ACHILLES
: son of Peleus and Thetis, and hero of the Iliad. While we was an infant, his mother sought to make him immortal by diffping him in the river Styx, but since she held him by the heel, that part proved to be vulnerable to death. Thetis also told him that he had the choice of either a life long but unevetful, or one short but glorious, and he chose the latter. he assumed a most important role in the Achaean war with Troy, and his feud with Agamemnon and its resoultion forms the central theme of the Iliad. He was killed, in the last days of the siege of Troy, by an arrow in his heel.`ACTAEON
: legendary Grek huntsmans, son of Aristaeus and Autonoe, daughter of Cadmus. He was turned into a stag by Artemis and torn into peiced by his hounds, either because he came upon the naked goddess while she was bathing, or because he boasted of excelling her in hunt.AEGIS
: the awsome protective device associated with Zeus and Athena. It is variously considered to be the bright-edged thundercloud, fashioned by Hephaestus, or the skin of the divine goat Amaltheia who has nourished the infant Zeus. In any case it is normally represented as a sort of skin, sometimes covered with scales and fringed about with serpents. In the midle of the aegis is the head of Medusa the Gorgon.AESON
: father of Jason, and rightful king of Iolcus in Thessaly. He was kept from the thrown by his half brother Pelias, who sent Jason on teh expedition of the Argonauts to fetch the golden fleece. According to one version, on the return of the Argonauts Aeson's youth was restored to him by the sorcey of Medea.AGAMEMNON
: son of Atreua and brother of Menelaos. He married Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndareus, king of Sparta. Agamemnon later become king of Mycenae, and organized the expedition of the Achaeans against Troy at the behest of Menelaos in Consequence of the latter's wife Helen'sAGAVE
: daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes, and sister of Ino and Semele, and mother of Pentheus. Pentheus, after he had become king, resisted the introduction of the worship of Dionysus, with the consequence that Agave was driven into a mad Bacchic frenzy, and with the Maenads tore her son to pieces.AMALTHEIA
: the divine goat who suckled the infant Zeus in Crete. In some traditions, her skind became the Aegis. When on of Amaltheia's horns broke off, Zeus endowed it with the power of becoming filled with whatever its possessor wished, and hence it was called the "horn of plenty" or Cornucopia. In other traditions Amaltheia is a nymph who nourishes Zeus with the milk of a goat, and it is the goats horn which becomes the cornucopia.AMAZONS
: the names means "without breats," and was given to a legendary race of warrior-women living in Asia Minor. They were ruled by a queen, and the female children had their right breats removed to facilitate the use of the bow. Both Theseus and Hercules had adventures with the Amazons, and during the Trojan War they came to the assistance of Troy under their queen Penthesilea, who was killed by Achilles.AMMON
: the greek speeling of the Egyptian god Amen.AMPHITRYON
: king of Tiryns and husband of Alcmene. While he was away fighting, Zeus visited Alcmene in the guise of Amphitryon, and thus became the mother of Hercules.ANDROMACHEM
: wife of Hector, prince of Troy, and by his mother of Astyanax, who was hurled from the walls of Troy after its capture. Andromache was given slave to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles.ANDROMEDA
: daugther of Chepheus, king of Ethiopia, and his queen Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia had boasted that she was more beautiful then the Nereids, and for this Poseidon sent a sea- dragon to lay waste the country. The oracle of Ammon (Amen) declared that the land would be dlivered only if Andromeda would be given to the dragon. Cepheus therefor chained ther to a rock by the sea, but she was rescued by Perseus, who slew the monster when he came to ravage her. Perseus then obtained her as his wife.ANTEROS
: "return- or opposite-love"; Greek deity sometimes represented as the brother of Eros. He either struggles against love, or punishes those who do not return the love of others.ARGONAUTS
: the group of heros who sailed, under the leadership of Jason, in the ship Argo to fetch the golden fleece from Aeetes, king of Colchis. The Argonauts included amoung others, Orpheus, Hercules, Theseus, and the Dioscuri.ARGUS
: a hundred-eyed giant whom Hera sent to guard Io after the latter had been turned into a heifer. At the command of Zeus, Hermes slew him. Hera took his eyes and placed them in the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock.ARIADNE
: daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, king and queen of Crete. When Theseus arrived at Knossos amoung the seven youths and seven maidens who were to be given to the Minotaur, Ariadne fell in love with him and supplied him with the ball of thread by which he found his way out of the labyrinth. Theseus, after slaying the Minotaur, escaped with his companions, taking Ariadne with him, but soon tired of her and abandoned her on the island of Naxos. There she was found by the god Dionysus, who made her his wife.ASTYANAX
: infant son of Hector and Andromache of Troy. On the capture of Troy, he was thrown from the walls and killed, so that there would not be an heir to the throne who might restore the kingdom.AUTONOE
: daughter of Cadmus and mother of Acteon. With her sisters Ino and Agave she tore the latter's sonBELLEROPHON
