The Song of Orpheus (13 page)

Hera
(Ἥρα; Roman Juno): the queen of the gods. She watched over women, particularly at their weddings, and women called upon her for help during childbirth. She had many epithets (see entry for Apollo* for a definition) that show she was in charge of every stage of a girl/woman’s life: She was called Pais (Παῖς), Child; Parthenos (Παρθένος), Maiden; Teleia (Τελεία), Perfected (= married); and Chere (Χήρη), Widowed. (In ancient Greece, women were strictly controlled by men, and their marital status determined how they were treated. That’s why Hera’s epithets mostly have to do with marital status.) Early Greeks worshipped their deities not in temples but in the open air. One of the first—maybe
the
first—roofed temple in Greece was dedicated to Hera, which shows how important she was. She was married to Zeus*.

Herakles
(Ἡρακλέης; Roman Hercules): the greatest Greek hero. He became immortal right before he would otherwise have died. He was very strong, hot-tempered, a loyal friend, and, unfortunately, subject to fits of insanity. His parents were Zeus* and a woman named Alkmene; his twin brother had a mortal father. His name means “Glory of Hera*,” which has puzzled people since ancient times, since Hera hated him. In fact, as soon as he was born, Hera sent two snakes to kill him in his cradle, but he strangled them. Some think that since his mother’s name, Alkmene, means “strong in anger,” this might not have been a name but an epithet (see entry for Apollo for a definition) for Hera. This would mean that Hera was his mother, which would explain the name but still wouldn’t explain the snakes.

Hermes
(Ἑρμῆς; Roman Mercury): the protector of herdsmen, and the god of merchants and prosperity. He was skilled in both debate and trickery. A young boys’ festival, in which many sports were played and contests of strength, speed, and agility took place, was called the Hermeia in his honor. Because of this, he is the god of the gymnasium. Hermes conducted souls to the afterlife and occasionally served as messenger of the gods (although Iris, goddess of the rainbow, normally performed this task). He is usually shown wearing a winged hat and winged sandals. He was the great-grandfather of Odysseus*, the hero of Homer’s
Odyssey
.

Persephone
(Περσεφόνη; Roman Proserpina): the queen of the underworld. She ruled there half the year and lived on earth during the other half. She was the daughter of the goddess of the harvest. Also known as Kore (the Maiden), she was kidnapped by Hades, god of the underworld, as she was picking flowers. She is known by many other names: Persephassa (Περσεφάσσα), Persephatta (Περσεφάττα), Pherepapha (Φερέπαφα), Periphona (Πηριφόνα), Pherephatta (Φερεφάττα), and Phersephassa (Φερσέφασσα). Those names don’t look Greek, which makes some scholars think Persephone’s origins weren’t Greek and that the Greeks had difficulty pronouncing her name, so they came up with all those variations.

Poseidon
(Ποσειδῶν; Roman Neptune): the god of the sea, earthquakes, and horses. He and his two brothers (Zeus*, the sky god, and Hades, who ruled the underworld) governed the earth. Poseidon had strange taste in women. His wife was a sea creature, and his girlfriends included one of the Erinyes—the “avengers” of the underworld, who wore snakes around their waists and whose eyes dripped blood—and Medusa, the Gorgon who had snakes for hair (although she and Poseidon got together before her hair turned serpentine).

Zeus
(Ζεύς; Roman Jupiter or Jove): the king of the gods. He was born on the island of Crete and hidden there from his father, who wanted to eat him. He was raised by either Gaia*, a nymph, a goat, or a shepherd family. He was married to Hera* and/or to a nymph or Titan* named Dione (see Aphrodite*). He had dozens of children.

Argonauts
(Ἀργοναῦται; see Jason*)

Chiron
(Χείρων): a centaur (half man, half horse) who was noted for his wisdom, unlike other centaurs, who were wild and crazy. His father was the leader of the Titans* and his mother was a nymph. (The wild centaurs were descended from a raincloud.) After Herakles* accidentally wounded him with a poisoned arrow, Chiron was in such agony that he wanted to die, but he couldn’t, because he was immortal. He volunteered to die in place of Prometheus*, who was being punished by the gods for stealing fire from them to help the humans he had created. Zeus* granted Chiron’s wish and placed him in the heavens as the constellation Sagittarius.

