Heroes: Volume II of Mythos

Illustrations 1. The Olympians, triumphant on Mount Olympus. 2. Prometheus continues to endure his terrible punishment. 3. The shower of gold. 4. Danaë and Perseus, rescued from the wooden box. 5. Perseus holds the head of Medusa, whose body lies on the ground. 6. The Head of Medusa. 7. Perseus rescues Andromeda from the sea dragon Cetus. 8. The infant Heracles choking a snake. 9. The creation of the Milky Way. 10. Heracles’ First Labour, the great Nemean Lion. 11. Heracles holds the Erymanthian boar over Eurystheus, cowering in his stone jar. 12. An Amazon defending herself from one of Heracles’ men. 13. Heracles, with his lion skin, club and bow, navigates while standing inside the Cup of Helios. 14. The Garden of the Hesperides. 15. The Gigantomachy, or the Fall of the Giants. 16. Pegasus and Bellerophon. 17. Orpheus plays for love, before Hades and Persephone. 18. Orpheus turns too quickly. 19. The Pythia at Delphi. 20. Hylas and the nymphs. 21. The Clashing Rocks. 22. Jason taming the Khalkotauroi. 23. Medea. 24. Medea tames the Colchis Dragon. 25. Jason finds the Golden Fleece. 26. The Calydonian Hunt. 27. The Foot Race. 28. Oedipus answers the riddle of the Sphinx. 29. The Labours of Theseus. 30. Theseus and the Marathonian Bull. 31. The art of bull-leaping. 32. The Tribute. 33. The Cretan Labyrinth. 34. The Minotaur. 35. The Fall of Icarus. 36. Ariadne, abandoned. 37. Theseus in Athens’ Syntagma Square.

List of Characters

O LYMPIAN G ODS APHRODITE Goddess of love. Offspring of Ouranos’s blood and seed. Wife of Hephaestus. Mother (by Ares) of Eros and Phobos. Inflicts dreadful punishments on those who neglect her, such as Atalanta and Hippomenes, Hippolytus, and Medea. Lover (and lifesaver) of Butes, by whom she has Eryx.

C HILDREN OF K RONOS AND R HEA DEMETER Goddess of fertility and the harvest. Mother (by Zeus) of Persephone, whose absence in the underworld she mourns for six months each year. Worshipped in the Eleusinian Mysteries. HADESfn1 God of the underworld. Also known as Plouton. Abductor and husband of Persephone. Master of Cerberus; lends him to Heracles. Possessor of hood of invisibility and Chair of Forgetfulness. Abettor of Perseus. Grants Orpheus the chance to bring Eurydice back from the dead. Imprisons Pirithous and Theseus for attempting to kidnap Persephone. HERA Queen of the Gods. Wife of Zeus. Mother (by Zeus) of Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe and Hephaestus. Breastfeeding accident gives rise to Milky Way. Possessor of malevolent gadflies and ferocious giant crab. Persecutor of Heracles; later his mother-in-law. Her honour defended by Heracles during the Gigantomachy. Enemy of Neleus and Pelias. Abettor of Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece. Sender of the Sphinx to punish Thebes in fulfilment of Pelops’s curse on Laius. POSEIDON God of the sea. Inventor (and god) of horses. Father of Antaeus (by Gaia), Bellerophon (by Eurynome), Chrysaor and Pegasus (by Medusa), Eurytus and Cteatus (by Molione), the golden ram (by Theophane), Neleus and Pelias (by Tyro), Theseus (by Aethra), and possibly of Cercyon, Procrustes, Sciron and Sinis. Grandfather of Aegyptus, Cepheus and Phineus, and of Hippolytus and Nestor. Persecutor of Andromeda. Abettor of Bellerophon and Heracles. Builds Troy’s walls with Apollo; then sends sea monster to devour Hesione when Laomedon reneges on payment. Sends Minos II the Cretan Bull; then sends Pasiphae mad with lust for it. Grants Caenis gender reassignment. Fulfils Theseus’s curse on Hippolytus. ZEUS King of the Gods. Overthrower of Kronos. Liberator of his siblings from Kronos’s captivity. Husband of Hera. Father of OLYMPIAN GODS. Father of the immortals Eileithyia and Hebe (by Hera), Persephone (by Demeter) and the Muses (by Mnemosyne). Father of the mortals Aeacus (by Aegina), Amphion and Zethus (by Antiope), Dardanus and Harmonia (by the Pleiad Electra), the Dioscuros Polydeuces and Helen (by Leda), Heracles (by Alcmene), Minos I and Rhadamanthus (by Europa), Perseus (by Danaë) and Pirithous (by Dia). Creator of Nephele. Punisher of Asclepius, Atlas and Prometheus. Wielder of thunderbolts. Possessor of the oracle at Dodona.