Greek mythology

Scenes from Greek mythology depicted in ancient art. Left-to-right, top-to-bottom: the birth of Aphrodite, a revel
with Dionysus and Silenus, Adonis playing the kithara for Aphrodite, Heracles slaying the Lernaean Hydra, the
Colchian dragon regurgitating Jason in the presence of Athena, Hermes with his mother Maia, the Trojan
Horse, and Odysseus's ship sailing past the island of the sirens

Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks and a genre of Ancient
Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and the nature of the world, the lives and activities of
deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own
cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths in an attempt to shed light on the religious and
political institutions of ancient Greece and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of
myth-making itself.[1]

The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan and
Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC;[2] eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan
War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain
accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the
origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric
Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians and
comedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age, and in texts
from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Pausanias.

Aside from this narrative deposit in ancient Greek literature, pictorial representations of gods, heroes, and
mythic episodes featured prominently in ancient vase paintings and the decoration of votive gifts and
many other artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the
Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles. In the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic
periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary
evidence.[3]

Greek mythology has had an extensive influence on the culture, arts, and literature of Western
civilization and remains part of Western heritage and language. Poets and artists from ancient times to the
present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance
and relevance in the themes.[4]

Contents
Sources
Literary sources
Archaeological sources
Survey of mythic history
Origins of the world and the gods
Greek pantheon
Achilles and Penthesileia by Exekias,
Age of gods and mortals
c. 540 BC, British Museum, London
Heroic age
Heracles and the Heracleidae
Argonauts
House of Atreus and Theban Cycle
Trojan War and aftermath
Greek and Roman conceptions of myth
Philosophy and myth
Hellenistic and Roman rationalism
Syncretizing trends
Modern interpretations
Comparative and psychoanalytic approaches
Origin theories
Motifs in Western art and literature
References
Primary sources (Greek and Roman)
Secondary sources
Further reading
External links
Sources
Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media
dating from the Geometric period from c. 900 BC to c. 800 BC onward.[5] In fact, literary and
archaeological sources integrate, sometimes mutually supportive and sometimes in conflict; however, in
many cases, the existence of this corpus of data is a strong indication that many elements of Greek
mythology have strong factual and historical roots.[6]

Literary sources
Mythical narration plays an important role in nearly every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the
only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-
Apollodorus. This work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand
summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends.[7] Apollodorus of Athens lived from
c. 180 BC to c. 125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for
the collection; however the "Library" discusses events that occurred long after his death, hence the name
Pseudo-Apollodorus.

Among the earliest literary sources are Homer's two epic poems, the Iliad
and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the "epic cycle", but these later
and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional
name, the "Homeric Hymns" have no direct connection with Homer.
They are choral hymns from the earlier part of the so-called Lyric age.[8]
Hesiod, a possible contemporary with Homer, offers in his Theogony
(Origin of the Gods) the fullest account of the earliest Greek myths,
dealing with the creation of the world; the origin of the gods, Titans, and
Giants; as well as elaborate genealogies, folktales, and etiological myths.
Hesiod's Works and Days, a didactic poem about farming life, also
includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora, and the Five Ages. The poet
gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, rendered
yet more dangerous by its gods.[3]

Lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment
Prometheus (1868 by
became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, Gustave Moreau). The myth
including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as of Prometheus first was
Theocritus and Bion, relate individual mythological incidents.[9] attested by Hesiod and then
Additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama. The tragic constituted the basis for a
playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides took most of their plots tragic trilogy of plays,
possibly by Aeschylus,
from myths of the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great
consisting of Prometheus
tragic stories (e.g. Agamemnon and his children, Oedipus, Jason, Medea, Bound, Prometheus
etc.) took on their classic form in these tragedies. The comic playwright Unbound, and Prometheus
Aristophanes also used myths, in The Birds and The Frogs.[10] Pyrphoros.

Historians Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, and geographers Pausanias

and Strabo, who traveled throughout the Greek world and noted the stories they heard, supplied
numerous local myths and legends, often giving little-known alternative versions.[9] Herodotus in
particular, searched the various traditions presented him and found the historical or mythological roots in
the confrontation between Greece and the East.[11] Herodotus attempted to reconcile origins and the
blending of differing cultural concepts.

The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages was primarily composed as a literary rather than cultic
exercise. Nevertheless, it contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category
includes the works of:

1. The Roman poets Ovid, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, Seneca and Virgil with Servius's
commentary.
2. The Greek poets of the Late Antique period: Nonnus, Antoninus Liberalis, and Quintus
Smyrnaeus.
3. The Greek poets of the Hellenistic period: Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Pseudo-
Eratosthenes, and Parthenius.
Prose writers from the same periods who make reference to myths include Apuleius, Petronius,
Lollianus, and Heliodorus. Two other important non-poetical sources are the Fabulae and Astronomica of
the Roman writer styled as Pseudo-Hyginus, the Imagines of Philostratus the Elder and Philostratus the
Younger, and the Descriptions of Callistratus.

