and for a third part with Aphrodite. So it was that the ancient Greeks accommodated a West Asian mother goddess and her dying-and-rising husband. Indeed the Adonia, or annual festivals commemorating Adonis' death, were celebrated in many parts of the eastern Mediterranean.
Because of her unruly behaviour, Zeus caused Aphrodite to fall in love with Anchises, the father of AENEAS. In the Roman version of this myth Venus herself is deeply attracted to the Trojan, but warns him to keep the parentage of their son Aeneas a secret. This Anchises fails to do, and as a result suffers blindness or a disability of the limbs. While the Roman goddess provided, through the leadership of Aeneas, a means for some of the Trojans to escape and flourish anew in Italy, the Greek Aphrodite actually helped to cause the Trojan War. In order to ensure that he would name her as the most beautiful of the goddesses, Aphrodite promised PARIS, son of PRIAM the king of Troy, the hand of the most beautiful woman in the world. This fatefully turned out to be HELEN, wife of MENELAUS, king of Sparta.
apollo was the son of ZEUS and the Titaness LETO, and the twin brother of the goddess ARTEMIS, the virgin huntress. He was one of the most important deities of both the Greek and
Roman religions, and was the god of prophecy, archery and music The origin of his name is uncertain but it is probably non-European
A fight with the gigantic earth-serpent Python at Delphi gave Apollo the seat of his famous oracle. Python was an offspring of GAIA, mother earth, which issued revelations through a fissure in the rock so that a priestess, the Pythia, could give answers to any questions that might be asked. After he slew the earth-serpent, Apollo took its place, though he had to do penance in Thessaly for the killing. Indeed, Zeus twice forced Apollo to be the slave of a mortal man to pay for his crime.
Apollo's interest in healing suggests an ancient association with the plague and its control. His son ASCLEPIUS was also identified with healing and connected with sites in northern Greece. Indeed, so accomplished was Asclepius in medicine that Zeus slew him with a thunderbolt for daring to bring a man back to life. (See also FORCES OF NATURE)
Ares, the son of ZEUS and HERA, was the Greek god of war, and was later identified with the Roman war god MARS. Although Ares had no wife of his own, he had three children by APHRODITE, the goddess of love. The twins, Phobos, "panic", and Deimos, "fear", always accompanied him on the battlefield. In Greek mythology, Ares is depicted as an instigator of violence, a tempestuous and passionate lover and an unscrupulous friend The Roman god Mars, however, has nothing of Ares' fickleness
APOLLO (above), the sun god, urges the sun-chariot to rise in the sky This unusual version of the myth has Apollo, rather than Helios, as rider, and lions, instead of horses, pull the chariot, recalling the link between Leo and the sun. (Phoebus Apollo by Briton Riviere, canvas, c 1870)
ARES Qxlow), in full armour, leads the gods into battle. However, in war, the gods were not impartial; Ares, Aphrodite (left), Poseidon and Apollo (centre) would often aid the Trojans, while Hera and Athena (right) supported the Greeks. (Illustration from Stories from Homer, 1885)
APOLLO (above), the sun god, urges the sun-chariot to rise in the sky This unusual version of the myth has Apollo, rather than Helios, as rider, and lions, instead of horses, pull the chariot, recalling the link between Leo and the sun. (Phoebus Apollo by Briton Riviere, canvas, c 1870)
ARES Qxlow), in full armour, leads the gods into battle. However, in war, the gods were not impartial; Ares, Aphrodite (left), Poseidon and Apollo (centre) would often aid the Trojans, while Hera and Athena (right) supported the Greeks. (Illustration from Stories from Homer, 1885)
Post a comment