Greek Mythology

[Syrenna]

Here I will explain a little about Greek mythology and also describe, in some detail and with images, the Gods, Goddesses, Heroes and 'Nasties' themselves. If you wish to create a thread dedicated specifically to something or someone, go right ahead.

I have also included a directory of sorts for ease of reference. Follow these links to reach the relevant post.

Olympian Deities

Aphrodite
Apollo
Ares
Artemis
Athena
Hephaestus
Hera
Hermes
Poseidon
Zeus

Those Variables that made up the Twelve

Demeter
Dionysus
Hades
Hebe
Helios
Heracles
Hestia
Persephone

Primordial Deities

Aether
Chaos
Chronos
Erebus
Eros
Gaia
Hemera
Nyx
Tartarus
Uranus

***************

Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and their own cult and ritual practices.

Greek mythology consists in part of a large collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and other mythological creatures.

Greek mythology has had extensive influence on the culture, the arts and the literature of Western civilization and remains part of western heritage and language. It has been a part of the educational fabric from childhood, while poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in classical mythological themes.

[Syrenna]

Olympian Deities

The Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon in Greek religion, were the principle gods of the Greek pantheon, residing atop Mount Olympus. There were, at various times, seventeen different gods recognized as Olympians, though never more than twelve at one time.

Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis are always considered Olympians.

Heracles, Hebe, Helios, Hestia, Demeter, Dionysus, Hades, and Persephone are the variable gods among the Twelve.



Aphrodite - Goddess of Beauty and Love

Aphrodite was born of the sea foam near Paphos, Cyprus after Cronus cut off Uranus' testicles and threw them into the sea. Hesiod's Theogony described that the genitals "were carried over the sea a long time, and white foam arose from the immortal flesh; with it a girl grew" to become Aphrodite. Thus Aphrodite is of an older generation than Zeus.

Aphrodite's chief center of worship remained at Paphos, on the south-western coast of Cyprus, where the goddess of desire had long been worshipped as Ishtar and Ashtaroth. It is said that she first tentatively came ashore at Cytherea, a stopping place for trade and culture between Crete and the Peloponesus.
Aphrodite, in many of the myths involving her, is characterized as vain, ill-tempered and easily offended. Though she is one of the few gods of the Greek Pantheon to be actually married, she is frequently unfaithful to her husband. Hephaestus, of course, is one of the most even-tempered of the Hellenic deities; Aphrodite seems to prefer Ares, the volatile god of war. In Homer's Iliad she surges into battle to save her son, Aeneas, but abandons Ares (in fact, drops him as she flies through the air) when she herself is hurt (Ares does much the same thing). And she is the original cause of the Trojan War itself: not only did she start the whole affair by offering Helen of Troy to Paris, but the abduction was accomplished when Paris, seeing Helen for the first time, was inflamed with desire to have her—which is Aphrodite's realm. Her domain may involve love, but it does not involve romance; rather, it tends more towards lust, the human irrational longing.

In popular culture

• Aphrodite is well-known in popular culture due to several works of art such as the Venus de Milo and Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.
  
  
• In film, she has been portrayed by actresses such as Vanna White and Ursula Andress.
  
  
• In the Hercules and Xena television series, Aphrodite was played by Alexandra Tydings, who gained a cult following due to her portrayal of Aphrodite as a ditzy valley girl who dressed in pink negligee.
  
  
• In the anime 'Wedding Peach' Aphrodite is the Queen of the Angel World. They are magical beings who bring love to Earth.
  
  
• In Marvel Comics, Venus is presented as Ares' former love interest. She is seen to where she had become enemies with her former lover Ares who is still in love with her.

[Syrenna]

Apollo - God of the light, music, healing, prophecy, the sun, and poetry

Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of the chaste huntress Artemis, who took the place of Selene as goddess of the moon. As the prophetic deity of the Delphic oracle, Apollo was one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities.

Apollo's most common attributes were the lyre and the bow. Another common emblem was the sacrificial tripod, representing his prophetic powers. The Pythian Games were held in Apollo's honor every four years at Delphi. The laurel bay plant was used in expiatory sacrifices and in making the crown of victory at these games. The palm was also sacred to Apollo because he had been born under one in Delos. Animals sacred to Apollo included wolves, dolphins and roe, swans and grasshoppers (symbolizing music and song), hawks, ravens, crows and snakes (referencing Apollo's function as the god of prophecy), mice, laurel and griffins, mythical eagle-lion hybrids of Eastern origin.

When Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Zeus was the father, she banned Leto from giving birth on "terra-firma", or the mainland, or any island at sea. In her wanderings, Leto found the newly created floating island of Delos, which was neither mainland nor a real island, and she gave birth there. The island was surrounded by swans. Afterwards, Zeus secured Delos to the bottom of the ocean. This island later became sacred to Apollo.