Finally, a number of Byzantine Greek writers provide important details of myth, much derived from
earlier now lost Greek works. These preservers of myth include Arnobius, Hesychius, the author of the
Suda, John Tzetzes, and Eustathius. They often treat mythology from a Christian moralizing
perspective.[12]

Archaeological sources
The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by the German
amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the nineteenth
century, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete by
the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in the twentieth
century, helped to explain many existing questions about Homer's
epics and provided archaeological evidence for many of the
mythological details about gods and heroes. Unfortunately, the
evidence about myths and rituals at Mycenaean and Minoan sites
is entirely monumental, as the Linear B script (an ancient form of
Greek found in both Crete and mainland Greece) was used
mainly to record inventories, although certain names of gods and The Roman poet Virgil, here depicted
heroes have been tentatively identified.[3] in the fifth-century manuscript, the
Vergilius Romanus, preserved details
Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict of Greek mythology in many of his
scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of writings.
Heracles.[3] These visual representations of myths are important
for two reasons. Firstly, many Greek myths are attested on vases
earlier than in literary sources: of the twelve labors of Heracles, for example, only the Cerberus
adventure occurs in a contemporary literary text.[13] Secondly, visual sources sometimes represent myths
or mythical scenes that are not attested in any extant literary source. In some cases, the first known
representation of a myth in geometric art predates its first known representation in late archaic poetry, by
several centuries.[5] In the Archaic (c. 750 – c. 500 BC), Classical (c. 480–323 BC), and Hellenistic (323–
146 BC) periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing
literary evidence.[3]

Survey of mythic history

Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate the
evolution of their culture, of which mythology, both overtly and
in its unspoken assumptions, is an index of the changes. In Greek
mythology's surviving literary forms, as found mostly at the end
of the progressive changes, it is inherently political, as Gilbert
Cuthbertson has argued.[14]

The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an

agricultural people who, using Animism, assigned a spirit to
every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed Phaedra with an attendant, probably
human forms and entered the local mythology as gods. [15] When her nurse, a fresco from Pompeii,
c. 60 – c. 20 BC
tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded, they
brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest,
force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Other older gods of the agricultural world fused with those
of the more powerful invaders or else faded into insignificance.[16]

After the middle of the Archaic period, myths about relationships between male gods and male heroes
became more and more frequent, indicating the parallel development of pedagogic pederasty (eros
paidikos, παιδικὸς ἔρως), thought to have been introduced around 630 BC. By the end of the fifth
century BC, poets had assigned at least one eromenos, an adolescent boy who was their sexual
companion, to every important god except Ares and to many legendary figures.[17] Previously existing
myths, such as those of Achilles and Patroclus, also then were cast in a pederastic light.[18] Alexandrian
poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often re-adapted
stories of Greek mythological characters in this fashion.

The achievement of epic poetry was to create story-cycles and, as a result, to develop a new sense of
mythological chronology. Thus Greek mythology unfolds as a phase in the development of the world and
of humans.[19] While self-contradictions in these stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an
approximate chronology may be discerned. The resulting mythological "history of the world" may be
divided into three or four broader periods:

1. The myths of origin or age of gods (Theogonies, "births of gods"): myths about the origins of
the world, the gods, and the human race.
2. The age when gods and mortals mingled freely: stories of the early interactions between
gods, demigods, and mortals.
3. The age of heroes (heroic age), where divine activity was more limited. The last and
greatest of the heroic legends is the story of the Trojan War and after (which is regarded by
some researchers as a separate, fourth period).[20]
While the age of gods often has been of more interest to contemporary students of myth, the Greek
authors of the archaic and classical eras had a clear preference for the age of heroes, establishing a
chronology and record of human accomplishments after the questions of how the world came into being
were explained. For example, the heroic Iliad and Odyssey dwarfed the divine-focused Theogony and
Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity. Under the influence of Homer the "hero cult" leads to a
restructuring in spiritual life, expressed in the separation of the realm of the gods from the realm of the
dead (heroes), of the Chthonic from the Olympian.[21] In the Works and Days, Hesiod makes use of a
scheme of Four Ages of Man (or Races): Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. These races or ages are
separate creations of the gods, the Golden Age belonging to the reign of Cronos, the subsequent races to
the creation of Zeus. The presence of evil was explained by the myth of Pandora, when all of the best of
human capabilities, save hope, had been spilled out of her overturned jar.[22] In Metamorphoses, Ovid
follows Hesiod's concept of the four ages.[23]

Origins of the world and the gods

"Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent an attempt to explain the
beginnings of the universe in human language.[24] The most widely
accepted version at the time, although a philosophical account of the
beginning of things, is reported by Hesiod, in his Theogony. He begins
with Chaos, a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged Gaia (the
Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (Love), the Abyss (the
Tartarus), and the Erebus.[25] Without male assistance, Gaia gave birth to
Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilized her. From that union were born first
the Titans—six males: Coeus, Crius, Cronus, Hyperion, Iapetus, and
Oceanus; and six females: Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Rhea, Theia, Themis,
and Tethys. After Cronus was born, Gaia and Uranus decreed no more
Titans were to be born. They were followed by the one-eyed Cyclopes
and the Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handed Ones, who were both thrown Amor Vincit Omnia (Love
Conquers All), a depiction of
into Tartarus by Uranus. This made Gaia furious. Cronus ("the wily,
the god of love, Eros. By
youngest and most terrible of Gaia's children"[25]), was convinced by Michelangelo Merisi da
Gaia to castrate his father. He did this, and became the ruler of the Titans Caravaggio, circa 1601–
with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort, and the other Titans became his 1602.
court.

