Greek Heroes

Greek heroes give a theme to journeys across Greece, each one led by a host. Their stories belong to the Argolid, Crete, Thrace and Mount Oeta, among other places. Heracles leads, from the Nemean lion and the Hydra of Lerna to Lake Stymphalia, Taenarum and his pyre. Theseus, Perseus, Oedipus, Achilles, Odysseus, Jason, Atalanta and Penelope follow, with the shrines that honoured heroes. Related pages cover Greek mythology tours, the Greek gods and Mycenae tours. More trips appear among the Greece tours.

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Who are the Greek heroes?

The Greek heroes are commonly semi-divine, extraordinarily gifted figures of ancient Greek myth. Semi-divine means part god and part human. Extraordinarily gifted means blessed with rare strength, skill or wit. Myths are old tales, handed down, that tell of gods and heroes.

The English word hero comes from the Greek hērōs. That term fitted a figure such as Heracles, with divine ancestry. Divine ancestry means that a god stood among a person’s forebears. The writer Eric Partridge linked the word hero with the name of the goddess Hera. He concluded that the basic sense of both words is protector.

The poet Hesiod lived between 750 and 650 BC. He outlined Five Ages of humankind in his poem Works and Days. In his scheme, the Greek heroes belong to the Heroic Age. That age stands apart, because it matches no metal. Every other age in the list carries the name of a metal.

Hesiod sets the Greek heroes and demigods of this age in two great wars of myth. They fought at Thebes in the age of Cadmus and Oedipus, and in the Trojan War. A demigod is a being with one divine parent and one mortal parent. The second of those wars took its name from the city of Troy.

• Rank: The Heroic Age is the only age in Hesiod that improves on the one before.
• Ovid: The Roman poet Ovid told a similar myth of ages but left out the Heroic Age.
• Dates: In his chronology, a list of dates, Saint Jerome placed the Heroic Age from 1460 to 1103 BC.

Hesiod says the Greek heroes were carried to a land across the seas, ruled by Cronus. Sweet fruit flourished in that land. The place lay far from the deathless gods. Deathless means unable to die, so the phrase names the immortals.

How did Nemea test Heracles among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes’ stories pit Heracles against the Nemean lion, the beast named after Nemea. Searching for it, Heracles wandered the area until he reached the town of Cleonae. A boy there promised Zeus a lion as sacrifice if Heracles returned within 30 days.

Aelian and Hyginus, two ancient writers, give the lion a strange birth. In their tale, the moon goddess Selene threw the lion down from the Moon. She acted at the request of Hera, queen of the gods. The beast came to earth on Mount Apesas. A moon goddess is a goddess who stands for the Moon itself.

In this tale of the Greek heroes, Heracles first tried his bow against the beast. One arrow struck the lion’s thigh and bounced off without harm. The thigh is the upper part of a leg. During the struggle that followed, the lion bit off one of his fingers. A bow is a curved weapon that shoots arrows.

Among the Greek heroes, Heracles served Eurystheus, the king who set his labours. After the lion, Eurystheus banned the hero from ever entering his city again. From then on, Heracles had to show the fruits of each labour outside the city gates. In these myths, a labour is a hard task set by a master.

• Molorchos: Another version of the bargain names Molorchos, a shepherd whose son the lion had killed.
• Copreus: Eurystheus later spoke to Heracles only through a go-between called Copreus, the Dung-man.
• Costume: Stesichorus was the first poet to dress Heracles in the famous lion-skin costume.

Hesiod, an early poet of the Greek heroes, names the parents of the lion. He calls it the offspring of Orthus and an unnamed mother, a “she”. Offspring means the young of a parent. Orthus, in myth, was a two-headed dog.

Why does Lerna hold a place in the tales of the Greek heroes?

The Greek heroes’ tales send Heracles to Lerna to face the Hydra. Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns, gave him this task. Hera had raised the monster for one purpose, to slay Heracles himself. A hydra, in Greek, is a water snake.

Plutarch, an ancient writer, reports a rite held at Lerna. In it, a lamb was thrown into the water as a gift. The gift went to the “Keeper of the Gate”. The Hydra was that keeper, guarding the way to the Underworld in the waters of Lerna. That Underworld was the home of the dead in myth.

The Hydra stayed invulnerable as long as it kept at least one head. Invulnerable means impossible to wound or kill. One of its heads was immortal, meaning it never died. Athena, goddess and helper of the Greek heroes, gave Heracles a golden sword. With that blade, Heracles cut the immortal head away from the body.

The geographer Strabo wrote about Lake Lerna as the scene of the Hydra story. He says that cleansings took place in the lake. From them arose a proverb, “A Lerna of ills”. A cleansing here is a rite meant to wash away guilt or harm. A proverb sums up common wisdom in one brief line.

• Sickle: Early vase paintings of the Greek heroes arm Heracles with a harvesting sickle against the Hydra.
• Rejected: In Apollodorus, Eurystheus refused to count this labour, since Heracles’s nephew Iolaus had helped him.
• Springs: Karstic springs, which rise from limestone ground, still flow strongly at Lerna.

Pausanias says the mysteries of Lerna were begun by Philammon. Mysteries were hidden rites; only initiates, those admitted, saw them. Pausanias was a Greek travel writer. In the Greek heroes’ tales, those rites shared the land with the Hydra.

Where did the Ceryneian Hind lead Heracles, one of the Greek heroes?

The Greek heroes include Heracles, who hunted the enormous hind of Ceryneia. A hind is a female deer. This one was larger than a bull and carried golden antlers like a stag. Antlers are the branching bony horns of deer.

The scholar Frazer traces the hind’s name to the river Cerynites. That river starts in Arcadia and runs through Achaia down to the sea. Arcadia and Achaia are regions of the Peloponnese, the southern peninsula of Greece. While at Ceryneia, the hind chased farmers out of their vineyards. Vineyards are fields planted with grapevines.

Among the Greek heroes’ quarries, this one belonged to a goddess. Quarry means an animal that is hunted. Tradition says the hind carried an inscription: “Taygete dedicated me to Artemis”. To dedicate an object means handing it over to a god for ever. Artemis was the goddess of the hunt.

In the Greek heroes’ tales, Heracles did not wish to harm a sacred animal. His hunt for her therefore lasted over a year. The chase ran from Oenoe to Hyperborea, a far northern land of myth. It also reached a mountain called Artemisius. That range separates Argolis and the Mantinea plain.

• Labour: Heracles had to deliver the hind alive to Eurystheus at Mycenae as his third labour.
• Capture: Heracles finally caught the hind close to the river Ladon after the long chase.
• Release: When Heracles let her go, the hind sprinted back to Artemis, her mistress.

One tradition says Artemis yoked four such hinds to her golden chariot. In this Greek heroes’ legend, Hera urged her to let one run free. That runaway, at the Ceryneian hill, became a future labour for Heracles. A chariot is a light cart.

What happened on Mount Erymanthos in the stories of the Greek heroes?

The Greek heroes’ stories set a boar hunt on Mount Erymanthos. As his fourth labour, Heracles had to bring the beast alive to Eurystheus in Mycenae. Boars are wild pigs armed with sharp tusks. Tusks are long teeth that jut from the mouth.

On his way to the mountain, Heracles stopped with Pholus, a kind and welcoming centaur. A centaur has a human head and chest on the body of a horse. The name Pholus means caveman. Pholus owned only one jar of wine. Dionysus, god of wine, had given it to all the centaurs of Mount Erymanthos.

Heracles persuaded Pholus to open the jar, and its smell drew the other centaurs. None of them knew that wine needs mixing with water first. A jar here is a large pot for storing wine. Soon drunk, the centaurs attacked Heracles. Drunk means dizzy and out of control from strong drink.

In the Greek heroes’ tales, Heracles visited Chiron, another centaur, for advice on catching the boar. Chiron told him to drive the beast into thick snow. That detail sets the labour in mid-winter. Mid-winter is the coldest and darkest part of the year. Advice is a suggestion about how to act.

• Lair: Poems about the Greek heroes place the boar in the glens of Lampeia, by a vast marsh.
• Pholus: Pholus picked up one of Heracles’s poisoned arrows, dropped it on his hoof and was poisoned.
• Hiding: Seeing the boar on Heracles’s shoulders, Eurystheus hid himself in a bronze vessel.

Heracles chased the boar with shouts and drove it out of a thicket. A thicket is a dense mass of bushes. He then forced the exhausted animal into deep snow. In this tale of the Greek heroes, the snow ended the chase.