Apollo has his ominous aspects, too. Marsyas, who dared challenge him to a music contest, was flayed after he lost. Apollo brought down arrows of plague upon the Greeks because they dishonored his priest Chryses. Apollo's arrows of plague struck Niobe, who, excessively proud of her seven sons and seven daughters, had disparaged Apollo's mother, Leto, for having only two children (Apollo and Artemis).

In popular culture

• In the 1960s, NASA named its Apollo Lunar program after Apollo, because he was considered the god of all wisdom. Many people mistakenly believe that the rockets that carried astronauts to the Moon were called Apollo rockets; they were actually Saturn V rockets, on top of which sat the Apollo spacecraft.
  
  
• Apollo is the subject of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem of 1820 the "Hymn of Apollo"
  William Rimmer's artistic depiction of Apollo was used as the symbol of the band Led Zeppelin's record label Swan Song Records.
  
  
• A being who could have possibly been Apollo encountered the Enterprise crew in the classic STAR TREK episode Who Mourns For Adonais?.
  
  
• Apollo is the name of a Daedalus class battlecruiser in the science-fiction television series Stargate Atlantis.
  
  
• Apollo is the name of a superhuman (inspired by Superman) with connections to the sun, in the superhero comic The Authority.
  
  
• In both series of Battlestar Galatica one of the central protagonists, Captain Lee Adama, is often referred to by his call sign Apollo.
  
  
• In a few episodes of the anime show Cyborg 009 there are cyborg characters who (after being brain-washed) think that they are the Greek gods. One of them thinks that he is Apollo.

[Syrenna]

Ares - God of savage war, primarily violent war and bloodshed

Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera. Though often incorrectly referred to as the Olympian god of war, he is more accurately the god of savage war, or bloodlust. Among the Hellenes, Ares was always mistrusted. His birthplace and true home was placed far off, among the barbarous and warlike Thracians. And he withdrew to Thrace after he was discovered on a couch with Aphrodite. Though Ares' half-sister Athena was also considered to be a war deity, Athena's stance was that of strategic warfare while Ares' tended to be the unpredictable violence of war with all its potential outcomes.

One of the many roles of Ares that was sited in mainland Greece itself was in the founding myth of Thebes: Ares was the progenitor of the water-dragon slain by Cadmus, and hence the ancestor of the Spartans (the dragon's teeth were sown into the ground, and sprung up as the fully armored autochthonic Spartans). From the dragon's teeth sown as if a crop arose a race of fighting men, the descendents of Ares. To propitiate Ares, Cadmus took as a bride Harmonia, daughter of Ares' union with Aphrodite, thus harmonizing all strife and founding the city of Thebes.

In popular culture

• Ares is the villainous antagonist in the 2005 video game, God of War.
  
  
• Ares is an enemy of Wonder Woman in DC Comics.
  
  
• Ares (Marvel Comics) is another of the many allies/minions Hades has in Marvel Comics. He was supposed to marry his former lover Aphrodite under Hades' wishes until the conspiracy was discovered.

[Syrenna]

Artemis - Goddess of the hunt and the moon

In Greek mythology Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. Leto had to find a place where the sun had never shone to give birth to the two due to a curse set by Hera, Zeus' wife. The island she found was Delos, and Leto gave birth there. In many tales, Artemis was born first and then assisted Leto in the birth of her brother. However, there are cases when the two were born at the same time. Artemis and Apollo were born greater than any of Hera's children.

At three years old, Artemis asked her father, Zeus, while sitting on the god king's knee, to grant her several wishes. First she asked to remain a virgin forever. She then asked to never have to be married and to have lop-eared hounds, stags to lead her chariot, and nymphs as her hunting companions. she is also given the power to converse with animals. He granted her wishes. All of her companions remained virgins, and she guarded her chastity very, very closely.

In popular culture

• In the Dark Hunter book series by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Artemis is the red-haired goddess responsible for the creation of the Dark Hunters. Upon their death she claims their soul, leaving them marked where she touched them with a bow and arrow, and permits them one act of vengeance before they return to serve her. She is particularly attracted to Acheron, the first of the Dark Hunters, with whom she has a love-hate relationship.
  
  
• The Finnish short story Valtiatar Artemis (Mistress Artemis) was written in 2003 by Seppo Telenius. Valtiatar Artemis is included in Athena-Artemis, an English article, and the novel Auringolla ratsastajat (Riders on the Sun) are included in Athena-Artemis.
  
  
• In the Artemis Fowl young adult novel series, Artemis Fowl is a teenage boy, an Irish criminal mastermind who has dealings with the fairy world. In Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code, antagonist Jon Spiro asks Artemis whether his name isn't really a girl's name. Later, Artemis tells Spiro that in each generation, a boy who is an extraordinary hunter (a reference to the original myth) can be named Artemis.
  