A motif of father-against-son conflict was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus.
Because Cronus had betrayed his father, he feared that his offspring would do the same, and so each time
Rhea gave birth, he snatched up the child and ate it. Rhea hated this and tricked him by hiding Zeus and
wrapping a stone in a baby's blanket, which Cronus ate. When Zeus was full grown, he fed Cronus a
drugged drink which caused him to vomit, throwing up Rhea's other children, including Poseidon, Hades,
Hestia, Demeter, and Hera, and the stone, which had been sitting in Cronus's stomach all this time. Zeus
then challenged Cronus to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes (whom
Zeus freed from Tartarus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were
hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.[26]

Zeus was plagued by the same concern, and after a prophecy that the offspring of his first wife, Metis,
would give birth to a god "greater than he", Zeus swallowed her.[27] She was already pregnant with
Athena, however, and she burst forth from his head—fully-grown and dressed for war.[28]

The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogonies to be the prototypical poetic genre—
the prototypical mythos—and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, also
was the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius'
Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When Hermes
 invents the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing
he does is sing about the birth of the gods.[29] Hesiod's Theogony
is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the
fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its
long preliminary invocation to the Muses. Theogony also was the
subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to
Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris, and other legendary
seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and
mystery-rites. There are indications that Plato was familiar with
some version of the Orphic theogony.[30] A silence would have
Attic black-figured amphora depicting been expected about religious rites and beliefs, however, and that
Athena being "reborn" from the head nature of the culture would not have been reported by members
of Zeus, who had swallowed her of the society while the beliefs were held. After they ceased to
mother Metis, on the right, Eileithyia,
become religious beliefs, few would have known the rites and
the goddess of childbirth, assists,
circa 550–525 BC (Musée du Louvre, rituals. Allusions often existed, however, to aspects that were
Paris). quite public.

Images existed on pottery and religious artwork that were

interpreted and more likely, misinterpreted in many diverse myths and tales. A few fragments of these
works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of
these scraps, the Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the fifth century BC a theogonic-
cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence.[31]

The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical
conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be
gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as a flat disk afloat on
the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon, and stars. The Sun (Helios)
traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth,
heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were
popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades and his predecessors, home of the
dead.[32] Influences from other cultures always afforded new themes.

Greek pantheon
According to Classical-era mythology, after the overthrow of the
Titans, the new pantheon of gods and goddesses was confirmed.
Among the principal Greek gods were the Olympians, residing on
Mount Olympus under the eye of Zeus. (The limitation of their
number to twelve seems to have been a comparatively modern
idea.)[33] Besides the Olympians, the Greeks worshipped various
gods of the countryside, the satyr-god Pan, Nymphs (spirits of
rivers), Naiads (who dwelled in springs), Dryads (who were
spirits of the trees), Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river gods, Zeus, disguised as a swan, seduces
Satyrs, and others. In addition, there were the dark powers of the Leda, the Queen of Sparta. A
underworld, such as the Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those sixteenth-century copy of the lost
original by Michelangelo.
guilty of crimes against blood-relatives.[34] In order to honor the
Ancient Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric Hymns (a group of thirty-three songs).[35]
Gregory Nagy regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as simple preludes (compared with Theogony), each
of which invokes one god".[36]

The gods of Greek mythology are described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies. According
to Walter Burkert, the defining characteristic of Greek anthropomorphism is that "the Greek gods are
persons, not abstractions, ideas or concepts".[37] Regardless of their underlying forms, the Ancient Greek
gods have many fantastic abilities; most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease, and can be
wounded only under highly unusual circumstances. The Greeks considered immortality as the distinctive
characteristic of their gods; this immortality, as well as unfading youth, was insured by the constant use
of nectar and ambrosia, by which the divine blood was renewed in their veins.[38]

Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, pursues differing interests, has a certain area of
expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity
of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods are called upon
in poetry, prayer or cult, they are referred to by a combination of their name and epithets, that identify
them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves (e.g., Apollo Musagetes is "Apollo,
[as] leader of the Muses"). Alternatively the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the
god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece.

Most gods were associated with specific aspects of life. For example, Aphrodite was the goddess of love
and beauty, Ares was the god of war, Hades the ruler of the underworld, and Athena the goddess of
wisdom and courage.[39] Some gods, such as Apollo and Dionysus, revealed complex personalities and
mixtures of functions, while others, such as Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were
little more than personifications. The most impressive temples tended to be dedicated to a limited number
of gods, who were the focus of large pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions
and villages to devote their own cults to minor gods. Many cities also honored the more well-known gods
with unusual local rites and associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere. During
the heroic age, the cult of heroes (or demigods) supplemented that of the gods.

Age of gods and mortals

Bridging the age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in human affairs was
limited was a transitional age in which gods and mortals moved together. These were the early days of
the world when the groups mingled more freely than they did later. Most of these tales were later told by
Ovid's Metamorphoses and they are often divided into two thematic groups: tales of love, and tales of
punishment.[40]

Tales of love often involve incest, or the seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god, resulting in
heroic offspring. The stories generally suggest that relationships between gods and mortals are something
to avoid; even consenting relationships rarely have happy endings.[41] In a few cases, a female divinity
mates with a mortal man, as in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess lies with Anchises to
produce Aeneas.[42]

The second type (tales of punishment) involves the appropriation or invention of some important cultural
artifact, as when Prometheus steals fire from the gods, when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from
Zeus' table and gives it to his own subjects—revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when Prometheus
or Lycaon invents sacrifice, when Demeter teaches agriculture and the Mysteries to Triptolemus, or when
Marsyas invents the aulos and enters into a musical contest with Apollo. Ian Morris considers
 Prometheus' adventures as "a place between the history of the
gods and that of man".[43] An anonymous papyrus fragment,
dated to the third century, vividly portrays Dionysus' punishment
of the king of Thrace, Lycurgus, whose recognition of the new
god came too late, resulting in horrific penalties that extended
into the afterlife.[44] The story of the arrival of Dionysus to
establish his cult in Thrace was also the subject of an Aeschylean
trilogy.[45] In another tragedy, Euripides' The Bacchae, the king
of Thebes, Pentheus, is punished by Dionysus, because he
disrespected the god and spied on his Maenads, the female
worshippers of the god.[46]
Dionysus with satyrs. Interior of a
cup painted by the Brygos Painter, In another story, based on
Cabinet des Médailles. an old folktale-motif,[47]
and echoing a similar
theme, Demeter was
searching for her daughter, Persephone, having taken the form of
an old woman called Doso, and received a hospitable welcome
from Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica. As a gift to Celeus,
because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make his son
Demophon a god, but she was unable to complete the ritual
because his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the
Demeter and Metanira in a detail on
fire and screamed in fright, which angered Demeter, who
an Apulian red-figure hydria, circa
lamented that foolish mortals do not understand the concept and 340 BC (Altes Museum, Berlin).
ritual.[48]