How do the Augean stables of Elis fit the stories of the Greek heroes?

The Greek heroes’ tales take Heracles to Elis, ruled by King Augeas. His name means bright. Augeas owned stables full of cattle, and cleaning them became a labour of Heracles. A stable is a building where animals are kept.

In the Greek heroes’ story, those stables housed the greatest number of cattle in the land. They had never been cleaned before Heracles arrived. Three thousand cattle lived there, and the dung had piled up for over thirty years. Dung is animal waste. Cattle are cows, bulls and oxen kept as farm animals.

Eurystheus meant the task to be both shameful and impossible. The animals were divinely healthy, even immortal, so they produced huge amounts of dung. Shameful here means bringing disgrace rather than glory. Heracles also had to do the work without help from any other man. Immortal means never dying.

In this part of the Greek heroes’ legend, Heracles struck a bargain with the king before he began. Augeas agreed to give him one tenth of the cattle if he finished within one day. A tenth is one of ten equal parts. Afterwards, Augeas refused to honour the deal, since Eurystheus had ordered the work anyway.

• Court: Heracles took his claim to court, and Phyleus, the king’s own son, supported him.
• Exile: Augeas banished both Heracles and Phyleus before the court had reached its ruling.
• Return: Heracles came back, killed Augeas and handed the kingdom of Elis to Phyleus.

From this legend of the Greek heroes comes the adjective augean. It came to mean a hard task of putting right something in a bad state. An adjective is a word that describes a noun. A noun names a person, place or thing.

What makes Lake Stymphalia part of the legends of the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes’ legends set a fight with a flock of birds at Lake Stymphalia. Heracles, one of the Greek heroes, had to destroy those birds in his sixth labour. Each labour was a hard trial ordered by a king. A flock is a group of birds.

The main source of the lake was a stream that the ancients called Stymphalus. It rose on the northern side of the plain. People believed it ran underground for 200 stadia, then reappeared as the river Erasinus in Argolis. A stadion, plural stadia, was a Greek unit of length. Argolis is the region around Argos.

Pausanias, an ancient writer on the sites of Greece, said the lake dried up in summer. Yet a great flood struck during his lifetime, in the 2nd century. It was blamed on the anger of Artemis, the huntress goddess of the Greek heroes’ myths. A flood is water spreading over normally dry land.

The one building in the town that Pausanias mentions is a temple of Artemis Stymphalia. Under its roof stood figures of the Stymphalian birds. He compared the birds in shape to the ibis, a wading bird with a long bill. Their beaks, he wrote, were stronger and not crooked like the ibis’s. Crooked means bent.

• Hera: Hera was once worshipped at Stymphalus in three sanctuaries, as virgin, wife and widow.
• Outlet: Strabo says Iphicrates tried to block the lake’s outlet, but a sign from heaven stopped him.
• Pindar: The poet Pindar praised Stymphalus by calling it the mother of Arcadia.

The ancient town of Stymphalus stood in the northeast of Arcadia, near the lake. Arcadia is a hilly region in the middle of the Peloponnese. In the Greek heroes’ legends, the town, the lake and the birds all share one name.

How does the Cretan Bull link Crete to the Greek heroes?

The Greek heroes’ tales carry Heracles to Crete for his seventh labour, the capture of the Cretan Bull. This was the first of his labours outside the Peloponnese. A bull is an adult male animal of the cattle family.

In the Greek heroes’ tale, the bull had caused great harm before Heracles came. Poseidon, god of the sea, passed his rage on to the animal. The bull then laid waste to the land of Crete. It uprooted crops and flattened the walls around orchards. An orchard is a field of fruit trees.

Apollodorus says Heracles crossed by sea to Crete and sought the help of King Minos. Minos ruled Crete in these myths. He told the hero to catch the bull himself, and Heracles did so. The hero then shipped the animal to Eurystheus in Tiryns. Apollodorus collected myths of the gods and the Greek heroes.

Modern writers also read the myth against the art of ancient Crete. Jeremy McInerney notes that the bull appears again and again across Minoan culture. Minoan culture is the Bronze Age civilisation of the island. In the Greek heroes’ tales, Minos rules that same island. Bronze is a metal made of copper and tin.

• Marathon: The bull later broke free and wandered to Marathon, where it was called the Marathonian Bull.
• Dating: Emma Stafford finds no trace of the Cretan Bull story before the Hellenistic period.
• Meaning: Heraclitus the Grammarian read the violent bull as irrational passions that Heracles had chained.

Bernard Clive Dietrich calls the bull a chthonic animal, linked with fertility and vegetation. Chthonic means tied to the earth and the world below it. Fertility is the power to produce new life. Vegetation means plant life of every kind.

Why is Abdera tied to the Mares of Diomedes and the Greek heroes?

The Greek heroes’ tales give the town of Abdera, in Thrace, a founding story. Apollodorus says Heracles founded the city next to the tomb of Abderus. A tomb is a grave or burial place. A founding story tells how a city began.

The mares were man-eating horses owned by Diomedes of Thrace. Mares are female horses, and man-eating means feeding on human flesh. In the Greek heroes’ tale, Diomedes fed the animals on his own guests. Those visitors were unsuspecting, which means they expected no harm. Their host turned them into fodder, food for animals.

Writers on the Greek heroes explained the horses’ taste for flesh in three ways. Diomedes himself had taught them, or eating a plant of the area had changed them. A third reason was the water of the river Cossinitus, which they drank. The Fabulae, a Latin book of myths, even give their names: Podargos, Lampon, Xanthos and Deinos.

Apollodorus adds a battle in Thrace to the Greek heroes’ tale. Diomedes led his men, a Thracian people called the Bistones, against Heracles. Heracles killed Diomedes, and the rest of the Bistones fled. A people here means a tribe or nation. Thracian means from Thrace, the land of the story.

• Abderus: Hellanicus says the mares tore apart Abderus, a son of the god Hermes.
• Founder: Pseudo-Scymnus gives another version, in which Abderus himself was the founder of Abdera.
• Olympus: In Apollodorus, wild animals later killed the horses on Mount Olympus.

Today Abdera forms a municipality within the regional unit of Xanthi, in Thrace. In Greece, each municipality runs local affairs through its own elected council. A regional unit is a larger division of Greece, here named after the town of Xanthi.

What did Taenarum mean for the Greek heroes and Cerberus?

The Greek heroes’ tales link Taenarum, also called Tainaron, with the capture of Cerberus. The Roman writer Seneca has Heracles enter the underworld there and come out at the same place. Cerberus was a monstrous dog of the underworld.

The labour is old, for Homer already tells it. In his poems, Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns, sends Heracles to fetch Cerberus from Hades. Hades was the king of the underworld. A lost play called Pirithous gives the reason. There, Heracles says Eurystheus set the task only because he thought it impossible.

In the Greek heroes’ story told by Apollodorus, Hades set a strict condition. Heracles was free to take Cerberus only if he mastered the dog without his weapons. So he used his lion-skin as a shield. He then squeezed Cerberus around the head until the beast submitted. To submit means to stop fighting and obey.

In the Iliad, Homer has Hades hurt by an arrow that Heracles shot. The Iliad is a long poem by Homer about the Trojan War. A wound from an arrow pierces the skin and flesh. Epic poems such as the Iliad tell of the deeds of the Greek heroes.

• Exit: Strabo reports that the myth writers had Cerberus brought up at Tainaron itself.
• Escape: Hesychius of Alexandria says Cerberus simply escaped instead of being returned.
• Bargain: Eurystheus begged Heracles to return Cerberus and offered to free him from further labours.

In the Greek heroes’ art, a lost Corinthian cup showed Heracles attacking Hades with a stone. It dated from the early sixth century BC. The stone suited the rule that he face Cerberus without iron. Corinthian means made in the city of Corinth.

Why do the Greek heroes’ tales end the life of Heracles on Mount Oeta?

The Greek heroes’ tales set the death of Heracles on the slopes of Mount Oeta. Roman authors even gave him the epithet Oetaeus, meaning of Oeta. Epithets are added names that point to a person’s quality or a place.

In the Greek heroes’ tale, the end began with a gift from his wife, Deianira. Remembering the words of the centaur Nessus, she gave Heracles a bloodstained shirt. That shirt still carried blood of the Hydra from his own arrows. The poison tore his skin and laid bare his bones. A centaur is half man, half horse.

