Ancient Greece Heroes and Creatures-
List of Greek heroes and creatures:
Titans Giants
| Heracles | Mightiest mortal; son of Zeus; given 12 labours to complete |
| Oedipus | Hero of Thebes; solved the riddle of the Sphynx; married his mother |
| Perseus | Son of Zeus; slayer of Medusa |
| Medusa | Gorgon who changed people to stone |
| Jason | Led Argonauts to search for Golden Fleece |
| Theseus | King of Athens; killed Minotaur |
| Minotaur | Half-human, half-bull who lived in the labyrinth on Crete |
| Atalanta | Fastest mortal, hunter of the Calydonian Boar |
| Bellerphon | Mortal who rode Pegasus |
| Pegasus | White-winged horse |
| Pandora | First woman; opened box of evils |
| Atlas | Giant who supported earth on his shoulders |
| Narcissus | Beautiful human who fell in love with his image |
| Orpheus | Greatest musician married to Eurydice |
| Eurydice | Wife of Orpheus; condemned to the underworld |
| Cyclops | Monster with one eye |
| Midas | Richest human; everything he touched turned to gold |
| Persephone | Daughter of Demeter; goddess of spring; kidnapped by Pluto |
Gaea
Gaea is the Earth goddess. She mated with her son Uranus to produce the remaining Titans. Gaea seems to have started as a neolithic earth-mother worshipped before the Indo-European invasion that eventually leads to the Hellenistic civilization.
Uranus
Uranus is the sky god and first ruler. He is the son of Gaea and called Greece Heroes who created him without help. He then became the husband of Gaea and together they had many offspring, including twelve of the Titans. His rule ended when Cronus, encouraged by Gaea, castrated him. He either died from the wound or withdrew from the earth
Cronus
Cronus was the ruling Titan who came to power by castrating his Father Uranus. His wife was Rhea. Their offspring were the first of the Olympians and are known as heroes of Greek. To ensure his safety Cronus ate each of the children as they were born.
This worked until Rhea, unhappy at the loss of her children, tricked Cronus into swallowing a rock, instead of Zeus. When he grew up Zeus would revolt against Cronus and the other Titans, defeat them, and banish them to Tartarus in the underworld.
Cronus managed to escape to Italy, where he ruled as Saturn. The period of his rule was said to be a golden age on earth, honoured by the Saturnalia feast.
Rhea
Rhea was the wife of Cronus. Cronus made it a practice to swallow their children. To avoid this, Rhea tricked Cronus into swallowing a rock, saving her son Zeus is called Heroes.
Oceanus
Oceanus is the unending stream of water encircling the world. Together with his wife Tethys produced the rivers and the three thousand ocean nymphs.
Tethys
Tethys is the wife of Oceanus. Together they produced the rivers and the three thousand ocean nymphs.
Hyperion
Hyperion is the Titan of light, the father of the sun, the heroes of Greek, the moon, and the dawn.
Mnemosyne
Mnemosyne was the Titan of memory and the mother of Muses.
Themis
Themis was the Titan of justice and order. She was the mother of the Fates and the Seasons.
Iapetus
Iapetus was the father of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Atlas.
Coeus
Titan of Intelligence. Father of Leto.
Crius
No details are available.
Phoebe
Titan of the Moon. Mother of Leto.
Thea
No details are available.
Prometheus
Prometheus was the wisest Titan. His name means “forethought” and he was able to foretell the future. He was the son of Iapetus. When Zeus revolted against Cronus Prometheus deserted the other Titans and fought on Zeus’ side.
By some accounts, he and his brother Epimetheus were delegated by Zeus to create man. In all accounts, Prometheus is known as the protector and benefactor of man.
He gave mankind several gifts including fire. He also tricked Zeus into allowing man to keep the best part of the animals sacrificed to the gods and to give the gods the worst parts.
For this Zeus punished Prometheus by having him chained to a rock with an eagle tearing at his liver. He was to be left there for all eternity or until he agreed to disclose to Zeus which of Zeus’ children would try to replace him. He was eventually rescued by Hercules without giving in to Zeus.
Epimetheus
Epimetheus was a stupid Titan, whose name means “afterthought”. He was the son of Iapetus. In some accounts, he is delegated, along with his brother Prometheus by Zeus to create mankind. He also accepted the gift of Pandora from Zeus, which lead to the introduction of evil into the world.