Heroic age
The age in which the heroes lived is known as the heroic age.[49] The epic and genealogical poetry
created cycles of stories clustered around particular heroes or events and established the family
relationships between the heroes of different stories; they thus arranged the stories in sequence.
According to Ken Dowden, "There is even a saga effect: We can follow the fates of some families in
successive generations".[19]

After the rise of the hero cult, gods and heroes constitute the sacral sphere and are invoked together in
oaths and prayers which are addressed to them.[21] Burkert notes that "the roster of heroes, again in
contrast to the gods, is never given fixed and final form. Great gods are no longer born, but new heroes
can always be raised up from the army of the dead." Another important difference between the hero cult
and the cult of gods is that the hero becomes the centre of local group identity.[50]

The monumental events of Heracles are regarded as the dawn of the age of heroes. To the Heroic Age are
also ascribed three great events: the Argonautic expedition, the Theban Cycle, and the Trojan War.[51]

Heracles and the Heracleidae

Some scholars believe[52] that behind Heracles' complicated mythology there was probably a real man,
perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the kingdom of Argos. Some scholars suggest the story of Heracles is an
allegory for the sun's yearly passage through the twelve constellations of the zodiac.[53] Others point to
earlier myths from other cultures, showing the story of Heracles as a
local adaptation of hero myths already well established. Traditionally,
Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene, granddaughter of Perseus.[54]
His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many folk-tale themes, provided
much material for popular legend. According to Burkert, "He is portrayed
as a sacrificer, mentioned as a founder of altars, and imagined as a
voracious eater himself; it is in this role that he appears in comedy,

While his tragic end provided much material for tragedy—Heracles is

regarded by Thalia Papadopoulou as "a play of great significance in
examination of other Euripidean dramas".[55] In art and literature
Heracles was represented as an enormously strong man of moderate
height; his characteristic weapon was the bow but frequently also the
club. Vase paintings demonstrate the unparalleled popularity of Heracles,
his fight with the lion being depicted many hundreds of times.[56]

Heracles also entered Etruscan and Roman mythology and cult, and the Heracles with his baby
Telephus (Louvre Museum,
exclamation "mehercule" became as familiar to the Romans as
Paris).
"Herakleis" was to the Greeks.[56] In Italy he was worshipped as a god of
merchants and traders, although others also prayed to him for his
characteristic gifts of good luck or rescue from danger.[54]

Heracles attained the highest social prestige through his appointment as official ancestor of the Dorian
kings. This probably served as a legitimation for the Dorian migrations into the Peloponnese. Hyllus, the
eponymous hero of one Dorian phyle, became the son of Heracles and one of the Heracleidae or
Heraclids (the numerous descendants of Heracles, especially the descendants of Hyllus—other
Heracleidae included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus). These Heraclids
conquered the Peloponnesian kingdoms of Mycenae, Sparta and Argos, claiming, according to legend, a
right to rule them through their ancestor. Their rise to dominance is frequently called the "Dorian
invasion". The Lydian and later the Macedonian kings, as rulers of the same rank, also became
Heracleidae.[57]

Other members of this earliest generation of heroes such as Perseus, Deucalion, Theseus and
Bellerophon, have many traits in common with Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic
and border on fairy tale, as they slay monsters such as the Chimera and Medusa. Bellerophon's
adventures are commonplace types, similar to the adventures of Heracles and Theseus. Sending a hero to
his presumed death is also a recurrent theme of this early heroic tradition, used in the cases of Perseus
and Bellerophon.[58]

Argonauts
The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes (epic poet, scholar, and
director of the Library of Alexandria) tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve
the Golden Fleece from the mythical land of Colchis. In the Argonautica, Jason is impelled on his quest
by king Pelias, who receives a prophecy that a man with one sandal would be his nemesis. Jason loses a
sandal in a river, arrives at the court of Pelias, and the epic is set in motion. Nearly every member of the
next generation of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with Jason in the ship Argo to fetch the Golden
Fleece. This generation also included Theseus, who went to Crete to slay the Minotaur; Atalanta, the
female heroine, and Meleager, who once had an epic cycle of his own to rival the Iliad and Odyssey.
Pindar, Apollonius and the Bibliotheca endeavor to give full lists of the Argonauts.[59]

Although Apollonius wrote his poem in the 3rd century BC, the composition of the story of the
Argonauts is earlier than Odyssey, which shows familiarity with the exploits of Jason (the wandering of
Odysseus may have been partly founded on it).[60] In ancient times the expedition was regarded as a
historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the Black Sea to Greek commerce and colonization.[61] It
was also extremely popular, forming a cycle to which a number of local legends became attached. The
story of Medea, in particular, caught the imagination of the tragic poets.[62]

House of Atreus and Theban Cycle

In between the Argo and the Trojan War, there was a generation known chiefly for its horrific crimes.
This includes the doings of Atreus and Thyestes at Argos. Behind the myth of the house of Atreus (one of
the two principal heroic dynasties with the house of Labdacus) lies the problem of the devolution of
power and of the mode of accession to sovereignty. The twins Atreus and Thyestes with their
descendants played the leading role in the tragedy of the devolution of power in Mycenae.[63]

