Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

In truth, the punishment he chose for Apollo was not so very harsh. Zeus exiled the young god for eight years to the snake’s birthplace beneath Mount Parnassus to atone for his crime. As well as replacing the snake-monster Python as guardian of the Omphalos, Apollo was tasked with organizing a regular athletics tournament there. The Pythian Games were duly held every four years, two either side of the Olympic meeting.fn28

Apollo also established at Pytho (whose name he changed to Delphifn29) an oracle where anyone could come to ask the god or his appointed priestess (known sometimes as a SIBYL or the PYTHIA) questions about the future. In a trancelike state of prophetic ecstasy the priestess would sit out of sight of her interrogator, above a chasm in the ground which channelled down to the womb of the earth itself, and call her ambiguous prognostications up into the chamber above where the anxious petitioner awaited her proclamation. In this way Apollo and the Sibyl were seen to draw their oracular powers in part from Gaia herself, Apollo’s great-grandmother. Vapours were said to rise from beneath the ground that many took to be Gaia’s actual breath.fn30 The spring of Castalia bubbles up here, whose waters are said to inspire poetry in those who drink them or hear their whispers.fn31

So Delian Apollo became Delphic Apollo too. People still travel to Delphi to ask him about their future. I have done so myself. Apollo never lies, but nor does he ever give a straight answer, finding it amusing to reply with another question or a riddle so obscure as only to make sense when it is too late to act upon it.

To atone for his grievous assault on the proper way of things and to allow the slain Pytho to sleep the eternal sleep of death in the arms of his mother Gaia, Zeus finally fixed the serpent’s resting-place, the island of Delos, to the earth. While it no longer floats free, those who visit the island can testify to this day that it is tough to sail to, being beset by violent Etesian winds and treacherous meltemi currents. Anyone who travels there is likely to suffer the most awful sea-sickness. It is as if Hera has still not forgiven Delos for the part it played in the birth of the LETOIDES, the glorious twins Artemis and Apollo.

Maia Maia

How many Olympians were there now? Let’s do a quick headcount.

Zeus sat on the throne, with Hera at his side, that’s two. Around them were ranged Hestia, Poseidon (who liked to come inland and keep an eye on Zeus), Demeter, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Ares, Athena, Artemis and Apollo – that’s eleven. Hades doesn’t count because he spent all his time in the underworld and had no interest in taking a seat in the dodecatheon. Eleven. One more then, before Olympus reaches its quorum of twelve.

Hardly had the dust settled, and the shrieking recriminations from the Python debacle abated to sulks and glowers, than Zeus saw the path of his duty clear before him. He must father the twelfth and final god. Or, to put it another way, his sex-crazed glance fell on yet another appetizing immortal.

During the Titanomachy, Atlas, the most ferocious champion of the Titans, had fathered seven daughters by the Oceanid PLEIONE. In her honour the Seven Sisters were known as the PLEIADES, although sometimes, out of respect for their father, they might be addressed as the ATLANTIDES too.

The eldest and loveliest of these dark-eyed sisters was called MAIA. She lived as a shy and happy oread on the pleasant Corinthian slopes of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.fn32 Happy, that is, until the night the great god Zeus appeared to her and got her with child. With great stealth – for word of Hera’s attitude to Zeus’s bastard children had got out and struck fear into every beautiful girl in Greece and beyond – Maia in due time gave birth in a remote and hidden cave to a healthy boy, whom she named HERMES.

The Infant Prodigy

Hermes proved himself to be the most extraordinarily pert and precocious baby that ever drew breath. Within a quarter hour of his birth he had crawled from one side of the cave to the other, throwing out comments to his startled mother as he did so. Five minutes later he had requested a light so that he might better examine the cave’s walls. Being offered none he struck two stones together over twists of straw and kindled a flame. This had never been done before. Now standing upright (and still not half an hour old), this remarkable infant announced that he was going for a walk.

‘The close confines of this cramped cavern are occasioning me uncomfortably acute claustrophobia,’ he said, inventing both alliteration and the family of ‘-phobia’ words as he spoke. ‘I shall see you presently. Get on with your spinning or knitting or whatever it is, there’s a good mother.’