: legendary prince and hero of Crointh. When he was the guest of King Proetus of Argos, Antea the queen attempted to seduce him, but he repulsed her advances. Enraged, she accused him to Proetus of attempting to seduce her and Proetus sent him to Iobates, king of Lycia, with a sealed latter requesting him to put the bearer to death. Iobates sent him to fight the monster Chimaera, but with the assistance of Athena he caught the winged horsePegasus, and with its help slew the Chimaera. Later he attempted to ascend to heaven upon Pegasus, but fell off its back to earth, while Pegasus flew on to heave and dwells amoung the stars.CADMUS
: son of Agenor, king of Tyre in Phoenicia, and brother of Europa. When the latter was carried off over the sea by Zeus who had apporached her in the form of a bull, Agenor sent Cadmus to search for her. Unsuccessful, Cadmus consulted the Delphic oracle, and was told to follows a certain cow to the spot where she would stop to rest, and there he was to build a city. Cadmus did so, and followed the cow to Boeotia, where he founded the city of Thebes and became its first king. He slew a dragon who guarded a sacred well, and sowed its teeth in the ground at the command of Athena. Immediately armed men sprang up from the dragon's teeth, and began to fight each other. Of them five survived, becoming legendary ancestors of the Thebans. He was given as wife Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, and became by her the father of Ino, Semele, Agave, and Autonoe. In their old age, Cadmus and Harmonia were changed into immortal serpents. Cadmus is credited with having introducted into Greece the Semitice alphabet used in Phoenicia, from which the Greek and later Roman alphabets were derived.CALYPSO
: a sea nymph who inhabited the island of Ogyia, upon which Odysseus was wrecked. He spent eight years with her, and she tired to persuade him to stay with the promis of immortality and eternal youth. But Odysseus longed for his home, and Calypso was compelled to release him at the command of Zeus.CASSIOPEIA
: wife of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, mother of Andromeda. She boasted of being more beautiful than the Nereids, and in retaliation Poseidon sent a sea-monster to ravage the country.CENTAURS
: a mythical race of wild creatures, half men and half horse, who roamed Mt. Pelion in Thessaly.CEPHEUS
: legendary king of Ethiopia, son of Belus. He was husband of Cassiopeia, and father of Andromeda.CERHERUS
: the terrible dog which guarded the entrance to Hades. He was originally described as having fifty or a hundren heads, but was later pictured as having only three, with the tail of a serpent.CHAOS
: the vast, abysmal deep which existed even before the creation of the universe and the gods, and out of which all created things, including the gods, proceeded.CHIMEARA
: A fire-breathing legendary monster, part lion, part goat and part dragon, who ravaged the country about Lycia in Asia Minor and was finaly killed by Bellerophen.CHRION
: the wise and just amoung the Centaurs, the others being wild and uncivilized. he was the son of Oceanid Philyra and Kronos, who in fear of the jealousy of Rhea, tranformed himself into a stallion and Philyra into a mare, and so their son Chiron was half man, half horse. He was instructed by Apollo and Artemis in the arts of music, medicine , phrohecy, hunting, etc., and taught Aesculapius the arts of medince. While hunting with other Centaurs, he was struck by one ot the poisoned arrows of Hercules, and although immortal did not wish to bear the pain, and giving up his immortality to Prometheus, he died. Zeus placed him amoung the stars as the constellation Sagittarious, the Archer.CORYBANTES
: the attendants upon the Phrygian Rhea Cybele, who accompained her with wild, orgiastic music and dancing, clashing their cymbals and sounding their pipes in her train on her nocturnal wanderings by torchlight over the mountains. During their wild orgies they cut their flesh with knives, as did the actual priests of Cybele who were self-castrated in identification with the goddess.DAEDALUS
: legndary master of craftsman assciated with Crete. He made the wooden cow for Pasiphae, and after the birth of Minotaur, fashioned the labyrinth in which the monster was confined. In order to escape from Crete, Daedalus made wings of feathers for himself and his son Icarus and they flew out over the Aegaean. Icarus however, flew too near the sun, the wax melted, and he fell into the sea and was drowned.EURYDICE
: wife of Orpheus, killed by a serpent's bite on her wedding day while fleeing from one of her suitors. Inconsolable, Orpheus descended into the realms of Hades in search of her, and by his enchanting music succeded in charming the rulers of the shades into permitting him to lead Eurydice back to the world of mortals, on the condition that he should not look back upon her until they had reached the upper regions. Orpheus, however, was unable to resist looking back, and Eurydice fell back forever among the shades.GANYMEDE
: (or Ganymedes) legendary Trojan Prince, and a boy of remarkable beauty. He was beloved of Zeus, who assumed the form of an eagle and carried him off to Olympus to be the cupbearer of the gods.GERYON
: a triple-bodied, winged giant who dwelt on an island in the extreme west, who had a heard of red cattle guarded by the two-headed dog Orthrus. Hercules carried off these cattle as one of his Twelve Labours, and killed Geryon.GOLDEN FLEECE
: the fleece of the golden ram, the gift of Hermes, upon which Phrixus and Helle flew to escape the wrath of their stepmother Ino. When Phrixus arrived at Colchis, he gave the ram to king Aeetes, who sacrificed it to Zeus, and hung its golden fleece on an oak tree in a sacred grove, where it was guarded by a dragon. Jason laster carried away the fleece with the help of Medea.