Explore the pantheons

Greatest warrior at Troy, son of the sea nymph Thetis, offered the choice of a long obscure life or a short one of everlasting glory. The Iliad is the story of his wrath, withdrawn from battle over an insult, returning only when it costs Patroclus's life.

The tasseled, dread-inspiring shield-cloak of Zeus, more often borne by Athena, fringed with terror and set with the Gorgon's head. To hold it aloft is to rout an army with fear alone.

Trojan son of Aphrodite, twice saved from death by the gods because his destiny lay elsewhere: to survive the fall of Troy. Roman tradition made him the ancestor of Rome, the one Trojan whose story is mostly told in Latin.

High king of the Greek expedition, who sacrificed his own daughter Iphigenia for a sailing wind. He took Troy after ten years and came home to be murdered in his bath by his wife Clytemnestra, the curse of the house of Atreus closing over him.

The towering "bulwark of the Achaeans," second only to Achilles, who fought Hector to a draw and shielded the ships alone. Denied Achilles' armor by vote, he went mad with shame, slaughtered flocks he took for the generals, and fell on his own sword.

Daughter of Oedipus, who buried her outlaw brother in defiance of the king's decree, choosing divine law over human edict and death over obedience, the West's founding drama of conscience versus state.

Goddess of love and desire, irresistible to gods and mortals alike. Her very origin is contested: born from sea-foam in Hesiod, but a daughter of Zeus and Dione in Homer, two traditions the Greeks never reconciled.

Son of Zeus and Leto, god of the oracle at Delphi. Patron of music and healing who can equally send plague, his arrows open the Iliad by devastating the Greek camp.

God of war in its raw slaughter, as against Athena's discipline, beloved by neither gods nor Greeks. His affair with Aphrodite, exposed in a golden net before the laughing gods, is his most famous appearance outside the battlefield.

Cretan princess whose ball of thread led Theseus out of her father's Labyrinth. He sailed off with her and left her sleeping on Naxos, where Dionysus found her, married her, and set her bridal crown among the stars.

Virgin goddess of the hunt and twin of Apollo, armed with the silver bow. Protector of girls and wild things, and merciless to those who violate her, the hunter Actaeon saw her bathing and was torn apart by his own hounds.

Son of Apollo, taught healing by the centaur Chiron, so skilled he began raising the dead, for which Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt, then set him among the stars. His serpent-twined staff remains medicine's emblem.

The huntress suckled by a bear, first to wound the Calydonian Boar, unbeaten in the footrace no suitor survived, until one raced her scattering irresistible golden apples, on Aphrodite's advice.

Goddess of wisdom and disciplined warfare, born fully armed from the head of Zeus. Patron of Athens, of heroes like Odysseus, and of weavers and craftsmen.

The great city that took Athena as its patron after her gift of the olive tree bested Poseidon's spring, home of the hero Theseus.

The Titan condemned after the Titanomachy to hold up the sky at the world's western edge. Heracles briefly shouldered the burden for him, and tricked him into taking it back.

Tamer of the winged horse Pegasus with Athena's golden bridle, slayer of the fire-breathing Chimera. He tried at last to fly to Olympus itself; Zeus sent a gadfly, Pegasus threw him, and he ended his days lame and shunned, the textbook of hubris.

The great bow of Heracles, its arrows envenomed with Hydra's blood; prophecy held that Troy could not fall without it.

The winged staff twined with two serpents carried by Hermes, messenger of the gods, with which he guides souls to the underworld and lulls or wakes the eyes of mortals.

The nymph of Ogygia who kept the shipwrecked Odysseus seven years, offering him immortality to stay. He sat on her shore weeping for Ithaca; the gods themselves had to order his release.

Trojan princess granted prophecy by Apollo and cursed, when she refused him, never to be believed. She foresaw the horse, the fall, her own murder in Agamemnon's house, and was dismissed as mad each time.

A race half-man and half-horse, wild and wine-maddened save for the wise Chiron who tutored heroes; their brawl with the Lapiths was a favorite of Greek art.

The many-headed hound with a serpent's tail who guards the gates of the underworld, letting the dead enter but none return. Dragging him up to the daylight was the last and greatest of Heracles' labors.

A fire-breathing monster, lion in front, goat in the middle, serpent behind, that ravaged Lycia until Bellerophon, mounted on the winged horse Pegasus, struck it down from the air.

The witch-goddess, daughter of Helios, who turned Odysseus's crew to swine. Mastered only with the god-given herb moly, she became the voyage's ally instead, hosting Odysseus a year and charting his course past the Sirens and the dead.

The far eastern kingdom on the Black Sea where the Golden Fleece hung guarded, the destination of the Argonauts and home of Medea.