Before he died, Heracles threw Lichas, his herald, into the sea. He thought Lichas had poisoned him. One version says Lichas turned to stone and became a rock in the sea. Heracles then lay on his pyre, a funeral heap of wood, with his head on his club. His lion’s skin was spread over him.

As his body burned on the pyre, only his immortal side was left. The mortal, human part of him was lost to the flames. Immortal means free from death, and mortal means bound to die. In the Greek heroes’ tales, this divine part of Heracles outlived the fire on Mount Oeta.

• River: Another version says Zeus threw a lightning bolt there, and the Gorgopotamos river sprang up.
• Ruins: Ruins of a temple to Heracles and his pyre lie 1,800 m up, near Pavliani.
• Use: The temple complex on the mountain was still used in the late Roman era.

The death on Oeta appears in Sophocles’s play Trachiniae and in Book IX of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Trachiniae is a tragedy, a grave drama that ends in sorrow. Ovid was a Roman poet who retold the myths of the Greek heroes.

How does Theseus of Troezen stand among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes linked to Troezen begin with Theseus, who grew up there into a brave young man. Ancient tellers named his father as Aegeus, the king of Athens. Other tellers gave that role to Poseidon, who ruled the sea in Greek belief.

When Theseus came of age, he shifted a heavy rock aside. Beneath it lay the tokens his father had left for him. A token is an object kept as proof of a person’s identity or rank. These tokens let the young man claim his birthright as a royal son.

The ancient writer Pausanias described a large rock beside the mountain road from Troezen to Hermione. Its first name was the altar of Zeus Sthenius. On an altar, a raised stone table, people placed offerings for a god. The stone later took the name Rock of Theseus, after the hero who lifted it.

At Epidaurus, Theseus faced Periphetes, a bandit known as the Club Bearer. A bandit is a robber who attacks travellers on the road. Periphetes beat his victims down into the earth. Theseus kept the stout staff of Periphetes. Vase painters later used it to mark him out among the Greek heroes.

• Palace: Among Greek heroes, Theseus is credited with a palace on the Acropolis as the land’s uniting king.
• Skyros: In 475 BC, Cimon of Athens named a coffin found on Skyros as the remains of Theseus.
• Ship: The Athenians kept his ship of thirty oars until the age of Demetrius Phalereus.

Pausanias also tied Theseus to the southern slope of the Acropolis. He says this king among the Greek heroes set up a cult there to Aphrodite. Its title meant Aphrodite of all the People. A cult means steady worship centred on one deity or hero.

What does King Aegeus of Athens add to the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Athens include King Aegeus, the father of Theseus. The Aegean Sea takes its name from him. Tradition also credits him with founding institutions of the Athenian state. An institution is a lasting body or custom, such as a court.

The name Aegeus has three possible meanings in ancient Greek: goat, shield or protector. One tradition made this king among the Greek heroes only an adopted son of Pandion. Adopted means taken in and raised as one’s own child. In that version, he stood outside the Erechtheids, the old royal family of Athens.

When the land was shared out, his brother Lycus became king of Euboea. Pallas, another brother, took the southern share of the land. Aegeus later drove Lycus out of the territory. Lycus then found refuge at Arene, a place in Messenia. Refuge means a safe place for someone in danger.

Aegeus long had no son, and Pausanias says he blamed the anger of Aphrodite. To calm the goddess, the king brought her worship to Athens as Aphrodite Urania. Urania means heavenly. Pausanias later heard that this cult above the Kerameikos dated back to Aegeus. Kerameikos takes its name from the potters who worked in that Athenian district.

• Aigeion: Athens honoured Aegeus, one of its Greek heroes, with a heroon, or hero shrine, called the Aigeion.
• Aegeides: The name Aegeides, meaning son of Aegeus, was used above all for Theseus.
• Plays: Sophocles wrote a tragedy called Aegeus, now lost, and the king also appears in Euripides’ Medea.

His search for an heir led Aegeus to Troezen and its king, Pittheus. Pittheus was famed for his wisdom and skill at explaining oracles. An oracle is a message from a god. From that visit came his son Theseus, one more of the Greek heroes.

Why do Argos and Mycenae claim Perseus among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of the Argolid include Perseus, who founded the Perseid dynasty in legend. With Cadmus and Bellerophon, he counts among the greatest Greek heroes before the age of Heracles. In a dynasty, power passes down through one ruling family.

His story begins in Argos, where King Acrisius had a single child, his daughter Danaë. To keep her childless, the king locked her in a bronze tower, in a room at the top. The tower rose inside his palace courtyard. Such a yard lies open to the sky, with walls or rooms around it.

Zeus reached Danaë as a shower of gold and fathered her son. For that reason, Perseus also bears the title Chrysopatros, meaning gold-fathered. The writer Graves tied his name to the Greek verb pérthein. That verb means to waste, ravage, sack or destroy. To ravage is to damage a place badly.

Among Greek heroes, Perseus has a name that the scholar Carl Darling Buck explained through its ending. Buck read Pers-eus as a sacker of cities, meaning a soldier who loots towns. He judged it a suitable name for the earliest warrior of Mycenae. To loot is to steal goods by force, as in war.

• Larissa: In the account of Pausanias, Perseus went to Larissa while athletic games were taking place there.
• Quoit: He had just invented the quoit, a thrown ring, when Acrisius stepped into its path and died.
• Shrine: Pausanias mentions a shrine to Perseus beside the Mycenae to Argos road, on its left.

Apollodorus wrote that Perseus fortified Mycenae, along with Midea. To fortify a town is to surround it with strong walls. The speaker Isocrates placed Heracles four generations after Perseus. The two Greek heroes were kin, as the mother of Heracles was a granddaughter of Perseus.

Which Corinthian story does Bellerophon bring to the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes from Corinth include Bellerophon, a divine hero of that city. Myth names his parents as Poseidon, the god of the sea, and a mortal woman called Eurynome. He also carried a second name, Hipponous, which means horse-knower.

His earlier name was Leophontes. Old notes on Homer, called scholia, tell of a Corinthian named Belleros. Bellerophon killed him by accident while practising knife throwing with friends. Scholia are notes written in the margins of old texts. That accident is said to explain the hero’s later name, Bellerophon.

To make amends, he travelled to Tiryns, a stronghold of the Achaeans in the Argolid. Its king, Proetus, cleansed him of the crime through the power of his kingship. The Achaeans were the Greeks of Homer’s poems. For Greek heroes, cleansing meant a rite that removed the guilt of a killing.

Proetus then sent this Corinthian among the Greek heroes to King Iobates in Lycia. He gave the hero a sealed letter inside a folded tablet. A tablet here was a hinged board for writing. The letter asked Iobates to put the bearer to death. Iobates feasted with his guest for nine days before he opened the tablet.

• Pirene: Pegasus drank at Pirene, a spring that never ran dry, on the citadel of Corinth.
• Lead: Bellerophon fixed a block of lead in the throat of the fire-breathing Chimera, which then choked.
• Play: About thirty quotations survive from the lost tragedy Bellerophon, written by Euripides.

In later tales and poems, Perseus took the place of Bellerophon as the rider of Pegasus. This change among the Greek heroes began in Classical times. It became the standard version during the Middle Ages. In the myths, Pegasus has wings and can fly.

In Thebes, what makes Cadmus one of the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Boeotia start with Cadmus, the legendary founder of Thebes in that region. His father, Agenor, ruled a Phoenician kingdom, and his mother was Telephassa. The Phoenicians were a trading and seafaring people of the eastern Mediterranean coast.

During his wanderings, this early figure among the Greek heroes reached the island of Samothrace. The island was sacred to the Great Gods, also called the Kabeiroi. Their mysteries were later held at Thebes as well. These mysteries were hidden rites, and only those admitted by a special ceremony took part.

At the Theban temple of Apollo, the historian Herodotus saw letters he called Cadmean. They were cut into tripods kept in the shrine. Each tripod stood on three legs and served as an offering to the god. Herodotus wrote that these letters looked much like the Ionian Greek alphabet.

Linear B tablets have turned up in large numbers at the site of Thebes. Linear B is the oldest known script for writing Greek, used in the Bronze Age. Ares, god of war, made this founder among Greek heroes serve him for eight years. The penalty followed the killing of a dragon sacred to Ares.