The Theban Cycle deals with events associated especially with Cadmus, the city's founder, and later with
the doings of Laius and Oedipus at Thebes; a series of stories that lead to the eventual pillage of that city
at the hands of the Seven Against Thebes and Epigoni.[64] (It is not known whether the Seven Against
Thebes figured in early epic.) As far as Oedipus is concerned, early epic accounts seem to have him
continuing to rule at Thebes after the revelation that Iokaste was his mother, and subsequently marrying a
second wife who becomes the mother of his children—markedly different from the tale known to us
through tragedy (e.g. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex) and later mythological accounts.[65]

Trojan War and aftermath

Greek mythology culminates in the Trojan
War, fought between Greece and Troy, and
its aftermath. In Homer's works, such as the
Iliad, the chief stories have already taken
shape and substance, and individual themes
were elaborated later, especially in Greek
drama. The Trojan War also elicited great
interest in the Roman culture because of the
story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero whose journey
from Troy led to the founding of the city that
would one day become Rome, as recounted
in Virgil's Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's Aeneid
contains the best-known account of the sack El Juicio de Paris by Enrique Simonet, 1904. Paris is
of Troy).[66] Finally there are two pseudo- holding the golden apple on his right hand while surveying
the goddesses in a calculative manner.
chronicles written in Latin that passed under
the names of Dictys Cretensis and Dares
Phrygius.[67]
The Trojan War cycle, a collection of epic poems, starts with the events
leading up to the war: Eris and the golden apple of Kallisti, the
Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helen, the sacrifice of Iphigenia at
Aulis. To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition under
the overall command of Menelaus's brother, Agamemnon, king of Argos
or Mycenae, but the Trojans refused to return Helen. The Iliad, which is
set in the tenth year of the war, tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon
and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and the consequent
deaths in battle of Achilles' beloved comrade Patroclus and Priam's eldest
son, Hector. After Hector's death the Trojans were joined by two exotic
allies, Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, and Memnon, king of the
Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess Eos.[68] Achilles killed both of In The Rage of Achilles by
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles with an arrow in the heel.
(1757, Fresco, 300 x
Achilles' heel was the only part of his body which was not invulnerable
300 cm, Villa Valmarana,
to damage by human weaponry. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks Vicenza) Achilles is
had to steal from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the outraged that Agamemnon
Palladium). Finally, with Athena's help, they built the Trojan Horse. would threaten to seize his
Despite the warnings of Priam's daughter Cassandra, the Trojans were warprize, Briseis, and he
draws his sword to kill
persuaded by Sinon, a Greek who feigned desertion, to take the horse
Agamemnon. The sudden
inside the walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoon, appearance of the goddess
who tried to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At Athena, who, in this fresco,
night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the has grabbed Achilles by the
gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining hair, prevents the act of
sons were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various violence.
cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of the Greek
leaders (including the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas (the Aeneid),
and the murder of Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns (the lost Nostoi) and Homer's
Odyssey.[69] The Trojan cycle also includes the adventures of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g.,
Orestes and Telemachus).[68]

The Trojan War provided a variety of themes and became a main source of inspiration for Ancient Greek
artists (e.g. metopes on the Parthenon depicting the sack of Troy); this artistic preference for themes
deriving from the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance to the Ancient Greek civilization.[69] The same
mythological cycle also inspired a series of posterior European literary writings. For instance, Trojan
Medieval European writers, unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the Troy legend a rich
source of heroic and romantic storytelling and a convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly
and chivalric ideals. Twelfth-century authors, such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure (Roman de Troie
[Romance of Troy, 1154–60]) and Joseph of Exeter (De Bello Troiano [On the Trojan War, 1183])
describe the war while rewriting the standard version they found in Dictys and Dares. They thus follow
Horace's advice and Virgil's example: they rewrite a poem of Troy instead of telling something
completely new.[70]

Some of the more famous heroes noted for their inclusion in the Trojan War were:

On the Trojan side:

Aeneas
Hector
 Paris
On the Greek side:

Ajax (there were two Ajaxes)

Achilles
King Agamemnon
Menelaus
Odysseus

Greek and Roman conceptions of myth

Mythology was at the heart of everyday life in Ancient Greece.[71] Greeks regarded mythology as a part
of their history. They used myth to explain natural phenomena, cultural variations, traditional enmities
and friendships. It was a source of pride to be able to trace the descent of one's leaders from a
mythological hero or a god. Few ever doubted that there was truth behind the account of the Trojan War
in the Iliad and Odyssey. According to Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian, columnist, political
essayist and former classics professor, and John Heath, a classics professor, the profound knowledge of
the Homeric epos was deemed by the Greeks the basis of their acculturation. Homer was the "education
of Greece" (Ἑλλάδος παίδευσις), and his poetry "the Book".[72]

Philosophy and myth

After the rise of philosophy, history, prose and rationalism in the
late 5th century BC, the fate of myth became uncertain, and
mythological genealogies gave place to a conception of history
which tried to exclude the supernatural (such as the Thucydidean
history).[73] While poets and dramatists were reworking the
myths, Greek historians and philosophers were beginning to
criticize them.[8]