  
• In R.A. Salvatore's fantasy novel series starring the Dark Elf 'Drizzt Do'Urden', Artemis Entreri is the evil assassin and arch enemy of Drizzt and his companions. Salvatore also wrote a shorter series starring Artemis and his companion Jarlaxle called 'The Sellswords'.
  
  
• Artemis was the name of the doomed U.S.-Soviet lunar lander in the motion picture, Superman II.
  
  
• The Artemis mythology (unsurprisingly) plays a significant role in David Rudkin's intentionally impenetrable epic 3-hour TV movie, Artemis 81.
  
  
• Reba McEntire portrays Artemis in Disney's Hercules The Animated Series.
  
  
• The white cat that belongs to Minako Aino in the Sailor Moon metaseries is named Artemis. As he is male, in the earlier Codename wa Sailor V, Minako makes fun of him being named after a female goddess.
  
  
• A Eurasian Federation asteroid basin is named "Artemis".
  
  
• In the popular Sony videogame God of War, Artemis gives Kratos a massive and potent (though slow) sword, appropriately called the Blade of Artemis. She was also for some reason depicted with horns.
  
  
• In the popular RTS computer game Age of Mythology, Artemis features as one of the Greek minor deities.
  
  
• Many RPG installments (like Final Fantasy) feature high-level bows named after Artemis.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

These are all very well done, and I'm still reading.

[Syrenna]

Athena - Goddess of wisdom, strategy and war

Zeus lay with Metis, the goddess of crafty thought, but immediately feared the consequences. It had been prophesied that Metis would bear children more powerful than the father, and this includes even Zeus himself. In order to forestall these dire consequences, Zeus played a game with Metis. She transformed into many creatures, big and small. When Metis transformed into a fly, Zeus swallowed her immediately after lying with her. He was too late: Metis was already pregnant. Metis immediately began making a helmet and robe for her fetal daughter. The hammering as she made the helmet caused Zeus great pain and Hephaestus cut open Zeus's skull with the double-headed Minoan axe (labrys). Athena leaped from Zeus's skull, fully grown and armed, and Zeus was none the worse for the experience.This is the most common version of her birth.

In Greek mythology, Athena was the goddess of civilization, specifically wisdom, weaving, and crafts . Athena's wisdom encompasses the technical knowledge employed in weaving, metal-working, but also includes the cunning intelligence (metis) of such figures as Odysseus. The owl and the olive tree are sacred to her.

She is attended by an owl, wears a goatskin breastplate called the Aegis given to her by her father, Zeus, and is accompanied by the goddess of victory, Nike. She is often shown helmeted and with a shield bearing the Gorgon Medusa's head, a votive gift of Perseus. Athena is an armed warrior goddess, and appears in Greek mythology as a helper of many heroes, including Heracles, Jason, and Odysseus. She never had a consort or lover, and thus was often known as Athena Parthenos ("Athena the virgin"), hence her most famous temple, the Parthenon, on the Acropolis in Athens. In her role as a protector of the city, Athena was worshipped throughout the Greek world as Athena Polias ("Athena of the city"). She had a special relationship with Athens, as is shown by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city.

In popular culture

• Athena (Minerva) is the subject of the $50 1915-S Panama-Pacific commemorative coin. This was the first $50 coin issued by the U.S. Mint and no higher was produced until the production of the $100 platinum coins in 1997. Of course, in terms of face-value in adjusted dollars, the 1915 is the highest denomination ever issued by the U.S. Mint.
  
  
• A full-scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville, Tennessee, which is known as the Athens of the South, for over a century.
  
  
• The state seal of California features an image of Athena (or Minerva) kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear.
  
  
• The name Athena is used by two characters in both the original Battlestar Galactica and the reimagined series.

[Syrenna]

admin said:

These are all very well done, and I'm still reading.

Thank you. I very much enjoy putting them together

Just gonna get something to eat and then I'll continue. There are a LOT more to come ;D

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

syrenna said:

admin said:

These are all very well done, and I'm still reading.

Thank you. I very much enjoy putting them together

Just gonna get something to eat and then I'll continue. There are a LOT more to come ;D

And I look forward to each and every one, I love folklore...

[Syrenna]

Demeter - Goddess of agriculture (one of the Variable Twelve)

Demeter is the Greek goddess of grain and agriculture, the pure nourisher of youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacred law.