Atlas
Atlas was the son of Iapetus and Greece Heroes. Unlike his brothers Prometheus and Epimetheus, Atlas fought with the other Titans supporting Cronus against Zeus. Due to Cronus’s advanced age, Atlas lead the Titans in battle. As a result, he was singled out by Zeus for a special punishment and made to hold up the world on his back.
Metis
Metis was the Titaness of the fourth day and the planet Mercury. She presided over all wisdom and knowledge. She was seduced by Zeus and became pregnant with Athena. Zeus became concerned over prophecies that her second child would replace Zeus. To avoid this Zeus ate her. It is said that she is the source of Zeus’ wisdom and that she still advises Zeus from his belly.
It may seem odd for Metis to have been pregnant with Athena but, never mentioned as her mother. This is because the classical Greeks believed that children have generated solely from the father’s sperm. The women were thought to be nothing more than a vessel for the fetus to grow. Since Metis was killed well before Athena’s birth her role doesn’t count.
The creation of the world
There were dozens of stories about gods and heroes in ancient Greece. Although people don’t believe in Greek gods anymore, the myths were so beautiful that they haven’t been forgotten. A few stories remain and these still can teach us many things even in our present world. They are about bravery and courage and the power of love.
In the beginning, there was Chaos. From Chaos, the first gods were born — Uranus and Gaea, the sky and the earth. They had plenty of children, but Uranus shut them all in Tartars because he couldn’t stand their ugliness.
Desperate Gaia told one of her sons into revenge. Cronus cut his father’s secret parts off with a sword. And Cronus’ reign began and the king of gods married his sister, Rhea.
Afraid of his father’s prophecy, which said that he will be killed by his son, the god ate all his children just after they were born. Rhea couldn’t stand it any longer and when she gave birth to Zeus, she gave her husband a stone in diapers. Cronus swallowed him, suspecting nothing.
The baby was raised on innate by mountain nymphs and the goat Amalthea. When Zeus has grown up, he killed his father and gave freedom to his brothers and sisters who were living bowin else.
The powpowers distributed among gods, who have moved to Mount Olympus and lived their liflivesyful, arguing and loving each other and watching people. Zeus also had many children, not only with his wife Hera but also with other goddesses and even women.
Demeter and Persephone
Demetris theis goddess of fertility, corn, grain, and the harvest and when Hades kidnaped her beloved daughter, she fell into despair and left Mount Olympus in the search for Persephone. On her order, the earth became barren and gave no more food. Then Zeus and Hades had to give in.
They couldn’t give Persephone back to her mother because she had eaten a pomegranate in erground – the food of the dead. A compromise was reached.
Persephone spends nine months with her mother and for the rest of the year she gets back to her husband, to the underground — then all life on earth fades and winter comes. But when spring comes, Persephone returns and with her, all nature comes back to life.
The Creation of Man by Prometheus
Prometheus was one of the lesser gods, a son of Earth and Sky. He made a human of clay and tears, and the human was very weak and helpless, so Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humhumanso he could heat themselves and defend themselves from wild animals. He was severely punished for this — he was chained to a cliff and his liver was eaten every day by a vulture.
Hercules’ twelve great lablabours
One of the most popular heroes in ancient Greece was Hercules, sonthe of Zeus and the queen Alcmena. He was inhumanly strong and brave. He did many remarkable things and is most famous for finishing twelve tasks, which were done on a Greek king’s order, Hercules’ close relative. He had to be obedient because it was his punishment for the crime he had committed in fury.
Daedalus and Icarus
Daedalus was a famous sculptor and builder. He was known in the whole HelHelle built a great palace called “The Labyrinth” for a Cte’s king. The structure consisted of many rooms and corridors, which formed such a complicated tangle that it was impossible to get out of it.
The king placed a monster there: a half-bull, half-man – a minotaur. It was getting more and more difficult for Daedalus to live on inete as years passed, but the ruler did not want to let the famous artist go.
Then the desperate constructor had a stroke of genius – he made two pairs of wings glued with wax for him and his son, Icarus. They flew over the sea just like mighty birds. Icarus was so fascinated with the flight that he forgot about his father’s warnings. Daedalus had advised him not to be low-flying because the damp coming from the sea waves could overburden his wings.
