GREEK MYTHOLOGY

A major branch of classical mythology, 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 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 practice

“Greek Mythology was part of the religion in Ancient Greece. The most popular Greek Mythology figures include Greek Gods like Zeus, Poseidon & Apollo, etc."

Boreas(Βορεας)

Boreas was the purple-winged god of the north wind, one of the four seasonal Anemoi (Wind-Gods). He was also the god of winter who swept down from the cold mountains of Thrake (Thrace), chilling the air with his icy breath. Beyond his mountain home lay Hyperborea, a mythical land of eternal spring untouched by the god's winds.When Boreas sought a wife, he carried off Oreithyia daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens, who was playing with her companions in a riverside meadow. Their children included Chione, goddess of snow, and the Boreades, a pair of winged heroes. Boreas and his brother were often imagined as horse-shaped gods in form. An old Greek folk belief was that the winds Boreas and Zephyros would sweep down upon the mares in early spring and fertilize them in the guise of wind-formed stallions. The horses born from these couplings were the swiftest and finest of their kind. The fabulous horses of King Laomedon of Troy were said to have been sired in this way by Boreas upon the Trojan mares.In Greek vase painting Boreas was depicted as a striding, winged god. Sometimes his hair and beard were spiked with ice. In mosaic art he often appears as a gust blowing head with bloated cheeks up among the clouds. This imagery carried over into post-Classical art, and is frequently found in old maps. Boreas' name is simply the ancient Greek word for "north-wind" which was perhaps in turn derived from the Greek verb boraô meaning "to devour.”

ZEPHYRUS(Ζεφυρος)

Zephyrus was the god of the west wind, one of the four seasonal Anemoi (Wind-Gods). He was also the god of spring, the husband of Chloris (Greenery), and father of Carpus, Fruit.In myth Zephyros was a rival of the god Apollon for the love of Hyacinthus. One day he spied the pair playing a game of quoits in a meadow, and in a jealous rage, blew the disc off-course with a gust of wind, causing it to strike the boy in the head killing him instantly. Apollon, stricken with grief, transformed the dying youth into a larkspur flower.Zephyros was depicted in classical art as a handsome, winged youth. In Greek vase painting, the unlabelled figures of a winged god embracing a youth are often identified as Zephyros and Hyakinthos. In Greco-Roman mosaic the god usually appears in the guise of spring personified carrying a basket of unripe fruit.

EOS(Ηως)

Eos was the rosy-fingered goddess of the dawn. She and her siblings Helios (the Sun) and Selene (the Moon) were numbered amongst the second-generation Titan gods. Eos rose into the sky from the river Oceanus at the start of each day, and with her rays of light dispersed the mists of night.She was depicted either driving a chariot drawn by winged horses or borne aloft on her own wings.Eos had an unquenchable desire for handsome young men, some say as the result of a curse laid upon her by the goddess Aphrodite. Her lovers included Orion,Pheaton, Cephalus and Tithonus, three of which she ravished away to distant lands. The Trojan prince Tithonos became her official consort. When the goddess petitioned Zeus for his immortality, she neglected also to request eternal youth. In time he shrivelled up by old age and transformed into a grasshopper.

HELIOS(Ἡλιος)

Helios was the Titan god of the sun, a guardian of oaths, and the god of sight. He dwelt in a golden palace in the River Oceanus at the far ends of the earth from which he emerged each dawn, crowned with the aureole of the sun, driving a chariot drawn by four winged steeds. When he reached the the land of the Hesperides in the far West he descended into a golden cup which bore him through the northern streams of Okeanos back to his rising place in the East.Once his son Phaethon tried to drive the chariot of the sun, but he lost control and set the earth ablaze. Zeus struck the boy down with a thunderbolt.Helios was depicted as a handsome, usually beardless, man clothed in purple robes and crowned with the shining aureole of the sun. His sun-chariot was drawn by four, sometimes winged, steeds.