• Wedding: Diodorus calls the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia the first on Earth with gifts from gods.
• Illyria: Cadmus later gave his throne to his grandson Pentheus and left for Illyria with Harmonia.
• Serpent: In one ending, Cadmus grew scales and took the form of a serpent, a large snake.

Herodotus placed Cadmus sixteen hundred years before his lifetime. Like other Greeks, he set the founding of Thebes well before the Trojan War. That war is the legendary siege of Troy told in Homer’s Iliad. The Greek heroes of that war came generations after him.

Which early tellings of Oedipus shape the Greek heroes of Thebes?

Greek heroes of Thebes include Oedipus, whose legend survives in fragments by Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus and Euripides. Fragments are the scraps that remain of works now otherwise lost. His legend first spread by word of mouth, and Homer is the earliest named teller.

Older sources, Homer among them, let this king among Greek heroes keep his throne after the truth emerged. In the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus meets the mother of Oedipus in the Underworld. Greeks pictured the Underworld as the realm where the dead live on. Homer’s Odyssey, a long epic poem, follows Odysseus on his voyage home.

The blinding of Oedipus first appears in Aeschylus, not in any earlier source. In 467 BC, Aeschylus won first prize at the City Dionysia with a trilogy about these Greek heroes. The City Dionysia was the great Athenian drama festival for the god Dionysus. Three linked plays staged together make up a trilogy.

In Sophocles, Oedipus finds refuge at Colonus, a holy wild place just outside Athens. Refuge means shelter for someone who is hunted or exiled. Tradition holds that his grave there is holy to the gods. Sophocles wrote his three plays on these Greek heroes for separate festival contests, years apart.

• Survivor: Of that Aeschylus trilogy, only the third play, Seven Against Thebes, has survived.
• Blinding: In the plays of Euripides, a servant of King Laius blinded Oedipus.
• Argos: A later source says Oedipus died in a cattle raid on Argos while still king.

Euripides, in his play the Phoenician Women, gives the reason for the feud. A feud is a bitter, lasting quarrel. King Laius told Oedipus to clear the way for his chariot. Proud Oedipus refused to move, and the feud between them began.

How did the twins Amphion and Zethus earn a place among Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Thebes include the twins Amphion and Zethus, sons of Zeus and a woman named Antiope. Thebes had two founding myths, and the twins belong to one of them. A founding myth is a story that explains how a city began.

Antiope fled in shame to Sicyon and married its king, Epopeus. Either Nycteus or Lycus then attacked Sicyon to bring her back. On the road home, she gave birth to the future Greek heroes. She was forced to leave the babies out on Mount Cithaeron. Leaving a baby outdoors like this was called exposure.

Antiope later escaped and found her sons living near the mountain. Dirce, the wife of Lycus, had treated Antiope cruelly for years. The twins put her to death, bound to a bull’s horns. They then took Thebes, and these Greek heroes ruled it together. They also killed Lycus or forced him to give up his throne.

Amphion became a fine singer after Hermes taught him and gave him a golden lyre. Zethus turned to hunting and herding, and he cared greatly about breeding cattle. Apollo ordered the brothers to wall in the Cadmea, the high citadel of Thebes. The word citadel means a stronghold set on raised ground over a town.

• Stones: Zethus struggled with his stones, but Amphion’s stones followed his lyre and slid into place.
• Name: Zethus married Thebe, and the city of Thebes was named after her.
• Gate: People believed the Neitian gate of Thebes took its name from Neis, daughter of Zethus or Amphion.

Amphion married Niobe, a daughter of the Lydian king Tantalus. Through her, he learned the Lydian mode and gave his lyre three more strings. A mode is a pattern of musical notes. After these Greek heroes died, Laius came back to Thebes as its king.

What role does the seer Amphiaraus play among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of the Argolid include Amphiaraus, a seer who helped lead the Seven against Thebes. His father was Oicles. Seers were people believed to foretell the future. The Seven against Thebes was an army of champions that attacked Thebes.

His Greek name can mean very sacred, or a bringer of prayers. At first he refused to join King Adrastus, because he foresaw the death of every man who went. His wife, Eriphyle, at last forced him to go to war. Foreseeing means knowing about an event before it happens.

Polynices had won over Eriphyle with a bribe, the necklace of Harmonia. A bribe is a gift given to buy someone’s help. Aware of her treachery, this seer among Greek heroes spoke to his sons, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus. He asked them to avenge his death by killing their mother if he did not return.

Zeus and Apollo both favoured Amphiaraus, and Zeus gave him his power of prophecy. Prophecy is the telling of what is still to come. As these Greek heroes feasted on the march, an eagle seized his spear and carried it high. It dropped the spear, which stuck in the soil and turned into a laurel tree.

• Olympia: At Olympia, Pausanias saw his departure for Thebes shown on the Chest of Kypselos.
• Healing: He was honoured as a god of healing and fortune-telling, and linked with Asclepius, god of medicine.
• Games: Games called the Amphiaria were held in his honour at his sanctuary.

Oropos, on the north-west edge of Attica, held the Amphiareion, where Amphiaraus had a hero cult. In a hero cult, people paid worship to one of the Greek heroes after death. The writer Timon of Phlius met Pyrrho on the grounds of his temple.

Which relics tie Pelops to Olympia and the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Olympia include Pelops, honoured in a shrine called the Pelopion. A circle of stones enclosed this sacred ground. There, Pelops was honoured at night with the gift of a black ram. A ram is a male sheep.

Pindar rejected the old story that Pelops was cooked and served to the gods. He called it a malicious invention in his First Olympian Ode. An ode is a formal poem of praise, here for winners at Olympia. In his version, Poseidon carried Pelops away, and envious neighbours spread the tale of his death.

On Olympus, Poseidon taught this future king among Greek heroes to drive the divine chariot. The writer Theopompus added a story about Cillus, the charioteer of Pelops. Cillus died on the way to Pisa, and Pelops raised a mound over his ashes. He named a temple of Apollo Cillaeus and a city, Cilla, after his friend.

Pausanias, a travel writer, was shown the supposed last column of the palace of King Oenomaus, his rival. The visit took place in the late second century CE. Chariot racing reached the games of Olympia only in 680 BCE, the twenty-fifth Olympiad. An Olympiad is the four-year span between two games.

• Remains: A chest close to the shrine of Artemis Kordax held the remains of Pelops.
• Shoulder-blade: Taken from Pisa to Troy, his shoulder-blade was lost at sea, then caught in a fisherman’s net.
• Laconia: Strabo wrote that the cult of Pelops first settled in Laconia, brought by Achaeans from Phthiotis.

Giant bones turn up in Greek soil, left by huge animals of the distant past. In ancient times, people took such finds for the remains of Greek heroes or half-gods. Bones of Greek heroes, they believed, showed the great size of humans in that age.

Who was Triptolemus of Eleusis among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Eleusis include Triptolemus, a central figure in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Ancient Greeks worshipped him as the inventor and patron of farming. The Mysteries were secret rites held at Eleusis. A patron is a protector who watches over a skill.

The name of this figure among Greek heroes means tripartite warrior, a fighter in three parts. He also bore the name Buzyges, which means bull-hitcher. To hitch a bull is to fasten it to a plough or cart. Tradition credits him with the use of oxen and the plough.

Demeter came to Eleusis disguised as an old woman called Doso. She was searching for her lost daughter Persephone, whom Hades had carried off. Celeus, the king of Eleusis, gave her a warm welcome. In gratitude, the goddess gave Triptolemus a chariot pulled by winged dragons or serpents, along with wheat.

Xenophon claims that the Peloponnese was the first land to receive the gift of farming from him. Travelling from Attica, Triptolemus reached Patrae, near the rivers Peirus and Glaucus. There this teacher among Greek heroes showed King Eumelus how to found a city. Eumelus named it Aroe, a name drawn from the tilling of soil.

• Antheia: Eumelus and Triptolemus founded Antheia, named for the king’s son, who fell from the chariot.
• Temples: Triptolemus had temples of his own in both Athens and Eleusis.
• Judge: Socrates named Triptolemus among the judges of the dead in the afterlife.

This patron of farming among Greek heroes left three rules for a simple and faithful life. They were to honour parents, honour the gods with fruits and spare the animals. The Athenian statesman Pericles claimed descent from his priestly clan, the Buzygae.

How did Adrastus of Argos lead the Greek heroes against Thebes?

Greek heroes who marched on Thebes followed Adrastus, the Argive king who led the Seven. His name is thought to mean the inescapable. The Seven were the seven champions chosen to lead his army against the city. Argive means from Argos.