The island kingdom of King Minos, seat of the palace of Knossos, the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur.

Youngest Titan, who unmanned his father and swallowed his own children to dodge the same prophecy. Tricked into swallowing a stone in place of Zeus, he was overthrown in turn, in some tellings, to reign again over the blessed dead.

One-eyed giants; the elder Cyclopes forged Zeus's thunderbolt, while their savage cousin Polyphemus trapped Odysseus in his cave.

The master craftsman of the age: builder of the Labyrinth, and of the wings on which he and his son escaped it. His genius served tyrants and killed his boy, the myth of technology's double edge.

The sanctuary of Apollo on the slopes of Parnassus, seat of the Pythia whose prophecies shaped the fate of heroes and cities. Marked by the omphalos, the stone the Greeks called the navel of the world.

Goddess of the harvest, whose grief-strike over her abducted daughter Persephone left the earth barren until a compromise was struck, the myth the Greeks told to explain winter, and the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Twice-born god of wine, snatched from his dying mother Semele and carried to term in Zeus's thigh. His ecstatic cult dissolved the boundaries of self, sex, and city, and from his festivals Greek theater itself was born.

The blessed fields at the world's edge where the favored dead and heroes enjoy an eternal, effortless summer.

Rosy-fingered dawn, sister of sun and moon, cursed with insatiable love for mortal men. She asked Zeus for immortality for her lover Tithonus, but forgot to ask for eternal youth, and he withered forever.

Brother of Prometheus, Afterthought to his Forethought, who ignored the warning to accept no gift from Zeus and welcomed Pandora, jar and all, into the world of men.

Goddess of discord who, uninvited to a wedding, rolled a golden apple inscribed "to the fairest" among the goddesses, the quarrel that led to the Judgment of Paris and the Trojan War.

Desire itself. In Hesiod he is primordial, arising with Earth at the beginning and loosening the limbs of gods and men; later tradition makes him Aphrodite's arrow-shooting son, two irreconcilable pedigrees for the same force.

The earth herself, first to arise from Chaos, mother and grandmother of Titans, gods, and monsters alike. She armed Cronus against Uranus and later turned against Zeus, the ground beneath every succession war.

The embroidered girdle of Aphrodite that makes its wearer irresistible; Hera borrows it to beguile Zeus in the Iliad.

The gleaming fleece of a flying golden ram, hung in a sacred grove and guarded by a sleepless dragon. Jason and the Argonauts sailed to the edge of the world to win it and reclaim a throne.

A creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, guardian of gold in the far north and sacred to Apollo.

Eldest brother of Zeus and lord of the underworld, which he received when the three brothers divided the cosmos. Feared but not evil, a stern warden of the dead rather than a devil figure.

Winged spirits of sudden storm-winds who snatch away food and people; they tormented the blind seer Phineus until the Argonauts drove them off.

Goddess of witchcraft and the crossroads, honored by Zeus above all in Hesiod, torch-bearer in the search for Persephone. She walks the night with hounds and the restless dead, invoked at every threshold between worlds.

Crown prince and shield of Troy, the Iliad's great figure of duty, fighting a war he knows is lost, for a brother's fault, leaving wife and infant son at the gate. Killed by Achilles and dragged behind his chariot, ransomed at last by his old father's tears.

Daughter of Zeus and Leda, the most beautiful woman in the world, whose flight, or abduction, to Troy launched a thousand ships. The tradition never settles whether she was cause, captive, or pretext; in one version she never went to Troy at all.

The sun as a god, driving his four-horse chariot across the sky each day and seeing everything below, it is Helios who reports Persephone's abduction and the affair of Ares and Aphrodite. His cattle, eaten by Odysseus's crew, cost them their homecoming.

The helm of Hades, forged by the Cyclopes, that renders its wearer unseen. Lent to gods and heroes, it shrouded Perseus as he escaped the surviving Gorgons.

The lame smith god, cast from Olympus in infancy, who returned to build the gods' palaces, Achilles' shield, and Pandora herself. In Hesiod, Hera bears him alone in retaliation for Athena, one of the traditions' pointed disagreements.

Queen of the Olympians, sister and wife of Zeus, guardian of marriage. Proud and implacable, she relentlessly persecutes Zeus's lovers and their children, most famously Heracles.

The greatest of Greek heroes, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. Driven to madness by Hera, he atoned through twelve impossible labors, and after death was raised to Olympus as a god.

Messenger of the gods and guide of souls to the underworld, inventor of the lyre on the day of his birth, which he spent stealing Apollo's cattle. Patron of travelers, merchants, thieves, and everyone who lives by wit.

