Classical Mythology
The Fates were three Roman goddesses. They were known to the Greeks as the Moerae. Their origins are unknown, but some called them the daughters of night and were the powers which decided what must happen to individuals. The Greeks called them: Clotho (the spinner), Lachesis (the apportioner), and Atropos (the inevitable). One idea is that they spun a lenght of yarn which represented the allotted time for each mortal. Even Zeus, who was the cheif Greek god, was subject to the decisions of the Fates. This placed great importance to both gods and mortals on the importance of oracles, which would reveal the inevitable drift of future events.
In Greek mythology, the Furies were known as the avenging goddesses. They were known as the Erinyes (the angry ones) and were the offspring of Ouranos and Gaia. They were portrayed as extremely ugly women with snakes entwined in their hair, and were unmerciful to any mortal who had wrongly shed blood. One story relates how they relentlessly pursued Orestes, who avenged his father Agamemnon's murder by killing Clytemnestra, his mother. The Furies were persuaded to abandon their pursuit of Orestes after he was aquitted by an ancient Athenian council. The verdict calmed the anger of the Furies and their name was changed to Eumenides (the soothed ones).
Mars was a Roman god, who was originally the god of fertility and vegetation. Later he became known as the god of battles. He was the son of Juno and a magical flower. During the spring, festivals were held in his honor so he would preside over the agriculture. As the god of war, sacrifices were offered to him before combat. It was said that sometimes he would appear on the battlefield.
In Greek mythology, Hypnos was the son of Nyx (the night goddess) and the brother of Thanatos (Death). His son was the god of dreams, Morpheus. He dwelt in Hades (the underworld) and never saw the sun. On numerous occasions Hera asked Hypnos to lull her husband Zeus into a deep sleep so she could have the opportunity to attack his son Heracles. Hypnos usually refused, since he didn't relish the thought of incurring the wrath of Zeus and having thunderbolts hurled at him.
The Hesperides
The Hesperides were the three daughters of Hesperus, the evening star. Their names were Hespera, Aegle, and Erytheis. They were chosen to guard a very special tree, which produced golden apples. This tree was a gift from Gaia, mother earth, to the goddess Hera, on her marriage to Zeus, who was the chief of the Greek gods. This tree stood in the Garden of Hesperides, which was located on the slopes of Mount Atlas.
Typhon was a serpent-like monster, whose eyes shot forth flames. He was conceived by Gaia, mother earth, shortly after she was banished to Tartarus, along with all the other defeated Titans. According to the Greek legend, Typhon had tried to establish himself as the ruler of the world and its supreme deity, but Zeus destroyed him with a mighty thunderbolt. In the battle between Typhon and Zeus, they were fairly evenly matched and at one point, Zeus was left helpless in a cave, without any of his weapons. Fortunately, the messenger god Hermes came to his aid. Just before his final defeat, Typhon sired the huge sea monster, Chimaera.
The Titans, according to Greek mythology, were children from the union between Ouranos, the sky, and Gaia, the earth. These huge beings were the older gods. They ruled before the Olympian gods, who were the brothers, sisters, and children of Zeus. The Titans were: Cronos, Rhea, Coeus, Metis, Mnemosyne, and Hyperion. The Titans came into power after Cronos had emasculated his father Ouranos, with a sickle which was provided by his mother, Gaia. They lost their power when they were defeated in battle by the Olympians. The battle between the older gods, the Titans who were led by Cronos, and the younger gods, the Olympians who were led by Zeus, lasted ten long years and shook the entire universe. Afterwards, Zeus threw all those who had opposed him, down into Tartarus, which was a place located beneath the realm of the dead, known as the underworld.
Hades was the Greek god of the underworld, which was known as the realm of the dead. Hades was the son of Cronos and Rhea, and the brother of Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia. He forced Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, to marry him. After the overthrow of the Titans, Zeus took the sky, Poseidon took the sea, Hades took the underworld, and the earth was to be shared. Another name for him, is Polydegmon, because of the vast number of people who have died and entered his kingdom. All the ghosts of the dead were taken by Hermes to the boatman Charon, who would ferry them across the River Styx. The Styx was an underground river and only those who could pay the fare were allowed to cross. Cerberus, the three-headed dog, guarded the entrance between the world of the living and the underworld. It was his job to keep the dead from trying to return to the world of the living. Hades was certainly a grim and fearsome deity and his worshippers always averted their eyes whenever they offered sacrifices to him. They frequently called him by the name of Pluto, in order to avoid making any reference to the underworld. One of the main myths surrounding Hades, is his abduction and forceful marriage of Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. This caused a huge conflict between Hades and Demeter, which forced Zeus to find a suitable solution. He finally decided to give both the husband and mother equal shares of Persephone's time. As a result, she sank and rose from the underworld, in perfect tune with the yearly cycles of sowing and harvesting. In another story, the normally faithful husband, fell in love with the nymph Minthe. When his wife Persephone found out, she became very angry and so jealous, she turned the nymph into the sweet smelling herb, mint.
Hecate was a Greek goddess, who descended from the Titans. She had two separate and distinct aspects. In the daytime, she had a benign influence on farming, but during the dark of night, she was interested in witchcraft, ghosts, and old tombs. Hecate combined the aspects of fertility with the aspects of death and used them as power over the earth. She is sometimes portrayed as having three faces. Once a month, the people in Athens, would show their respect towards her, and place special food offerings at crossroads, for this was where her influence could be felt.
Hermaphroditos was the offspring of the union between Hermes and Aphrodite. In a fountain near the city of Halicarnassus, there lived the nymph, Salmacis. She was very much in love with Hermaphroditos, who was a very handsome boy, but had unknowingly ignored her many romantic advances. As a result, Salmacis prayed to the gods that she and Hermaphroditos could be eternally united. Her prayer was answered, but perhaps not quite what she had in mind, for when Hermaphroditos decided to bathe in the fountain's water, Salmacis merged with him physically and the result was a female boy, a hermaphrodite.
The Sphinx in Greek mythology, was a daughter of Echidna and either Typhon or Orthus. She was a horrible monster with the face and breasts of a woman, the body of a lion, and wings of a bird. Hera had sent the sphinx to the city of Thebes as a curse. She was to guard the passage that led into the city of Thebes. Whenever someone tried to go through this passageway, the sphinx would block their way and present them with an odd riddle to solve. Those who answered the riddle correctly could pass without harm, but those who could not, were given the correct answer and then were eaten by the Sphinx. The riddle was: What thing walks on four legs in the morning, on three in the evening, and weakest when it walks on four? The answer of course, was Man. When Oedipus gave the Sphinx the correct answer, she threw herself over a cliff and died. As a reward for getting rid of such a horrible monster, he was made king of Thebes and married the reigning Queen.
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