A family rival, Amphiaraus, drove Adrastus out of Argos. He fled to Sicyon and became its king. Pindar credits him with founding the Sicyonian games while he ruled that city. Games were contests of sport held to honour a god or hero. Later, the two men made peace, and Adrastus returned to rule Argos.

Adrastus owned Arion, a horse of fabulous speed. Arion was the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, who mated in the form of horses. Heracles had given the horse to Adrastus. Arion’s speed saved him at Thebes, where the other Greek heroes of the Seven died. Ancient accounts suggest Adrastus was known as a skilful speaker.

Two exiles arrived at his palace: Polynices of Thebes and Tydeus of Calydon. The two Greek heroes fought like wild beasts over a place to sleep. Adrastus recalled an oracle of Apollo about a lion and a boar. So he married his daughter Argia to Polynices and her sister Deipyle to Tydeus.

• Nemea: At Nemea, Adrastus held funeral games for the child-hero Opheltes and won the horse race.
• Theseus: Athenian tradition says Theseus helped Adrastus bring home the bodies of his fallen comrades.
• Cults: Adrastus received hero cults at Sicyon, at Megara and at Colonus.

The Megarians said Adrastus died in their town of old age and grief for his son. Artists portrayed him from the 6th century BC onwards. Euripides made him a main character among the Greek heroes of his play The Suppliants.

Which Thessalian city ties Jason to the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Thessaly include Jason, whose tale centres on Iolcus, the present-day city of Volos. Pelias seized power in Iolcus from Aeson, his half-brother and the father of Jason. Pelias also wanted to rule over all of Thessaly, the wider region.

Alcimede, mother of one of the Greek heroes, saved her son from Pelias at birth. She had women gather round the newborn and weep as if he were stillborn, which means born dead. When Jason was 20, an oracle told him to dress as a Magnesian. An oracle is a shrine believed to speak for a god.

Jason, now grown, entered Iolcus during a sacrifice led by Pelias. The rite honoured Poseidon, god of the sea, and neighbouring kings were present. A tall young man in a leopard skin stood among the crowd. Pelias was unable to kill him, since senior kings of the Aeolian family stood by.

Pelias swore before Zeus, king of the gods, to give up the throne when Jason returned. An oracle had also given a warning about the city. It said Iolcus was never to prosper until the ghost of Phrixus came back by ship. The fleece of the golden ram had to travel home with it.

• Acastus: Jason later joined Peleus, another of the Greek heroes, to defeat Acastus and win back Iolcus.
• Heir: After that victory, Thessalus, the son of Jason, became king of the city.
• Death: Jason died asleep beneath the stem, or prow, of the rotting Argo as it collapsed.

Jason’s story among the Greek heroes also reaches the city of Corinth. Acastus, the son of Pelias, drove Jason and his wife, Medea, into exile. Exile is a forced stay far from one’s homeland. The couple then settled in Corinth.

Who were the Argonauts, the crew of Greek heroes on the Argo?

Greek heroes who sailed on the Argo were called the Argonauts, a name meaning Argo sailors. Their voyage with Jason came around 1300 BC, in the years ahead of the Trojan War. They were also called Minyans, after a prehistoric tribe of the area.

No definite list of the Argonauts exists today. The scholar H. J. Rose gave a reason for this gap in the record. In his view, having an Argonaut forebear lent pride to even the grandest family line. The poet Pindar’s Pythian Odes name or hint at Castor, Polydeuces, Orpheus, Zetes and Calais as crew.

The Golden Fleece they sought came from a divine ram. Phrixus had ridden that ram away from Orchomenus, to escape being sacrificed. Stephanus of Byzantium, an ancient writer, lists a hero named Amyrus among these Greek heroes. Amyrus was the eponym of a Thessalian city, meaning the person it was named after.

Sailing home, these Greek heroes came upon an island that loomed up without warning. They named it Anaphe, from anaphanenai, a Greek word meaning to loom up. On the island they set up an altar of Radiant Apollo. An altar is a raised structure on which worshippers placed their offerings.

• Corcyra: Before Anaphe, the crew reached Corcyra, island of the Phaeacians, where Alcinous was king.
• Aegina: On Aegina the crew held a contest over who brought back the greatest store of fresh water.
• Route: The ship then passed between Euboea and Locris on its way back to Iolcus.

The Greek heroes of this crew set out from Iolcus, in the region of Thessaly. Part of the crew had earlier moved to Iolcus from Minyan Orchomenus. The word Minyan refers to the Minyans, the prehistoric tribe behind the other name of the Argonauts.

How does Orpheus fit among the Greek heroes of the Argo?

Greek heroes of the Argo voyage included Orpheus, a Thracian bard, musician and prophet. A bard is a poet who sings his verses, and a prophet foretells the future. Legend places him on board with Jason, sailing to win the Golden Fleece.

Delphi has given up an old image of Orpheus. A sculpture showing him with the Argo, ship of the Greek heroes, was found there. It is said to date from the sixth century BC. This carved scene is older than the written references to him. A sculpture is a work of art shaped from stone or metal.

Greeks of the Classical age honoured Orpheus as the greatest poet and musician of all. They said Hermes invented the lyre, while Orpheus perfected it. A lyre is a small stringed harp held in the arms. Each night before dawn, one story says, he climbed Mount Pangaion to await the rising Sun.

The writer Strabo presents Orpheus as a mortal man. In his account, Orpheus spent his life, and met his death, in a village near Olympus. A summary of a lost play by Aeschylus gives another ending. In it, Thracian Maenads tore him apart, and he was buried in Pieria. Maenads were women who followed the god Dionysus.

• Leibethra: When the river Sys flooded Leibethra, Macedonians carried his bones from there to Dion.
• Dion: One more legend puts his grave at Dion, close to Pydna in Macedon.
• Sirens: Chiron told Jason the Greek heroes needed Orpheus to pass the Sirens, whose songs wrecked ships.

Orpheus also holds a place in Greek religion, beyond his role among the Greek heroes. Greeks called him the founder and prophet of the Orphic mysteries, secret rites. Shrines with supposed relics of Orpheus were treated as oracles. Relics are the remains of a holy figure.

Why do Phthia and Ikos keep the memory of Peleus, one of the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes linked with Thessalian Phthia include Peleus. His myth was already known to Homer’s listeners in the late 8th century BC. In Phthia, the ruler Eurytion purified him, which meant a rite to wash away guilt for a killing.

Peleus then married Eurytion’s daughter, Antigone, and the couple had a daughter named Polydora. Polymele, a daughter of Peleus, is named as one possible mother of Patroclus. Later, Acastus purified him once more, this time in Iolcus. Peleus and his brother Telamon were friends of Jason, the leader of the Greek heroes on the Argo.

The gods brought gifts when Peleus married Thetis, a sea nymph. Hephaestus gave him a knife, Hera a chlamys and Athena a flute. A chlamys is a short cloak, pinned at the shoulder. Aphrodite gave a bowl with Eros raised on its surface. Nereus sent a basket of divine salt.

On Aegina, the island of his father Aeacus, no temenos of Peleus existed. A temenos is a plot of sacred land set apart for a god or hero. The tomb of Aeacus stood in a shrine in a prominent part of the port city. Two stories explain the missing shrine for Peleus.

• Exile: In the Troades of Euripides, Acastus drives Peleus out of Phthia, and he dies abroad.
• Immortal: Another version reunites Peleus with Thetis and makes him immortal, meaning free from death.
• Epirus: In historic times, the kings of Epirus claimed Peleus, one of the Greek heroes, as their ancestor.

A tomb of Peleus stood on Ikos, modern Alonissos, in the northern Sporades. A fragment by the poet Callimachus records it. There he was honoured as king of the Myrmidons. Each year, people there celebrated his return as one of the Greek heroes.

Where did Achilles grow up before joining the Greek heroes at Troy?

Greek heroes in Homer’s Iliad include Achilles, who spent his boyhood in Phthia beside his friend Patroclus. Homer also calls the Hellenes a small tribe settled in Thessalian Phthia. Their towns included Alos, Alope, Trachis and the Pelasgian Argos.

Among the Greek heroes, Achilles had two names in one account. He was first called Ligyron. His tutor, the centaur Chiron, later named him Achilles. Centaurs are mythical beings, half human and half horse. Homer writes that Achilles passed on to Patroclus all that Chiron had taught him, including medicine.