Eldest child of Cronus and goddess of the hearth, who renounced marriage and Olympian quarrels alike. Every household and city fire was hers; she has almost no myths because she never leaves home, and that is the point.

Son of Daedalus, who escaped Crete on wings of wax and feathers. Warned to fly the middle course, he rose toward the sun in sheer exhilaration; the wax ran, and the sea that took him bears his name.

The rugged western island that is the home and kingdom of Odysseus, the goal of his ten-year wandering and the stage for his return in disguise to reclaim his wife and hall.

Leader of the Argonauts on the quest for the Golden Fleece, which he won only through Medea's magic and betrayed love. He broke his oath to her at Corinth and lost everything, killed at last, in one tradition, by the rotting stern of his own famous ship.

The inescapable maze built beneath the palace of Knossos by the craftsman Daedalus to hold the Minotaur, from which even its maker barely escaped, on wings, with his son Icarus.

The venomous water-serpent of Lerna that grew two heads for every one severed. Heracles overcame it as his second labor, cauterizing each stump, and dipped his arrows in its blood to make them ever after lethal.

The Titaness whom jealous Hera barred from every land when she was pregnant by Zeus, until the floating island of Delos gave her refuge to bear the twins Apollo and Artemis, whose first acts were to defend her.

The tortoise-shell lyre invented by the infant Hermes and traded to Apollo, who made it the instrument of music and poetry.

Granddaughter of Helios who betrayed everything for Jason, homeland, brother, kin, and made his quest succeed. When he discarded her for a princess, she killed the bride with a poisoned crown, and her own sons with her hands, and left in the sun's dragon chariot.

The one mortal Gorgon, serpent-haired, whose gaze turned onlookers to stone. In Ovid she is a victim first, a beautiful woman transformed by Athena after Poseidon violated her in the goddess's own temple. From her severed neck sprang the winged horse Pegasus.

King of Sparta and Helen's husband, for whose sake the hundred kings sailed. He survived the war, wandered seven years, took Helen home, and, as Zeus's son-in-law, was promised the Isles of the Blessed instead of death.

The Titaness whose name means cunning itself, who mixed the potion that made Cronus vomit up his children. Zeus swallowed her while she was pregnant to forestall a prophesied usurper, and Athena was born from his head.

The Phrygian king granted his exact wish: that all he touched turn to gold. His food turned metal in his mouth, his daughter, in later telling, to a statue in his arms, until he begged to be rid of the gift and washed it into the river Pactolus.

King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa, master of the Aegean, who commissioned the Labyrinth to hide his queen's monstrous child and exacted Athens' tribute of youths to feed it. After death, he judges the dead in the underworld.

The bull-headed man born to the queen of Crete and hidden in the Labyrinth, fed on youths sent as tribute from Athens, until Theseus followed Ariadne's thread to its heart and killed it.

The highest mountain in Greece and the cloud-wrapped court of the Olympian gods, where Zeus presides over the divine assembly above the reach of wind and weather.

The mountain from which the Titans waged the ten-year Titanomachy against the Olympians on Mount Olympus.

A monstrous lion whose hide no weapon could pierce; Heracles strangled it as his first labor and wore its skin ever after.

The goddess who restores balance, visiting ruin on excessive pride and unearned fortune. It was she who led Narcissus to the pool where he fell in love with his own reflection.

Night herself, born directly from Chaos, mother of Sleep, Death, Strife, and the Fates. So ancient and dread that even Zeus, in the Iliad, checks himself rather than displease her.

King of Ithaca and hero of the Odyssey, famed for the wooden horse that ended the Trojan War. His ten-year voyage home, past the Cyclops, Circe, and the Sirens, is the archetypal tale of wit against adversity.

King of Thebes who solved the Sphinx's riddle and doggedly investigated a plague's cause, only to find it was himself: the man who had unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. He put out his own eyes with her brooches.

The musician whose lyre moved stones and beasts, who sang his way into the underworld to reclaim his dead wife Eurydice. She was his on one condition, that he not look back before the light. He looked back.

The goat-legged god of flocks and mountainsides, player of the reed pipes he made from the transformed nymph Syrinx. The sudden terror he sends on those who disturb the wild noonday still bears his name: panic.

The first woman, crafted by Hephaestus at Zeus's order as beautiful vengeance for stolen fire. Her jar, mistranslated for centuries as a box, loosed every evil into the world, with hope alone left under the lid.

The great jar, later mistranslated a "box," that Pandora opened, loosing every evil upon the world and leaving only hope within.

The Trojan prince asked to judge which goddess was fairest. He chose Aphrodite, who paid him with Helen, another man's wife, and doomed his city. The archer whose shot (guided by Apollo) found Achilles' one mortal spot.

