Aegean, mainland Greece, Asia Minor · c. 1600 BC – 400 AD
Greek mythology
Greek mythology grew out of Mycenaean religion and was fixed in literary form by Homer and Hesiod around the 8th century BC. Its gods are vividly human — jealous, ambitious, amorous — and its monsters gave shape to every fear the ancient Mediterranean knew. Transmitted through epic, tragedy, and cult, it became the shared mythological language of the Western world.
- Region
- Aegean, mainland Greece, Asia Minor
- Era
- c. 1600 BC – 400 AD
- Language
- Ancient Greek
- Chief deity
- Zeus
- Figures
- 79 entries · 18 gods · 19 goddesses · 12 primordials · 15 heroes · 15 monsters
- Sources
- Iliad & Odyssey · Hesiod's Theogony · Homeric Hymns
Domains here
An order that had to be won
Gods & goddesses
64 entries
Zeus
The sky's thunder and the last word on Olympos — a king who rules by the bolt and rarely by restraint.
sky · thunder · kingship · justice
Agave
chaos
Amphitrite
sea · storms
Aphrodite
love · fertility
Apollo
sun · healing · fate · music
Ares
war · chaos
Artemis
moon · protection · fertility
Athena
wisdom · war · strategy · guardianship
Atlas
sky · order
Cadmus
kingship · monsters · writing
Calypso
sea · immortality
Chrysaor
monsters
Clymene
sea · protection
Cronus
kingship · agriculture · fate
Demeter
agriculture · fertility · rebirth
Deucalion
creation · rebirth
Dionysus
fertility · agriculture · magic
Eileithyia
fertility · protection
Eos
immortality
Epimetheus
fate · chaos
Eurydice
death · underworld · fate
Gaia
creation · fertility · fate
Hades
death · underworld · darkness
Hebe
immortality · rebirth · kingship
Hecate
magic · night · protection
Helios
sun · horses
Hephaestus
craft · creation · magic
Hera
kingship · fertility · protection
Heracles
war · immortality · protection · monsters
Hermes
travel · trickery · commerce · underworld
Hestia
protection · order
Hyperion
sun · moon · sky
Hypnos
night · trickery
Iapetus
fate · creation
Ino
sea · protection · rebirth
Iris
travel · sky
Leto
protection · night · fertility
Menoetius
war · underworld
Metis
wisdom · strategy
Mnemosyne
wisdom · immortality
Nereus
sea · wisdom
Nyx
night · darkness · fate
Oceanus
sea · creation
Odysseus
trickery · strategy · travel
Orpheus
music · death · underworld
Pan
hunting · music
Pandora
trickery · fate · chaos
Pentheus
kingship · chaos
Persephone
underworld · death · rebirth · agriculture
Perseus
monsters · kingship
Poseidon
sea · storms · horses
Prometheus
trickery · immortality
Pyrrha
creation · rebirth
Rhea
fertility · protection · kingship
Selene
moon · night
Semele
death · rebirth
Sisyphus
trickery · underworld
Styx
justice · underworld · sea
Tethys
sea · fertility
Thanatos
death · underworld
Theia
sky · sun
Themis
justice · order · fate
Triton
sea · travel
Uranus
sky · creation
Monsters
15 entriesArgus Panoptes
The herdsman with eyes all over his body, who killed Echidna in her sleep and whom Hera set to guard Io in the shape of a cow, until Hermes killed him at the command of Zeus.
guardianship · monsters
Cerberus
Three heads at the gate of the dead: everyone may enter, no one may leave.
underworld · guardianship · monsters
Charybdis
The whirlpool under the fig tree on the lower cliff of the strait, which drinks down the black water three times a day and three times spews it back.
monsters · sea
Chimera
The fire-breathing beast of Lycia, a lion in front, a serpent behind and a goat in the middle, that Bellerophon was sent to kill as his first task and shot down from the winged horse Pegasus.
monsters · fire
Echidna
Half glancing-eyed nymph and half enormous speckled serpent, hidden in a cave beneath the rock, ageless mother of the monsters that later heroes earned their fame by overcoming.
monsters · chaos
Geryon
The son of Chrysaor on the island of Erytheia by the Ocean — three-headed in Hesiod, three men grown into one body in Apollodorus — whose red cattle were Heracles's tenth labour, and who was shot dead as they were driven away.
monsters
Hydra
The nine-headed monster of the swamp of Lerna, eight heads mortal and the middle one immortal: for every head Heracles smashed two grew in its place, and her gall went onto his arrows.
monsters · immortality
Medusa
The only mortal Gorgon, whose gaze turns onlookers to stone — and whose severed head keeps doing it.
monsters · magic · death
Nemean lion
The lion that Hera reared in the hills of Nemea, a beast no weapon could wound: for his first labour Heracles walled up one mouth of its cave, went in by the other, and choked it with his arm.
monsters
Orthus
The hound of Geryon and the first child of Echidna and Typhon — two-headed in Apollodorus — who guarded the red cattle on Erytheia until Heracles struck him down with his club.
monsters · guardianship
Polyphemus
Poseidon's son and the mightiest of Homer's Cyclopes — a shepherd who ate six of his guests, lost his eye to Odysseus, and prayed down the curse that made Odysseus a wanderer.
monsters · chaos
Python
The she-dragon Apollo shot beside a spring under Parnassus — nameless in the Homeric Hymn, where her rotting gives Pytho its name; Apollodorus calls the snake Python and makes it the guard of the oracle at Delphi.
monsters · guardianship · chaos
Scylla
The monster in the cave of a cliff above the strait, with twelve feet and six long necks, a head on each and three rows of teeth in every head, who snatched six of Odysseus's companions from his ship and ate them at the doors of her cave.
monsters · sea
Sphinx
The monster that Hera sent against Thebes, with the face of a woman, a lion's breast, feet and tail, and a bird's wings, who sat on Mount Phicium with a riddle from the Muses and ate the Thebans who could not answer it, until Oedipus did and she threw herself from the citadel.
monsters · death
Typhon
The monster that came within a breath of unseating Zeus, and still breathes as every storm wind but three.
chaos · storms · monsters
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