His mother, Thetis, foretold two paths for her son. One path brought glory and an early death. The other brought a long life, but one lived in obscurity, without fame. Achilles chose glory and joined the Greek heroes in the Trojan War. He sailed to Troy at the head of 50 ships, with 50 Myrmidons in each.

Worship of Achilles was almost Panhellenic, meaning shared across the Greek world. His cult existed on the island of Astypalaea, in Elis and in Thessaly, his homeland. Sparta had a sanctuary in his honour. Cult means the rites and offerings made to a god or hero. Thessalians also revered his tomb in the Troad, near Troy.

• Tanagra: Plutarch records a sacred enclosure near the town of Tanagra that was called the Achilleum.
• Leaders: Achilles placed five leaders over his Myrmidon warriors, each commanding 500 of them.
• Aulis: In a lost Euripides play, Telephus reached Aulis disguised as a beggar and asked Achilles for healing.

Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals for the hand of Thetis. Prometheus warned Zeus of a prophecy about her. It said her son was destined to surpass his father. The two gods withdrew, and she married Peleus, one of the Greek heroes.

Why does Delphi honour Neoptolemus among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of the next generation include Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. His name means new warrior or young warrior. Delphi held his tomb inside its sacred precinct, or holy enclosure, as Strabo records. The tomb was built there on the advice of an oracle.

A Trojan seer named Helenus told the Greek heroes how to take Troy. A seer is a person who foretells events. One condition was to bring the son of Achilles into the war. The Greeks sent Odysseus to fetch him, then a teenager, from Skyros. Tzetzes later called him the Skyrian dragon, for his violent nature.

One tradition says Machaereus, a man of Delphi, killed Neoptolemus there. The Delphians later pointed out the hearth near the Temple of Apollo. They believed he had died at that spot. A hearth is a place where a fire burns. Each year the Delphians offered sacrifices to him as one of the Greek heroes.

At each Pythian Games, held every four years, the Aenians sent envoys on a sacred mission to Delphi. Envoys are messengers who act for a whole people. They made sacrifices and held funeral rites for Neoptolemus. The painter Polygnotus showed him still killing Trojans, as the work was to hang above his grave.

• Epirus: Neoptolemus founded the ruling family of the Molossians, a people of ancient Epirus.
• Molossos: With the captive Andromache, he became the father of a son named Molossos.
• Phrase: The Punishment of Neoptolemus names a fate where a person suffers the wrong they inflicted.

Among the Greek heroes, Neoptolemus also appears in Greek drama. In the Andromache of Euripides, he never comes on stage. Instead, the play describes his death at Delphi. Tragedy is a form of drama built around grief and downfall.

What has Ithaca revealed about the worship of Odysseus among Greek heroes?

Greek heroes honoured on Ithaca include Odysseus, and evidence points to a cult of him on the island. Cult here means organised worship of a god or hero. That evidence includes public games called the Odysseia, held for one of the Greek heroes.

The cult also had an Odysseion, a public meeting place or sanctuary named after him. Researchers place it at Agios Athanasios in northern Ithaca, a site long called the School of Homer. Two late Hellenistic inscriptions found there carry his name. Hellenistic describes the period that followed the conquests of Alexander.

Other finds include a miniature bronze bust of Odysseus and 34 clay votive fragments. A votive is a gift left at a shrine to thank or honour a god. Diggers also found loom weights, jewellery and over 100 coins. The sanctuary served both local worshippers and visiting pilgrims, people who journey to a holy place.

Among the Greek heroes, Odysseus is tied to Boeotia by one account. The writer Istros says his mother Anticlea bore him near Alalcomenae there. Odysseus later gave the name Alalcomenae to a town on Ithaca, in memory of that place. Aristotle’s lost work on the Ithacans also mentions an oracle of Odysseus among the Aetolian Eurytanes.

• Harbour: The Phaeacians carried Odysseus home by night, fast asleep, to a hidden harbour on Ithaca.
• Peace: Athena and Zeus stepped in on Ithaca and persuaded both warring sides to make peace.
• Sparta: Sparta also had a shrine dedicated to Odysseus, explained by a story Plutarch preserved.

The lower terrace of the site holds building remains and carved niches for offerings. Its roof tiles name Apollo Agyieus, a title of the god Apollo. Together these remains confirm that formal rites took place for one of the Greek heroes.

How did Locris honour Ajax the Lesser as one of its Greek heroes?

Greek heroes from Locris include Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus, the king of Locris. Strabo says he was born at Naryx in Locris. Ancient writers called him the Lesser, or Locrian, Ajax to set him apart from Ajax the Great.

In the Trojan War he led the Locrian force, sailing against Troy with forty ships. In battle he wore a linen cuirass, called a linothorax in Greek. A cuirass is armour that covers the chest and back. He threw the spear with great skill, and only Achilles ran faster among the Greek heroes.

The writer Philostratus says he wore his hair long. He also kept a pet snake five cubits long, which followed him like a dog. A cubit is an old measure, the length of a forearm. At the funeral games that the Greek heroes held for Patroclus, Athena made him stumble in the footrace. He finished with second prize.

After Troy fell, Ajax dragged Cassandra away from the temple of Athena, where she had taken refuge. On his voyage home, Athena struck his ship with a thunderbolt. Ajax clung to a rock, but Poseidon split it with his trident, or three-pronged fork. Thetis buried the body of Ajax when it washed up on Mykonos.

• Cult: The Opuntian Locrians worshipped Ajax as the national hero of their people.
• Battle line: When drawn up for battle, the Locrians kept one gap in the line for him.
• Coins: A hero with helmet, shield and sword on Locrian coins is thought to be this Ajax.

Locrian faith gave Ajax the Lesser a special place among the Greek heroes. The Locrians believed he still fought for them and among them, though invisible. Invisible means unable to be seen. Dares the Phrygian, an ancient writer, called him stocky, strong and brave.

Which king of Pylos advised the Greek heroes at Troy?

Greek heroes at Troy took advice from Nestor, king of Pylos in the Iliad and the Odyssey. In Homer he is an aged fighter who offers counsel again and again. His mother, Chloris, was a daughter of King Amphion of Orchomenus.

Among the Greek heroes at Troy, Nestor brought 90 ships, second only to the 100 of Agamemnon. By then he was too old to fight in person. He still led the Pylian troops, the men of Pylos, riding in his chariot. In one battle, Paris shot one of his horses dead with an arrow.

Diomedes, another of the Greek heroes, once came to his aid in battle. He stood before the king and had him take the place of Sthenelus, the driver of Diomedes. At the funeral games for Patroclus, Nestor told his son Antilochus how to win the chariot race. Funeral games were contests held to honour a dead warrior.

In the Iliad, Nestor urges Agamemnon and Achilles to make peace after their quarrel. He also advises arranging the armies by tribes and clans. Clans are family groups that trace descent from one ancestor. Book 1 calls him a clear-voiced orator, a skilled public speaker, whose voice flows sweeter than honey.

• Return: Nestor left Troy straight after its fall and brought his army safely home to Pylos.
• Family: Ancient sources give the name of his wife as either Eurydice or Anaxibia.
• Patroclus: In Book 11 of the Iliad, Nestor persuades Patroclus to disguise himself as Achilles.

Homer gives a mixed picture of Nestor as an adviser to the Greek heroes. In Book 2, Nestor accepts without question a dream that Zeus plants in Agamemnon. He then urges the Achaeans, the Greek army at Troy, into battle.

How does Crete enter the story of the Greek heroes through Idomeneus?

Greek heroes from Crete were led by Idomeneus, a Cretan king and commander. He brought the Cretan armies to Troy in eighty black ships. King Minos of Crete and Queen Pasiphaë were his grandparents. Through them he traced his line to Helios, the sun god.

His father was Deucalion and his mother was Cleopatra. He was also one of the suitors of Helen, the men who sought to marry her. In the Iliad he ranks among the leading generals of the Greek heroes. Meriones served as his charioteer and brother-in-arms, a close comrade in war.

Idomeneus was one of Agamemnon’s trusted advisers. When other Greek heroes lay injured, he became one of the chief defenders. He even fought Hector briefly and drove back his attack. He also entered the Trojan Horse with other warriors. This was a wooden horse that hid Greek fighters. He is still alive and well when the Iliad closes.