Europa
(Ευρώπη): a princess whose name means “wide face.” (She was probably originally a cow goddess, not a human; cows have wide faces.) As a human, Europa and her friends were picking flowers one day when she saw a beautiful white bull, and for some reason, she climbed on its back. The bull turned out to be Zeus*, and he swam across the sea to Crete with her riding atop him. Zeus gave Europa three gifts: a huge robot named Talos (see “The Bronze Man of Crete,” p. TK), a magical hound named Lailaps (see “But Does She
Really
Love You?”, p. TK, and “The Hurricane Hound and the Teumessian Fox,” p. TK), and a spear that never missed its target (see the myths with Lailaps).

Fates
(Μοῖραι [The Ones Who Divide Things Up]): immortal women who decide how long individual people will live, whether they will be happy or unhappy, etc. Their parents were Night and Violent Death (who were also the parents of Doom, Death, and other unpleasant things), and they were born before the gods or even the Titans*. They spin, measure, and cut thread to determine a person’s fate.

The ancient Greeks believed that knots tied in string could cast a spell. String was sometimes used in communication and recordkeeping as well.

Ganymede
(Γανυμήδης): a prince of Troy* who was so handsome that Zeus* turned himself into an eagle and snatched him up to Mount Olympos to serve as his cupbearer. Zeus gave Ganymede’s father a pair of horses to repay him for the loss of his son.

Helen of Troy
(Ἑλένη): the stepdaughter of one king and wife of another (Menelaos of Sparta). Her father was Zeus* and her mother was either a princess named Leda, or Nemesis, the spirit of retribution (which more or less means “payback”). She went to Troy* with the Trojan Prince Paris*. Some myths say he kidnapped her; others say she ran away with him. When Menelaos and other kings from Greece attacked Troy to get her back, it started the Trojan War.

If Helen didn’t go with Paris of her own free will, it was the second time she was kidnapped. The first time, a “hero” named Theseus stole her from her home when she was just a child, and her brothers rescued her.

Jason
(Ἰάσων): the son of a king. Jason’s half-brother, or maybe his cousin, massacred the rest of their family. Jason became the captain of a ship called the
Argo
. He and sailors called the Argonauts* went to the land of Kolkhis and stole the Golden Fleece with the help of the Kolkhian princess and priestess Medea*. According to some accounts, he later told her he was going to marry someone else, and Medea took a brutal vengeance on him. Others say they ruled together peacefully for years.

Medea
(Μήδεια): daughter of a king, niece of a sorceress, granddaughter of the sun god. Medea was a priestess, probably of the sun god in the form of a ram. She helped the hero Jason* steal the ram’s fleece, which was sacred to her people, the Kolkhians. Either she or Jason killed her brother during their escape. After she and Jason separated, she married the king of Athens.

Minos
(Μίνως): a son of Zeus* and Europa*. According to the Greeks, he was the king of Crete and the stepfather of the half-man, half-bull Minotaur. Probably, though, “minos” isn’t a name but a Cretan title meaning “king” or “war chief,” and the Minotaur was actually a priest (fully human) who wore a bull’s-head mask during ceremonies.

Odysseus
(Ὀδυσσεύς, also known as Oulixeus [Οὐλιξεύς] or Oulixes [Οὐλίξης]; Latin Ulysses or Ulixes): a king whose return from the Trojan War was delayed ten years. The story of his invention of the Trojan Horse is told in Homer’s
Iliad
, and his trip home is recounted in the
Odyssey
. Descended from the trickster god Hermes*, Odysseus was a master liar. His wife was a first cousin of Helen of Troy*.

Orpheus
(Ὀρφεύς): a mythical singer, lyre player, poet, and prophet. The Greeks said he founded a religion called the Orphic Mysteries. Not much is known about this religion except that its followers believed that when people died, they were reborn in another (human) body.

Pandora
(Πανδώρα): the first woman, whose name means “all-gifted,” “all-giving,” or “all gifts.” She opened a jar—not a box—that contained the ills that have plagued humans ever since, leaving only Hope inside to ease humanity’s pains. There’s a problem with that story: How is it that leaving Hope locked up in the jar enables it to
help
people? Wouldn’t Hope have to be released in order to have any effect, the way the ills had to be released to cause harm? An ancient writer named Theognis evidently thought so. He said the jar actually contained only
good
things, and that once they were released, they flew away, never to confer their blessings on humans. Since Hope is still in the jar, it’s still available.