A few radical philosophers like Xenophanes of Colophon were

already beginning to label the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in
the 6th century BC; Xenophanes had complained that Homer and
Hesiod attributed to the gods "all that is shameful and disgraceful
Raphael's Plato in The School of among men; they steal, commit adultery, and deceive one
Athens fresco (probably in the
another".[74] This line of thought found its most sweeping
likeness of Leonardo da Vinci). The
philosopher expelled the study of
expression in Plato's Republic and Laws. Plato created his own
Homer, of the tragedies and of the allegorical myths (such as the vision of Er in the Republic),
related mythological traditions from attacked the traditional tales of the gods' tricks, thefts and
his utopian Republic. adulteries as immoral, and objected to their central role in
literature.[8] Plato's criticism was the first serious challenge to the
Homeric mythological tradition,[72] referring to the myths as "old
wives' chatter".[75] For his part Aristotle criticized the Pre-socratic quasi-mythical philosophical
approach and underscored that "Hesiod and the theological writers were concerned only with what
seemed plausible to themselves, and had no respect for us ... But it is not worth taking seriously writers
who show off in the mythical style; as for those who do proceed by proving their assertions, we must
cross-examine them".[73]
Nevertheless, even Plato did not manage to wean himself and his society from the influence of myth; his
own characterization for Socrates is based on the traditional Homeric and tragic patterns, used by the
philosopher to praise the righteous life of his teacher:[76]

But perhaps someone might say: "Are you then not ashamed, Socrates, of having followed
such a pursuit, that you are now in danger of being put to death as a result?" But I should
make to him a just reply: "You do not speak well, Sir, if you think a man in whom there is
even a little merit ought to consider danger of life or death, and not rather regard this only,
when he does things, whether the things he does are right or wrong and the acts of a good or
a bad man. For according to your argument all the demigods would be bad who died at Troy,
including the son of Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison with enduring any
disgrace, that when his mother (and she was a goddess) said to him, as he was eager to slay
Hector, something like this, I believe,

My son, if you avenge the death of your friend Patroclus and kill Hector, you
yourself shall die; for straightway, after Hector, is death appointed unto you.
(Hom. Il. 18.96)

he, when he heard this, made light of death and danger, and feared much more to live as a
coward and not to avenge his friends, and said,

Straightway may I die, after doing vengeance upon the wrongdoer, that I may
not stay here, jeered at beside the curved ships, a burden of the earth.

Hanson and Heath estimate that Plato's rejection of the Homeric tradition was not favorably received by
the grassroots Greek civilization.[72] The old myths were kept alive in local cults; they continued to
influence poetry and to form the main subject of painting and sculpture.[73]

More sportingly, the 5th century BC tragedian Euripides often played with the old traditions, mocking
them, and through the voice of his characters injecting notes of doubt. Yet the subjects of his plays were
taken, without exception, from myth. Many of these plays were written in answer to a predecessor's
version of the same or similar myth. Euripides mainly impugns the myths about the gods and begins his
critique with an objection similar to the one previously expressed by Xenocrates: the gods, as
traditionally represented, are far too crassly anthropomorphic.[74]

Hellenistic and Roman rationalism

During the Hellenistic period, mythology took on the prestige of elite knowledge that marks its
possessors as belonging to a certain class. At the same time, the skeptical turn of the Classical age
became even more pronounced.[77] Greek mythographer Euhemerus established the tradition of seeking
an actual historical basis for mythical beings and events.[78] Although his original work (Sacred
Scriptures) is lost, much is known about it from what is recorded by Diodorus and Lactantius.[79]

Rationalizing hermeneutics of myth became even more popular under the Roman Empire, thanks to the
physicalist theories of Stoic and Epicurean philosophy. Stoics presented explanations of the gods and
heroes as physical phenomena, while the Euhemerists rationalized them as historical figures. At the same
time, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists promoted the moral significations of the mythological tradition,
often based on Greek etymologies.[80] Through his Epicurean message, Lucretius had sought to expel
superstitious fears from the minds of his fellow-citizens.[81] Livy, too, is skeptical about the mythological
 tradition and claims that he does not intend to pass judgement on such
legends (fabulae).[82] The challenge for Romans with a strong and
apologetic sense of religious tradition was to defend that tradition while
conceding that it was often a breeding-ground for superstition. The
antiquarian Varro, who regarded religion as a human institution with
great importance for the preservation of good in society, devoted rigorous
study to the origins of religious cults. In his Antiquitates Rerum
Divinarum (which has not survived, but Augustine's City of God
indicates its general approach) Varro argues that whereas the
superstitious man fears the gods, the truly religious person venerates
them as parents.[81] According to Varro, there have been three accounts
of deities in the Roman society: the mythical account created by poets for
Cicero saw himself as the theatre and entertainment, the civil account used by people for veneration
defender of the established as well as by the city, and the natural account created by the
order, despite his personal philosophers.[83] The best state is, adds Varro, where the civil theology
skepticism with regard to combines the poetic mythical account with the philosopher's.[83]
myth and his inclination
towards more philosophical Roman Academic Cotta ridicules both literal and allegorical acceptance
conceptions of divinity.
of myth, declaring roundly that myths have no place in philosophy.[84]
Cicero is also generally disdainful of myth, but, like Varro, he is
emphatic in his support for the state religion and its institutions. It is
difficult to know how far down the social scale this rationalism extended.[82] Cicero asserts that no one
(not even old women and boys) is so foolish as to believe in the terrors of Hades or the existence of
Scyllas, centaurs or other composite creatures,[85] but, on the other hand, the orator elsewhere complains
of the superstitious and credulous character of the people.[86] De Natura Deorum is the most
comprehensive summary of Cicero's line of thought.[87]

Syncretizing trends
In Ancient Roman times, a new Roman mythology was born through syncretization of numerous Greek
and other foreign gods. This occurred because the Romans had little mythology of their own, and
inheritance of the Greek mythological tradition caused the major Roman gods to adopt characteristics of
their Greek equivalents.[82] The gods Zeus and Jupiter are an example of this mythological overlap. In
addition to the combination of the two mythological traditions, the association of the Romans with
eastern religions led to further syncretizations.[88] For instance, the cult of Sun was introduced in Rome
after Aurelian's successful campaigns in Syria. The Asiatic divinities Mithras (that is to say, the Sun) and
Ba'al were combined with Apollo and Helios into one Sol Invictus, with conglomerated rites and
compound attributes.[89] Apollo might be increasingly identified in religion with Helios or even
Dionysus, but texts retelling his myths seldom reflected such developments. The traditional literary
mythology was increasingly dissociated from actual religious practice. The worship of Sol as special
protector of the emperors and of the empire remained the chief imperial religion until it was replaced by
Christianity.