A later tradition, kept by Servius, an ancient commentator, tells of his voyage home. In a storm, Idomeneus vowed to sacrifice to Poseidon the first living thing he met on his return. That first living thing was his son, whom he sacrificed. Angered, the gods sent a plague, a deadly spreading disease, to Crete.

• Leucus: Apollodorus says his foster son Leucus drove him out of Crete and seized the throne.
• Lyctus: In the account of Porphyry, Idomeneus came back from Troy and sacked, or looted, Lyctus and other cities.
• Opera: Mozart based his 1781 opera seria Idomeneo, meaning serious opera, on the return of Idomeneus to Crete.

In Mozart’s opera, the tale of one of the Greek heroes ends in another way. Poseidon, called Neptune there, spares Idamante, the son of Idomeneo. In return, Idomeneo must give up his throne to the new generation. Neptune is the Roman name for Poseidon.

What links Argos, Troezen and Diomedes in the tale of the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes from Argos include Diomedes, born to Tydeus and Deipyle, who later became king of the city. On his father’s side he was an Aetolian, and on his mother’s side an Argive. Argive means a person from Argos.

At Troy he commanded a fleet of 80 ships, the third largest after those of Agamemnon and Nestor. All the troops from Argos, Tiryns and Troezen fought under his lead. He was the youngest of the Achaean kings. Even so, scholars rank him the mightiest of the Greek heroes after Achilles. Achaean is Homer’s name for the Greeks.

Diomedes spread the worship of gods and Greek heroes far and wide. In and near Argos, he had temples of Athena built. At Troezen he founded a temple of Apollo Epibaterius and started the Pythian games there. Plutarch says Diomedes carried the Palladium home to Argos. The Palladium was an image or statue of Athena, taken from Troy.

During Athena’s festival at Argos, people bore his shield through the streets as a sacred relic. A relic is an object honoured because of its link to a holy figure. His statue was also washed in the river Inachus. Aegialia, his wife, once barred him from Argos with the help of the Argives.

• Calydon: His grandfather Oeneus, the father of Tydeus, ruled as king of Calydon.
• Daunia: He later moved to Aetolia and then to Daunia, also called Apulia, in Italy.
• Glaucus: Diomedes and the Trojan Glaucus agreed not to fight and exchanged their armour.

Worship of Diomedes as one of the Greek heroes reached well beyond Argos. He was honoured as a hero in Greece. His cult also spread to the Adriatic coast, at Thurii and Metapontum. A hero cult is worship given to a famous dead person.

Which Arcadian huntress stands among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of myth include Atalanta, a huntress told of in two versions. One Atalanta came from Arcadia as the child of Iasus and Clymene. The other came from Boeotia as the daughter of King Schoeneus. She won fame for her speed in the footrace.

Her story among the Greek heroes opens on Mount Parthenion. Her wealthy father had wished for a son, so the newborn girl was exposed there. Exposure meant leaving a baby alone outdoors. A she-bear then came upon the child and nursed her. The bear was one of the symbols of the goddess Artemis.

The Argonauts were the band of sailors who searched for the Golden Fleece. The fleece of a ram is its thick coat of wool. Pseudo-Apollodorus says Atalanta sailed with these Greek heroes as the only woman in the crew. She called on the goddess Artemis for protection on the voyage.

Calydon, a city of ancient Aetolia, lay beside the river Evenus, on its west bank. A bank is the strip of land along the edge of a river. Its king, Oeneus, once forgot to honour Artemis with a sacrifice at an annual celebration. A sacrifice is a gift, such as an animal, offered to a god or goddess.

• Colchis: Diodorus Siculus says she fought at the battle in Colchis, where Medea later healed her wounds.
• Centaurs: Living in the wild, Atalanta killed two centaurs, Rhoecus and Hylaeus, with her bow and arrows.
• Golden apples: Aphrodite gave Hippomenes three golden apples, and with them he won the footrace against Atalanta.

Atalanta bore a son named Parthenopeus. Ancient writers give his father as Melanion, Meleager or the god Ares. Parthenopeus grew up to join the Seven against Thebes. That name belongs to a band of Greek heroes from Argos who marched on Thebes.

Why does Penelope hold a place beside the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of the Odyssey include Penelope, the wife of Odysseus. She is known for staying faithful to her husband while he was away. More than a hundred suitors sought her hand in those years. Her clever schemes kept them all at bay.

One source says Penelope was first called Ameirake, Arnakia or Arnaia. The scholar Hesychius glossed the word behind her name as a kind of bird. To gloss a word is to write a short note on its meaning. Today that bird is matched, on weak grounds, with the Eurasian wigeon. A wigeon is a wild duck.

One sea tale from the age of Greek heroes links Penelope with Euboea. The scholar Didymos records it. In his account, King Nauplius of Euboea threw her into the sea to avenge his son Palamedes. Birds called penelopes saved her from the waves. After this rescue she received a new name, taken from those birds.

Her marriage to one of the Greek heroes was settled at Sparta. Tyndareus persuaded his brother Icarius, the father of Penelope, to give her to Odysseus as his wife. Icarius then tried to keep the couple near him. He offered Odysseus his own kingdom if the young hero agreed to settle in Lacedaemon. Lacedaemon is another name for Sparta.

• Keleuthea: After winning Penelope, Odysseus gave Athena the title Keleuthea, meaning Lady of the Road.
• Mantineia: Pausanias records a tale that Odysseus banished Penelope to Mantineia after he came home.
• Pan: The poet Nonnus names the mother of the god Pan as Penelope of Mantineia in Arcadia.

The lost epic Telegony takes the tale of these Greek heroes beyond the Odyssey. Epic here means a long verse story of heroic deeds. In it, Telegonus, son of Odysseus and the enchantress Circe, married the newly widowed Penelope.

Which Theban princess earns a place among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Theban legend include Antigone, a princess of Thebes. She appears in a number of ancient Greek tragedies. She was a daughter of Oedipus, king of Thebes. Her two brothers were Polynices and Eteocles, and her sister was Ismene.

In Oedipus at Colonus, a tragedy by Sophocles, Creon carries Antigone away by force. A tragedy is a serious play in which the main figures meet suffering or death. Creon hopes to make her father, Oedipus, return to Thebes. Holding one person in order to force the choice of another is a form of blackmail.

Her stand among the Greek heroes of Thebes concerned the body of her brother Polynices. King Creon decreed that his body must not be buried or even mourned. Anyone who broke the order faced death by stoning. Antigone defied him. Before the king, she claimed that divine law, the law of the gods, stands above human law.

Aeschylus also gives Antigone a brief part in Seven Against Thebes, his play on Greek heroes at war. In it, she and Ismene mourn their dead brothers. Antigone then ignores a herald’s order that forbids a grave for Polynices. A herald was an official who carried public messages. Such an order from a ruler is called an edict.

• Name: In Greek, the name Antigone means worthy of one’s parents, or in place of one’s parents.
• Return: After the death of Oedipus, Antigone chose to go back to her home city of Thebes.
• Tomb: In the tragedy by Sophocles, Creon orders Antigone to be buried alive in a tomb.

Euripides also wrote a play called Antigone, but it is now lost. Later writers kept parts of its text. In his version of these Greek heroes’ tale, the god Dionysus steps in to prevent disaster. Antigone then marries Haemon, the son of Creon.

How does Alcestis of Pherae fit the story of the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Thessaly include Alcestis, a princess of Iolcus known for her love of her husband. She was the fairest of the daughters of Pelias, the king of Iolcus. Her husband was Admetus, who ruled from the city of Pherae.

After the wedding, Admetus left out an offering owed to the goddess Artemis. On entering the marriage room, he saw coiled snakes filling the bed. Apollo then came to the king’s aid. He made the Fates drunk and tricked them into a promise. The Fates were the goddesses who set the length of each life.

Under that promise, another person was allowed to die in place of Admetus. When his day of death drew near, nobody stepped forward. Even his elderly father and mother declined to take his place. To volunteer is to offer oneself freely. In the end, Alcestis alone came forward to die for her husband.

Euripides told this tale of Greek heroes in his play Alcestis. A serious drama of this kind, with suffering at its heart, is called a tragedy. Alcestis was first staged in 438 BC at the City Dionysia. That festival held a contest in which playwrights competed with their tragedies. A playwright is a person who writes plays.

• Pherae: Pherae, home of these Greek heroes, was among the oldest cities of ancient Thessaly.
• Messeis spring: The famous Messeis spring, the Kefalovryso spring at Velestino, is thought to have stood at Pherae.
• Chorus: In the play, the chorus is a group of fifteen men of Pherae who sing and dance.

