Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

The Cyclopes, just as they had forged thunderbolts for Zeus, now created a great weapon for Poseidon too – a trident. This massive three-pronged fishing spear could be used to stir up tidal waves and whirlpools – even to make the earth tremble with earthquakes, which gave Poseidon the soubriquet ‘Earth Shaker’. His desire for his sister Demeter caused him to invent the horse to impress and please her. He lost his passion for Demeter, but the horse remained sacred to him always.

Under what we would now call the Aegean Sea, Poseidon built a vast palace of coral and pearl in which he installed himself and his chosen consort, AMPHITRITE, a daughter of Nereus and Doris, or (some say) of Oceanus and Tethys. As a wedding gift, Poseidon presented Amphitrite with the very first dolphin. She bore him a son, TRITON, a kind of merman, usually depicted sitting on his tail and blowing with bulging cheeks into a large conch shell. Amphitrite, if truth be told, seems to have been rather colourless and appears in few stories of any great interest. Poseidon spent almost all his time pursuing a perfectly exhausting quantity of beautiful girls and boys and fathering by the girls an even greater number of monsters, demigods and human heroes – Percy Jackson and Theseus to name but two.

Poseidon’s Roman equivalent was NEPTUNE, whose giant planet is surrounded by moons that include Thalassa, Triton, Naiadfn4 and Proteus.fn5

Demeter

The next of Kronos’s children to be apportioned her divine duties was Demeter. Hair the colour of ripe wheat, skin like cream and eyes bluer than cornflowers, she was as richly dreamily beautiful as any of the goddesses, except perhaps … well, the question of who was the most beautiful goddess would turn out to be the most vexed, thorny and ultimately cataclysmic one ever asked.

So lovely was Demeter that she attracted the unwanted attention of her brothers Zeus and Poseidon. To avoid Poseidon she transformed herself into a mare, and to chase her he turned into a stallion. The issue of that union was a colt, ARION, who grew into an immortal horse magically endowed with the power of speech.fn6 By Zeus she had a daughter, PERSEPHONE, whose story comes along later.

Zeus gave Demeter responsibility for the harvest and with it sovereignty over growth, fertility and the seasons. Her Roman name was CERES, from which we get our word ‘cereal’.fn7

Like Hestia, Demeter is one of the divinities less clear in our minds today as a personality than others of her passionate and charismatic family. But, as with Hestia, her domain was of paramount importance to the Greeks; shrines and cults dedicated to her far outlasted those devoted to the more superficially glamorous gods. The one great story devoted to Demeter, her daughter and the god Hades is as beautiful as it is dramatic, far-reaching and true.

Hera

Hera came out of Rhea second to last.fn8 Words that are still applied to her, and which would have maddened her greatly, include ‘proud’, ‘imperious’, ‘jealous’, ‘haughty’ and ‘vengeful’. In art and common reference she is often saddled with the extra indignity of three upsetting ‘-esques’: statuesque, Rubenesque and – courtesy of her Roman appellation – Junoesque.

Fate and posterity have been unkind to the Queen of Heaven. Unlike Aphrodite or Gaia she has no planet named in her honour,fn9 and she must bear the burden of a reputation that portrays her as more reactive than active – reactive always to the errant infidelities of her husband-brother Zeus.

It is easy to dismiss Hera as a tyrant and a bore – jealous and suspicious, storming and ranting like the very picture of a scorned harridan wife (one imagines her hurling china ornaments at feckless minions), exacting spiteful revenge on nymphs and mortals who have displeased her, failed to burn enough animals on her altars or, most fatally of all, committed the crime of consorting with Zeus (whether they had been willing or unwilling she never forgave them and could hold a grudge for lifetimes). But, ambitious, snobbish, conservatively protective of hierarchy and impatient of originality and flair as she certainly was – the archetype of many a literary aunt and cinematic dowager dragon – Hera was never a bore.fn10 The force and resolution with which she faced up to a god who could disintegrate her with one thunderbolt shows self-belief as well as courage.

I am very fond of her and, while I am sure I would stammer, blush and swallow awkwardly in her presence, she finds in me a devoted admirer. She gave the gods gravity, heft and the immeasurable gift of what the Romans called auctoritis. If that makes her seem a spoilsport, well, sometimes sport needs to be spoiled and the children called in from the playground. Her special province was marriage; the animals associated with her were the peacock and the cow.