AMPHITRITE(Αμφιτριτη)

Amphitrite was the goddess-queen of the sea, wife of Poseidon, and eldest of the fifty Nereides. She was the female personification of the sea--the loud-moaning mother of fish, seals and dolphins.When Poseidon first sought Amphitrite's hand in marriage, she fled his advances, and hid herself away near Atlas in the Ocean stream at the far ends of the earth. The dolphin-god Delphin eventually tracked her down and persuaded her to return to wed the sea-king.Amphitrite was depicted in Greek vase painting as a young woman, often raising her hand in a pinching gesture. Sometimes she was shown holding a fish. In mosaic art the goddess usually rides beside her husband in a chariot drawn by fish-tailed horses or hippokampoi. Sometimes her hair is enclosed with a net and her brow adorned with a pair of crab-claw "horns".Her name is probably derived from the Greek words amphis and tris, "the surrounding third." Her son Tritôn was similarly named "of the third." Clearly "the third" is the sea, although the reason for the term is obscure.

GAEA(Γαια,Γαιη,Γη)

Gaea was the goddess of the earth. She was one of the primoridal elemental deities (protogenoi) born at the dawn of creation. Gaia was the great mother of all creation--the heavenly gods were descended from her through her union with Ournos (Sky), the sea-gods from her union with Pontos (Sea), the Gigiantes from her mating with Tartaros (the Pit), and mortal creatures born directly from her earthy flesh.Gaia was the chief antagonist of the heavenly gods. First she rebelled against her husband Ouranos (Sky) who had imprisoned several of her giant-sons within her womb. Later when her son Kronos (defied her by imprisoning these same sons, she sided with Zeus in his rebellion. Finally she came into conflict with Zeus for she was angered by his binding of her Titan-sons in Tartaros. She birthed a tribe of Gigantes and later the monster Typheous to overthrow him, but both failed in their attempts.In the ancient Greek cosmology earth was conceived of as a flat disk encirced by the river Okeanos,and encompassed above by the solid dome of heaven and below by the great pit (or inverse dome) of Tartaros. Earth supported the seas and mountains upon her breast.In Greek vase painting Gaia was depicted as a buxom, matronly woman rising from the earth, inseparable from her native element. In mosaic art, she appears as a full-figured woman, reclining on the earth, often clothed in green, and sometimes accompanied by troops of Karpoi (Fruits) and Horai (Seasons).

TYKHE(Τυχη)

Tykhe was the goddess of fortune, chance, providence and fate. She was usually honoured in a more favourable light as Eutykhia (Eutychia), goddess of good fortune, luck, success and prosperity.

Tykhe was depicted with a variety of attributes--holding a rudder, she was conceived as the divinity guiding and conducting the affairs of the world, and in this respect she was called one of theMorai (Fates); with a ball she represented the varying unsteadiness of fortune, unsteady and capable of rolling in any direction; with Ploutos or the cornucopia, she was the symbol of the plentiful gifts of fortune.

Nemesis (Fair Distribution) was cautiously regarded as the downside of Tykhe, one who provided a check on extravagant favours conferred by fortune. The pair were often depicted as companions in Greek vase painting. In the vase painting (right) Nemesis (Indignation) with her arm around Tykhe (Fortune) points an accusing fingure at Helene, who Aphrodite has persuaded to elope with Paris.

HARMONIA(Ἁρμονια)

Harmonia was the goddess of harmony and concord. She was a daughter of Ares and Aphrodite and as such presided over both marital harmony, soothing strife and discord, and harmonious action of soldiers in war. Late Greek and Roman writers sometimes portrayed her as harmony in a more abstract sense--a deity who presided over cosmic balance.

Harmonia was born of Aphrodite's adulterous affair with the god Ares. She was awarded to Kadmos,hero and founder of Thebes, in a wedding attended by the gods. Hephaistos however, was still angry over his wife's betrayal and presented Harmonia with a cursed necklace, dooming her descendants to endless tragedy.Following a string of family catastrophes the couple emmigrated to Illyria where they battled various local tribes to found a new kingdom. Later the pair were transformed into serpents by the gods and carried off the Islands of the Blessed to live in peace.In ancient Greek vase painting Harmonia appears in two scenes--firstly as the bride of Kadmos and secondly as a goddess in the retinue of the bridal Aphrodite. Harmonia's opposite number was Eris (Strife).