Heracles, another of the Greek heroes, later brought Alcestis back from the dead to her husband. At first she was unable to speak. Heracles explained that she was to stay silent for three days. That time purified her of her debt to the gods beneath the earth.

What links Iphigenia and Brauron to the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Mycenae include Iphigenia, a daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. She was thus a princess of Mycenae. Her name means strong-born, or born to strength. A princess is the daughter of a ruling king or queen.

Her story among the Greek heroes turns at Aulis, before the war against Troy. There Agamemnon hunted and slew a deer in a holy grove of Artemis. A grove is a stand of trees, and a holy grove belongs to a god. Clytemnestra later reached Aulis with Iphigenia and the baby Orestes, her brother.

In the play Iphigenia in Tauris, Athena gives Orestes, one of the Greek heroes, a task. He is to take the xoanon of Artemis to the town of Halae. A xoanon is a carved wooden cult image. A cult image is a statue that receives worship. At Halae, Orestes must raise a temple to Artemis Tauropolos.

At Brauron, a small shrine stood about 12 m south-east of the Temple of Artemis. It measured about 5.5 by 8 m. It filled a gap between a rock spur and a mass of fallen rock. A spur here means a rocky ridge that sticks out from the hillside. The word shrine names a small sacred building.

• Artemis Orthia: The Spartans said they carried the image of Artemis to Laconia, where she became Artemis Orthia.
• Hecate: Pausanias reports that Hesiod made Iphigenia live on and become Hecate through the power of Artemis.
• Garments: Slotted bases at Brauron are thought to have held garments offered in honour of Iphigenia.

The space by the fallen rock has been linked with rites to appease Iphigenia. To appease is to calm an angry spirit with offerings. Scholars read the spot as a possible heroon, a shrine to one of the Greek heroes or heroines.

How did hero cult honour the Greek heroes at their graves?

Greek heroes, in the Greek of Homer, were the mortal children of a human and a god. Later Greek religion saw heroes as earthbound, chthonic beings. Chthonic means linked with the earth below. Worshippers feared that a neglected spirit brought disease or misfortune.

In the 10th century BC, Greeks did not yet use writing. Scholars think these Greeks invented a vanished Age of Heroes. The tale helped them explain Bronze Age ruins and old burial mounds. A burial mound is also called a tumulus. Their rites at such sites seem to have been a form of ancestor worship.

Athens treated its own war dead as heroes. The Battle of Marathon came in 490 BC. Afterwards, the city laid its cremated citizens in mounds. Offering trenches were dug around the mound. They show that the fallen soldiers received chthonic rites, the honours paid to Greek heroes beneath the earth. Trenches are narrow ditches cut into the ground.

Greek states also put the cults of Greek heroes to political use. Sparta, for example, promoted particular hero shrines. The aim was to shape public feeling and to strengthen its claims to land. This kind of message, spread by a state to win support, is called propaganda. Such claims concerned territory, meaning land held by a state.

• Amphipolis: Thucydides names Brasidas at Amphipolis as an example of a cult at a founder’s grave.
• Mycenae: A pottery sherd found above Grave Circle A at Mycenae bears the plain words to the hero.
• Attica: In Attica, hero cults are linked with tholos, or beehive, tombs at Thorikos and Menidhi.

Cults of Greek heroes honoured men first of all. Yet in practice, devotees paid their respects to a whole family group. That group took in women tied to the hero, such as his wife, his mother or his daughters.

Why did Lebadea honour Trophonius among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes of Boeotia include Trophonius. Strabo and a number of inscriptions call him Zeus Trephonios. Inscriptions are words carved on stone or bronze. In this title he bears the name of Zeus, the chief god of the Greeks.

Two Greek heroes share this story, Trophonius and his brother Agamedes. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo makes Trophonius a son of Erginus, king of Minyan Orchomenus. Pausanias tells how the two brothers built a treasure chamber for King Hyrieus of Boeotia. Only they knew of its secret entrance. A treasure chamber is a strong room for riches.

Hyrieus later laid a snare, and Agamedes was caught in it. Trophonius cut off his brother’s head so that nobody knew whose body it was. At once the earth swallowed Trophonius. He left the ranks of mortal Greek heroes and became an immortal god beneath the ground. A snare is a trap for catching a thief or an animal.

In time, a plague struck Lebadea. Plague here means a deadly sickness that passes quickly from person to person. The people sent to Delphi, where the Pythia, Apollo’s priestess, gave them an answer. She said one of the Greek heroes, still unnamed, was angry. He resented his neglect, and his grave had to be found.

• River Erkina: Visitors to the oracle bathed in the River Herkryna, or Erkina, named after a daughter of Trophonius.
• Lethe and Mnemosyne: At night, each visitor drank from two rivers, Lethe and Mnemosyne, and then entered a cave.
• Chair of Mnemosyne: Afterwards, priests set the visitor on a chair of Mnemosyne and shaped his ravings into an oracle.

In the end, a young shepherd tracked a line of bees to an opening in the earth. Instead of honey, he found a daimon, a kind of spirit. Lebadea then lost its plague and gained an oracle of one of the Greek heroes.

Which shrine near Sparta kept Helen among the Greek heroes?

Greek heroes and heroines were honoured at Therapne. It lies on the far bank of the Eurotas from the city of Sparta. Here Helen shared a shrine with her husband Menelaus and with the Dioscuri. The Dioscuri were her brothers, Castor and Pollux.

Its name, the Menelaion, means the shrine of Menelaus. Despite that name, both the shrine and its cult first belonged to Helen. Menelaus was added later. A cult here means the worship given to a god or one of the Greek heroes. Isocrates writes that the pair were worshipped at Therapne as gods, not as heroes.

A limestone temple rose on the hill in the late 7th and the 6th centuries BC. Limestone is a pale rock that is easy to carve. Finds include a bronze object of uncertain use, possibly a harpax. It carries a dedication of the 6th century BC that reads To Helen.

Helen, a heroine among the Greek heroes of Sparta, also had a sanctuary inside the city. It stood near the Platanistas, a place named for the plane trees planted there. Plane trees grow tall and cast deep shade with their broad leaves. An urban sanctuary is one that lies within a town rather than in open country.

• Dances: Ancient sources tie Helen to exercise and choral dances of young women near the Evrotas River.
• Feasts: Rules for people who sacrificed and held feasts in her honour survive from Hellenistic Sparta.
• Meneleaeia: The town held a festival called the Meneleaeia in honour of Menelaus and Helen.

Ancient belief placed a grave at the Menelaion. Helen was thought to lie buried there beside Menelaus. In this way, the shrine served as a heroon. A heroon is a shrine built over the grave of one of the Greek heroes or heroines.

What do travellers ask about Greek heroes, and what are the answers?

Greek heroes received worship at shrines known as heroa. A single shrine of this kind was a heroon. Each heroon was dedicated to a hero and served the rites of hero cult. Hero cult was the worship of a famed mortal after death.

Before a trip about Greek heroes, what was a heroon built over?

A heroon commonly rose over a spot held by tradition to be a hero’s tomb. In other cases it stood over a cenotaph. A cenotaph is an empty tomb raised in memory of a person buried elsewhere. Builders raised heroa from the 9th century BC until the first century AD. Heroa is the plural of heroon.

Which infant among the Greek heroes had a shrine at Nemea?

The Heroon at Nemea stood in the sanctuary of Zeus and honoured the infant hero Opheltes. In 1979, digs at Nemea by the University of California found what is thought to be his shrine. It is an open-air precinct about 100 metres south-west of the Temple of Zeus. Its founding dates to the Archaic period.

At Olympia, what form did a shrine for Greek heroes take?

Olympia holds a hero shrine from the mid-fifth century BCE. Its plan borrows from the tholos, or beehive tomb. A circular chamber sits inside a square outer frame around an earthen mound with a hero’s relics. Its place at a Panhellenic sanctuary, shared by all Greeks, points to a hero of wide fame.

Why did Spartans take the bones of Orestes, among the Greek heroes, from Tegea?

Herodotus tells of a band of Spartans who raided a shrine at Tegea. They took the bones of Orestes from his heroon. By holding his remains, Sparta bound the hero’s power of protection to its own city. This assured a Spartan victory over Tegea, as the Oracle of Delphi had foretold.

Featured photo: Michael F. Mehnert, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.