The surviving 2nd-century collection of Orphic Hymns (second century AD) and the Saturnalia of
Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius (fifth century) are influenced by the theories of rationalism and the
syncretizing trends as well. The Orphic Hymns are a set of pre-classical poetic compositions, attributed
to Orpheus, himself the subject of a renowned myth. In reality, these poems were probably composed by
several different poets, and contain a rich set of clues about prehistoric European mythology.[90] The
stated purpose of the Saturnalia is to transmit the Hellenic culture
Macrobius has derived from his reading, even though much of his
treatment of gods is colored by Egyptian and North African mythology
and theology (which also affect the interpretation of Virgil). In Saturnalia
reappear mythographical comments influenced by the Euhemerists, the
Stoics and the Neoplatonists.[80]

Modern interpretations
The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by
some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the eighteenth century
against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity", in which the
Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been
retained.[91] In Germany, by about 1795, there was a growing interest in
Homer and Greek mythology. In Göttingen, Johann Matthias Gesner
began to revive Greek studies, while his successor, Christian Gottlob
Heyne, worked with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and laid the
foundations for mythological research both in Germany and
elsewhere.[92]

Apollo (early Imperial

Comparative and psychoanalytic approaches Roman copy of a fourth-
century Greek original,
The development of comparative philology in the 19th century, together
Louvre Museum).
with ethnological discoveries in the 20th century, established the science
of myth. Since the Romantics, all study of myth has been comparative.
Wilhelm Mannhardt, James Frazer, and Stith Thompson employed the
comparative approach to collect and classify the themes of folklore and
mythology.[93] In 1871 Edward Burnett Tylor published his Primitive
Culture, in which he applied the comparative method and tried to explain
the origin and evolution of religion.[94] Tylor's procedure of drawing
together material culture, ritual and myth of widely separated cultures
influenced both Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Max Müller applied the
new science of comparative mythology to the study of myth, in which he
detected the distorted remains of Aryan nature worship. Bronisław
Malinowski emphasized the ways myth fulfills common social functions.
Claude Lévi-Strauss and other structuralists have compared the formal
relations and patterns in myths throughout the world.[93] Max Müller is regarded as
one of the founders of
Sigmund Freud introduced a transhistorical and biological conception of comparative mythology. In
his Comparative Mythology
man and a view of myth as an expression of repressed ideas. Dream
(1867) Müller analysed the
interpretation is the basis of Freudian myth interpretation and Freud's "disturbing" similarity
concept of dreamwork recognizes the importance of contextual between the mythologies of
relationships for the interpretation of any individual element in a dream. "savage races" with those of
This suggestion would find an important point of rapprochement between the early Europeans.
the structuralist and psychoanalytic approaches to myth in Freud's
thought.[95] Carl Jung extended the transhistorical, psychological
approach with his theory of the "collective unconscious" and the archetypes (inherited "archaic"
patterns), often encoded in myth, that arise out of it.[3] According to Jung, "myth-forming structural
elements must be present in the unconscious psyche".[96] Comparing Jung's methodology with Joseph
Campbell's theory, Robert A. Segal concludes that "to interpret a myth Campbell simply identifies the
archetypes in it. An interpretation of the Odyssey, for example, would show how Odysseus's life
conforms to a heroic pattern. Jung, by contrast, considers the identification of archetypes merely the first
step in the interpretation of a myth".[97] Karl Kerényi, one of the founders of modern studies in Greek
mythology, gave up his early views of myth, in order to apply Jung's theories of archetypes to Greek
myth.[98]

Origin theories
Max Müller attempted to understand an Indo-European religious form by tracing it back to its Indo-
European (or, in Müller's time, "Aryan") "original" manifestation. In 1891, he claimed that "the most
important discovery which has been made during the nineteenth century with respect to the ancient
history of mankind ... was this sample equation: Sanskrit Dyaus-pitar = Greek Zeus = Latin Jupiter = Old
Norse Tyr".[99] The question of Greek mythology's place in Indo-European studies has generated much
scholarship since Müller's time. For example, philologist Georges Dumézil draws a comparison between
the Greek Uranus and the Sanskrit Varuna, although there is no hint that he believes them to be originally
connected.[100] In other cases, close parallels in character and function suggest a common heritage, yet
lack of linguistic evidence makes it difficult to prove, as in the case of the Greek Moirai and the Norns of
Norse mythology.[101]

It appears that the Mycenaean religion was the mother of the Greek religion[102] and its pantheon already
included many divinities that can be found in classical Greece.[103] However, Greek mythology is
generally seen as having heavy influence of Pre-Greek and Near Eastern cultures, and as such contains
few important elements for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European religion.[104] Consequently,
Greek mythology received minimal scholarly attention in the context of Indo-European comparative
mythology until the mid 2000s.[105]

Archaeology and mythography have revealed influence from Asia Minor and the Near East. Adonis
seems to be the Greek counterpart—more clearly in cult than in myth—of a Near Eastern "dying god".
Cybele is rooted in Anatolian culture while much of Aphrodite's iconography may spring from Semitic
goddesses. There are also possible parallels between the earliest divine generations (Chaos and its
children) and Tiamat in the Enuma Elish.[106] According to Meyer Reinhold, "near Eastern theogonic
concepts, involving divine succession through violence and generational conflicts for power, found their
way ... into Greek mythology".[107]