Paris
(Πάρις): a prince of Troy* who had at least sixty-seven brothers and eighteen sisters (some writers say even more). He chose Aphrodite* as the winner in a goddess beauty contest, because she promised to give him the most beautiful woman in the world if he did so. This led to the Trojan War. Paris was a very good archer, but he didn’t behave bravely during the war; he mostly avoided combat. He did challenge Helen’s husband, King Menelaos, to a duel, but he fought so badly that he was on the point of being killed when Aphrodite, grateful that Paris had named her the most beautiful of the goddesses, swooped down and carried him to safety.

Argos
(Ἄργος): a city about halfway between the powerhouse city-states of Athens* and Sparta*. Argos has been continuously inhabited for about 7,000 years.

Athens
(ancient Greek Ἀθῆναι [Athenai]): the capital of modern Greece, and one of the most important cities—some would say
the
most important—of ancient Greece. The site of Athens has been continuously inhabited for more than 7,000 years. When people talk about “ancient Greece” and “ancient Greeks,” they often are really referring to Athens and the Athenians.

Crete
(Κρήτη): the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and the largest Greek island. Crete was first settled about 130,000 years ago and was later the home of the advanced Minoan civilization.

Mount Ida
(Ἴδη): Two sacred mountains, one on Crete* and the other in western Turkey, are called Ida. Zeus* was left on the Mount Ida in Crete to keep him safe from his murderous father. Zeus kidnapped Ganymede* off the Mount Ida in Turkey, which is also where Paris* met his wife (see “An Oread Scorned,” p. TK).

Mount Olympos
(Όλυμπος): the highest mountain in Greece and one of the highest in Europe, home of the major Greek gods. Some ancient writers say that the gods lived in a bronze dome
above
the mountain, not on the mountain itself.

Mycenae
(Μυκήνη or Μυκῆναι): Before Athens* and Sparta* rose in importance, Mycenae was one of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. The period from about 1600-1100 BCE is called “Mycenaean” today. The origin of the name is unknown and probably isn’t Greek, but the Greeks used the word and tried to figure out what it meant. The closest Greek word they could find was “myces” (μύκης), meaning “mushroom.” To explain why that word would become the name of a great city-state, they came up with a pretty feeble story about Mycenae’s founder picking a mushroom there.

oracle
: both the place where a god spoke through a person and the person who did the speaking. If that person was a woman, she might also be called a sibyl. The most famous of these women were the Cumaean Sibyl, who lived in southern Italy (then part of the Greek world), and the Pythia, who spoke words inspired by Apollo* at his temple in the Greek city of Delphi.

Sparta
(Σπάρτη): a powerful city on the Peloponnesus, the squarish peninsula that makes up southwestern mainland Greece. Sparta concentrated most of its resources in its military. Paradoxically, Sparta was one of the few places in the ancient world in which girls were treated almost as well as boys, since the Spartans recognized that in order to give birth to and raise strong sons, women have to be strong and healthy.

Troy
(Τροία [Troia], Ἴλιον [Ilion], or Ἴλιος [Ilios]): a city in what is now Turkey. The famous poem the
Iliad
, by Homer, is about a war between the Greeks (led by King Menelaos of Mycenae*) and the Trojans (led by King Priam of Troy and his sons). No one knows if there ever was such a war or if Homer made it up, basing his tale on battles between Greeks and Trojans, probably over control of trade.

Many thanks to Lara Perkins, without whose expert guidance and encouragement I never would have attempted this project. Thanks also to Barbara Tsakirgis of the Departments of Classical Studies and Art History at Vanderbilt University, who read an early draft of this manuscript and corrected errors; any that have crept in since that reading are my responsibility. And as always, my love and thanks to Greg.

Tracy Barrett has loved Greek mythology ever since she first read
D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths
. In college she majored in Classics with a specialty in ancient Greek art and architecture, and she has made many trips to Italy, Greece, North Africa, and Turkey to visit museums and ancient ruins. Five of her more than twenty books relate to the ancient Classical world:
Dark of the Moon
(a retelling of the myth of the Minotaur),
King of Ithaka
(Homer’s
Odyssey
as seen by Odysseus’s son, Telemachos), the time-travel novel
On Etruscan Time
, the nonfiction
The Ancient Greek World
(co-authored with Jennifer Roberts), and now
The Song of Orpheus
.