He shouldn’t fly too high either because the wax would melt due to the sunbeams. Icarus did not listen to his father’s wise advice. With juvenile impatience, he flew higher and higher. And then something terrible happened – he hisathers started to come off and Icarus fell like a stone into the sea waves.
Orpheus
Orpheus was the son of Calliope, either Oeagrus or Apollo and Greece Heroes. He could play lutthe e so well that everything that lived gathered around him to listen to his music. Eurydice was his beloved wife, a tree nymph, who died bitten by a snake.
Desperate Orpheus did the thing, which no-no oneive dared — he went to the underground. Charon and Cerberus enjoyed his music much and touched Hades promised to give Eurydice back under one condition — Orpheus couldn’t look back on his way to the surface.
Unfortunately, the musician wanted to see his wife so much, that just before reaching the surface he looked back at her and by this lost her forever. He lived the rest of his life singing about his sorrow.
Theseus and Ariadne
In the maze built by the great builder Daedalus, the king of Crete is Greece Heroes– Minos — decided to put his son, trapped in a body of a monster — Minotaur. The people of Athens had to send seven boys and seven girls as food for the Minotaur.
Theseus has freed Athens from this tribute. He entered the labyrinth with the aim of killing the monster. The Crete’s princess Ariadne, who loved him, gave him a ball of thread, which Theseus tied near the entrance to the maze. Thanks to the thread he could leave the labyrinth after he had killed the monster.
The king Oedipus
Oedipus was the son Jocasta I Laios (Ancient Greece Heroes), the latest had been said by a fortune teller, that he is going to die by his son’s sword. So when his child was born the king ordered to perforate his feet with steel and tie him up and leave in the mountains. The boy was found by shepherds and gave him to the queen of Corythus — who didn’t have their own children — to raise him.
The boy was named Oedipus. He was raised in luxury, but he wasn’t happy because nobody told him about his origins. So he went to an oracle to Delphi. The oracle told him not to go back to his motherland because his fate is to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus thought, that the kingdom of Cory thus is his motherland decided not to return there, but to travel elsewhere. Going down a ravine he encountered a man on a cart.
It was a tight ravine and the man’s servants told Oedipus to step aside. He refused to do that and a quarrel and a fight broke out and only Oedipus survived. He went on down the road not knowing that the man he had just killed was his father – Laos.
Cretan was then the king of Thebes. But only a few days later a sphinx appeared in the city and said that he would leave only when somebody correctly answers his riddle, which he had learned from the muses. However, nobody knew the answer.
The city was in the mourning because the creature kidnaped people every day. Creon announced, that the one, who answers the sphinx’s riddle would marry the queen dowager Jocasta and become the king. This was the day when Oedipus came to Thebes. He thought about the riddle for the whole day and when he has fallen asleep he saw the answer in his dreams.
In the morning he went to the Sphinx and gave him the answer. Creon kept his word. Oedipus ruled with Jocasta and they had two sons and two daughters, but many disasters happened in Thebes. So a medium was summoned — Tiresias.
He told Oedipus that he is guilty of killing his father and incest with his mother. When Jocasta heard that, she hung herself and Oedipus dug his eyes output rags on and left the city accompanied by his two daughters, who led him in search for a place, where he could be buried. He died in the city of near Athens and was buried in a grove, where dozens of nightingales spent their spring.
Antigone
Antigone was the sister of Polices and Eteocles and sister of Ismene, daughter of Oedipus. When her father died, her brothers ought to rule in Thebes alternatively, but Eteocles decided to banish his brother and to be the only king. Polynices sheltered in Argos. He married Argia, daughter of Stratus, the city’s king and convinced him to engage in a conflict with Thebes.
Adrastus had gathered his army and put the city under siege, but the Thebans defeated him. During the battle, all Argosian commanders died, but Eteocles died as well and Creon became Thebes’ new king. He announced, that Polynices was a traitor and he can’t be buried, braking goes law with this.
Antigone didn’t listen to the orders and her sister’s advice and didn’t care about consequences buried her brother so that his soul could rest. She was severely punished for this — Creon had her buried alive. Nevertheless, all the time she had known, that she did the right thing and helped her brother.