In addition to Indo-European and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have speculated on the debts of
Greek mythology to the indigenous pre-Greek societies: Crete, Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes and
Orchomenus.[108] Historians of religion were fascinated by a number of apparently ancient
configurations of myth connected with Crete (the god as bull, Zeus and Europa, Pasiphaë who yields to
the bull and gives birth to the Minotaur, etc.). Martin P. Nilsson asserts, based on the representations and
general function of the gods, that a lot of Minoan gods and religious conceptions were fused in the
Mycenaean religion.[109] and concluded that all great classical Greek myths were tied to Mycenaean
centres and anchored in prehistoric times.[110] Nevertheless, according to Burkert, the iconography of the
Cretan Palace Period has provided almost no confirmation for these theories.[111]

Motifs in Western art and literature

The widespread adoption of Christianity did not curb the
popularity of the myths. With the rediscovery of classical
antiquity in the Renaissance, the poetry of Ovid became a major
influence on the imagination of poets, dramatists, musicians and
artists.[112] From the early years of Renaissance, artists such as
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael, portrayed the
Pagan subjects of Greek mythology alongside more conventional
Christian themes.[112] Through the medium of Latin and the Botticelli's The Birth of Venus
works of Ovid, Greek myth influenced medieval and Renaissance (c. 1485–1486, oil on canvas, Uffizi,
poets such as Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante in Italy.[3] Florence)—a revived Venus Pudica
for a new view of pagan Antiquity—is
In Northern Europe, often said to epitomize for modern
Greek mythology never viewers the spirit of the
Renaissance.[3]
took the same hold of the
visual arts, but its effect
was very obvious on literature.[113] The English imagination was
fired by Greek mythology starting with Chaucer and John Milton
and continuing through Shakespeare to Robert Bridges in the
20th century. Racine in France and Goethe in Germany revived
Greek drama, reworking the ancient myths.[112] Although during
the Enlightenment of the 18th century reaction against Greek
myth spread throughout Europe, the myths continued to provide
an important source of raw material for dramatists, including
those who wrote the libretti for many of Handel's and Mozart's
The Lament for Icarus (1898) by operas.[114]
Herbert James Draper
By the end of the 18th century, Romanticism initiated a surge of
enthusiasm for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. In
Britain, new translations of Greek tragedies and Homer inspired contemporary poets (such as Alfred
Lord Tennyson, Keats, Byron and Shelley) and painters (such as Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-
Tadema).[115] Christoph Gluck, Richard Strauss, Jacques Offenbach and many others set Greek
mythological themes to music.[3] American authors of the 19th century, such as Thomas Bulfinch and
Nathaniel Hawthorne, held that the study of the classical myths was essential to the understanding of
English and American literature.[116] In more recent times, classical themes have been reinterpreted by
dramatists Jean Anouilh, Jean Cocteau, and Jean Giraudoux in France, Eugene O'Neill in America, and
T. S. Eliot in Britain and by novelists such as James Joyce and André Gide.[3]

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Further reading
Gantz, Timothy (1993). Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. Johns
Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-4410-2.
Graves, Robert (1993) [1955]. The Greek Myths (Cmb/Rep ed.). Penguin (Non-Classics).
ISBN 978-0-14-017199-0.
Hamilton, Edith (1998) [1942]. Mythology (New ed.). Back Bay Books. ISBN 978-0-316-
34151-6.
Kerenyi, Karl (1980) [1951]. The Gods of the Greeks (https://archive.org/details/godsofgreek
s00kerrich) (Reissue ed.). Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-27048-6.
Kerenyi, Karl (1978) [1959]. The Heroes of the Greeks (https://archive.org/details/heroesofg
reeks00kerrich) (Reissue ed.). Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-27049-3.
Luchte, James (2011). Early Greek Thought: Before the Dawn. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-
567-35331-3.
 Morford M.P.O., Lenardon L.J. (2006). Classical Mythology. Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-530805-1.
Pinsent, John (1972). Greek Mythology. Bantam. ISBN 978-0-448-00848-6.
Pinsent, John (1991). Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece. Library of the World's Myths
and Legends. Peter Bedrick Books. ISBN 978-0-87226-250-8.
Powell, Barry (2008). Classical Myth (6th ed.). Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-606171-7.
Powell, Barry (2001). A Short Introduction to Classical Myth (https://archive.org/details/short
introductio0000powe). Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-025839-7.
Ruck Carl, Staples Blaise Daniel (1994). The World of Classical Myth. Carolina Academic
Press. ISBN 978-0-89089-575-7.
Smith, William (1870), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20051130005902/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/).
Veyne, Paul (1988). Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on Constitutive
Imagination (https://books.google.com/?id=EpbZLRPGgBsC&printsec=frontcover).
(translated by Paula Wissing). University of Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-85434-2.
Woodward, Roger D. (editor) (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology (http
s://books.google.com/?id=TQyRX6WmMUMC&printsec=frontcover). Cambridge; New York:
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-84520-5.

External links
Media related to Greek mythology at Wikimedia Commons
Greek Myths (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0093z1k) on In Our Time at the BBC
Library of Classical Mythology Texts (https://web.archive.org/web/20070915040106/http://w
ww.library.theoi.com/) translations of works of classical literature
LIMC-France (http://www.limc-france.fr/) provides databases dedicated to Graeco-Roman
mythology and its iconography.
Martin P. Nilsson, The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (https://books.google.com/bo
oks?id=xQzlzYEUm2QC&pg=PA11&dq=mycenaeans+chronology&hl=en&ei=TDQbTPixEo
n94Aba58mwCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFIQ6AEwCTgK#v=
onepage&q&f=false), on Google books

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