Achilles' beloved companion since boyhood, who put on Achilles' own armor to save the burning ships and drove the Trojans back, until Apollo struck him and Hector finished it. His death brings Achilles back to battle, and dooms them both.

The immortal winged horse sprung from the blood of Medusa, tamed with Athena's golden bridle. He carried Bellerophon against the Chimera and, in the end, was stabled among the stars.

Odysseus's queen, who held Ithaca against a houseful of suitors for twenty years, weaving a shroud by day and unraveling it by night. Her cunning matches her husband's: she tests even him, at the end, with the secret of their immovable bed.

Daughter of Demeter, abducted by Hades to be queen of the dead. Having eaten pomegranate seeds below, she divides each year between the underworld and the living earth, dread queen and returning spring at once.

Son of Zeus by Danae, sent for the Gorgon's head as an impossible errand. Armed by the gods with winged sandals and a mirror-bright shield, he beheaded Medusa, rescued Andromeda from a sea monster, and founded the line that produced Heracles.

Brother of Zeus and lord of the sea, the earth-shaker whose trident stirs storms and splits the ground. His decade-long grudge against Odysseus for blinding his son Polyphemus drives the Odyssey.

Last king of Troy, father of fifty sons, most of whom the war devoured. His night journey alone through the enemy camp, to kiss the hands of Achilles, killer of his son, and beg Hector's body back, is the Iliad's final mercy.

The Titan who sided with Zeus in the Titanomachy, then defied him by stealing fire for humankind. Punished by being chained to a mountain where an eagle devoured his ever-regenerating liver.

Sister-wife of Cronus who, tired of watching her children swallowed, hid the infant Zeus in a Cretan cave and handed her husband a swaddled stone instead.

The moon as a goddess, sister of Helios, crossing the night sky in her silver chariot. Best known for her love of the shepherd Endymion, sealed in eternal sleep so she might visit him forever.

The shield forged for Achilles by Hephaestus, its surface engraved with the whole world at war and peace, described at length in the Iliad.

Bird-women whose irresistible song lured sailors onto the rocks; Odysseus alone heard it and lived, lashed to his mast.

The craftiest of men, who twice cheated death itself, once chaining Death, once talking his way back from the underworld. His sentence fit the crime: to roll a boulder uphill forever, watching it roll back each time from the summit.

A winged lion with a woman's face who throttled travelers who failed her riddle, until Oedipus answered it. Undone by his wit, she hurled herself from the rock, lifting her plague from Thebes.

The golden winged sandals that bear their wearer swift as the wind over sea and land. Worn by Hermes on his errands and lent to Perseus for the killing of Medusa.

The king who dined with the gods and abused it, stealing their nectar, testing their omniscience by serving them his own butchered son. He stands forever in receding water beneath fruit that lifts from his reach: to tantalize.

The deep pit below even Hades, as far beneath earth as heaven is above it, where the defeated Titans and the worst sinners are imprisoned.

Son of Odysseus, an infant when the fleet sailed and a young man hunting news of his father when the Odyssey opens. Guided by Athena, his search is the poem's coming-of-age story, ending with father and son fighting side by side.

The shadowed kingdom beneath the earth ruled by Hades, across the river Styx, where the souls of the dead endure. Few living heroes, Odysseus and Heracles among them, ever entered and returned.

Titaness of divine law and custom, second holder of the Delphic oracle and counselor at Zeus's side. Mother of the Seasons and, in most accounts, of the Fates, law older than the gods who enforce it.

Athens' national hero, who cleared the coast road of brigands, entered the Labyrinth, and killed the Minotaur, escaping by Ariadne's thread, then abandoning her on Naxos. As king he unified Attica; as a man he kept breaking what he saved.

The bolt of lightning forged by the Cyclopes and given to Zeus after the Titanomachy, the instrument of his sovereignty. With it he cast down the Titans and the giant Typhon and enforces the order of Olympus.

The three-pronged spear with which Poseidon rules the sea, raises storms and earthquakes, and struck the rock of the Acropolis in his contest with Athena.

The great walled city of the Troad, ruled by King Priam and defended by Hector, besieged ten years by the Greeks over Helen and at last taken by the ruse of the wooden horse.

The sky, born of Gaia and then her consort, who imprisoned his children inside the earth. Castrated by his son Cronus with an adamantine sickle; from his blood came the Furies, and from the sea-foam around his severed flesh, Aphrodite.

King of the Olympian gods, wielder of the thunderbolt. Overthrew his father Cronus and the Titans to establish the Olympian order, ruling from Mount Olympus as enforcer of oaths and hospitality.