Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

Aside from the staff, hat and winged sandals that Hephaestus fashioned for Hermes, his symbols included the tortoise, the lyre and the cockerel. The Romans called him MERCURY and worshipped him with almost as much fervour as the Greeks. He was smooth of skin like his favourite half-brother Apollo (they were now the firmest of friends) and like him he was a deity of light. His light was not golden like Apollo’s, but silver – quicksilver. Indeed the element named ‘mercury’ after him is still sometimes called ‘quicksilver’, and all things mercurial remind us of this most delightful of gods. Later, Hermes would take on perhaps his most important divine responsibility, but for the moment we will seat him in the twelfth chair and survey the grandeur of Megala Kazaniafn35, the great stage at the summit of Mount Olympus.

The Olympians

Two great thrones face ten smaller ones. Each is now occupied by a god or goddess. Zeus reaches out his left hand for Hera to take.

Megala Kazania, the amphitheatre scooped out of Olympian rock by the Hecatonchires during their great battering of the Titans, is spread out before the gods.fn36 A great cheer goes up from the crowd of immortals gathered there to witness this great occasion, Zeus’s supreme moment.

The Queen of Heaven takes his hand. She is content. She and her wayward husband have had a Conversation. There are to be no new gods. There will be no more seduction and impregnation of nymphs or Titanesses. The dodecatheon is complete and Zeus will now turn to the serious business of establishing his rule in perpetuity. She, Hera, will always be there to support and guide him, to uphold order and decorum.

As he surveys the ten smiling gods ranged in front of them Zeus feels Hera squeezing his hand and understands just what that firm pressure means. He salutes the crowd of pardoned Titans and swooning nymphs massed below. Cyclopes, Gigantes, Meliae and Oceanids jostle each other to get a good view. The Charites and Horai shimmer shyly. Hades, the Erinyes and other dark creatures of the underworld bow low. The three hundred hands of the Hecatonchires wave their fierce loyalty.

Now, to signify the start of the Reign of the Twelve, Hestia steps down from her throne and sets light to the oil in a great gleaming bowl of beaten copper. A huge cheer rings around the mountain. An eagle flies overhead. Thunder rumbles across the sky.

Hestia returns to her throne. Zeus watches her calmly smoothing the skirt of her gown and transfers his gaze to the others, one by one – Poseidon. Demeter. Aphrodite. Hephaestus. Ares. Athena. Artemis. Apollo. Hermes. These gods and all creation are bowing down before him. All his enemies are scattered, destroyed, imprisoned or tamed. He has created an empire and a rule the like of which the world has never seen. He has won. Yet he feels nothing.

He looks up and on the far edge of the mountain sees silhouetted against the sky a figure whose dark clothes billow in the wind. His father Kronos has come. The blade of his scythe catches the light of the flames below as he slowly swings it back and forth like a pendulum. Although even Zeus cannot possibly make it out so far away in such poor light he is sure that there is a cruel, taunting grimace on his father’s gaunt and ravaged face.

‘Wave, Zeus. And for heaven’s sake, smile!’ Hera’s hissed undertone jerks him away. When he looks back the dark silhouette of his father has gone. Perhaps he only imagined it.

More cheers arise. To the growl of thunder is added a rumble from the earth itself. Gaia and Ouranos are adding their congratulations. Or perhaps their warnings. The cheering will not stop. Everything alive worships and adores him. This should be the happiest day of his life.

Something is missing. Something … he frowns and thinks. Suddenly a great lightning bolt stabs down from the sky and strikes the ground, sending up a violent puff of smoke and burnt dust.

‘Don’t do that, dear,’ says Hera.

But Zeus isn’t listening. He has had an idea.

Part One

THE TOYS OF ZEUS

Prometheus

I have mentioned Prometheus, son of Iapetus and Clymene, before. This far-sighted young Titan had all the attributes that charm. He was strong, almost distressingly good-looking, faithful, loyal, discreet, modest, humorous, considerate, well mannered and altogether the most engaging and captivating company. Everybody liked him, but Zeus liked him best. When Zeus’s packed schedule allowed, the pair would go rambling over the countryside together, talking of everything and nothing – of fortune, friendship and family, of war and destiny and of many silly and inconsequential things besides, as friends will.