The central myth of Demeter, which is at the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries is her relationship with Persephone, her daughter and own younger self. In the Olympian pantheon, Persephone became the consort of Hades. Persephone became the goddess of the underworld when Hades abducted her from the earth and brought her into the underworld. She had been playing with some nymphs whom Demeter later changed into the Sirens as punishment for not having interfered. Life came to a standstill as the depressed Demeter searched for her lost daughter (resting on the stone, Agelasta). Finally, Zeus could not put up with the dying earth and forced Hades to return Persephone by sending Hermes to retrieve her. But before she was released, Hades tricked her into eating four pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return for four months each year. When Demeter and her daughter were together, the earth flourished with vegetation. But for four months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. The four months when the earth is barren is the season of winter, since in Greece this is when all vegetation dies. Summer, Autumn, and spring by comparison have heavy rainfall and mild temperatures in which plant life flourishes. It was during her trip to retrieve Persephone from the underworld that she revealed the Eleusinian Mysteries. In an alternate version, Hecate rescued Persephone. In other alternative versions, Persephone was not tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds but chose to eat them herself. Some versions say that she ate six seeds rather than four. Regardless, the end result is the occurrence of summer, spring, winter, and autumn.

Portrayals and Miscellanea

• Demeter was usually portrayed on a chariot, and frequently associated with images of the harvest, including flowers, fruit, and grain. She was also sometimes pictured with Persephone.
  
  
• Demeter is not generally portrayed with a consort: the exception is Iasion, the youth of Crete who lay with Demeter in a thrice-ploughed field, and was sacrificed afterwards— by a jealous Zeus with a thunderbolt, Olympian mythography adds, but the Cretan site of the myth is a sign that the Hellenes knew this was an act of the ancient Demeter.
  
  
• Demeter placed Aethon, the god of famine, in Erysichthon's gut, making him permanently famished. This was a punishment for cutting down trees in a sacred grove.

[Syrenna]

Hades - God of the Dead and lord of the Underworld. Brother of Poseidon and Zeus (one of the Variable Twelve)

In Greek mythology, Hades (the "unseen"), the god of the underworld, was a son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. He had three older sisters, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera, as well as two younger brothers, Poseidon and Zeus: together they accounted for half of the Olympian gods.

Upon reaching adulthood Zeus managed to force his father to disgorge his siblings. After their release the six younger gods, along with allies they managed to gather, challenged their parents and uncles for power in the Titanomachy, a divine war. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades received weapons from the three Cyclops to help in the war. Zeus the thunderbolt; Hades the helmet of invisibility; and Poseidon the trident. During the night before the first battle Hades put on his helmet and, being invisible, snuck over to the Titans' camp and destroyed their weapons. The war lasted for ten years and ended with the victory of the younger gods.

Following their victory, according to a single famous passage in the Iliad, Hades and his two younger brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, drew lots for realms to rule. Zeus got the sky, Poseidon got the seas, and Hades received the underworld, the unseen realm to which the dead go upon leaving the world as well as any and all things beneath the earth.

Hades obtained his eventual consort, Persephone, through trickery, a story that connected the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries with the Olympian pantheon.

Despite modern connotations of death as "evil", Hades was actually more altruistically inclined in mythology. Hades was often portrayed as passive rather than evil; his role was often maintaining relative balance.

Hades ruled the dead, assisted by demons over whom he had complete authority. He strictly forbade his subjects to leave his domain and would become quite enraged when anyone tried to leave, or if someone tried to steal the souls from his realm.

In popular culture

• The religion of the ancient Greeks did not separate gods into categories of good or evil, but most people today tend to think in terms of "God" and "Devil" archetypes. Because of this, Hades (as the ruler of the underworld) is usually portrayed as a Satanic figure in popular culture.
  
  
• Hades is pictured as a respected god in the video game God of War
  
  
• Hades is pictured as one of the enemies of the Justice League and lover to Queen Hippolyta, who in here is not a daughter of Ares. He first deceives Felix Faust and fights the Justice League. Later Faust tries to overthrow him but with help from Wonder Woman, he punishes Faust.
  
  
• Hades is another of the enemies of Marvel Comics' characters. He is a deceitful, evil god that wants to overthrow Zeus by various means, even manipulate Marvel characters.
  
  
• Hades is seen as the main villain in Disney's movie Hercules.
  
  
• Hades is a summon in the Squaresoft RPG Final Fantasy VII.
  
  
• Hades is the final boss, next to Astaroth, in Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins.
  
  
• "Hades" is a song by the metal band Kalmah.

[Syrenna]

Hephaestus - God of fire and the forge

Hephaestus and his brother Ares are sons of Hera, with or without the cooperation of Zeus. In classic and late interpretations, Hera bore him alone, in jealousy for Zeus's solo birth of Athena, but as Hera is older than Zeus in terms of human history, the myth may be an inversion. Indeed, in some versions of Athena's birth, the goddess only enters the world after Zeus' head is split open by a hammer-wielding Hephaestus. Either way, in Greek thought, the fates of the goddess of wisdom and war (Athena) and the god of the forge that makes the weapons of war were linked. In Attica, Hephaestus and Athena Ergane (Athena as patroness of craftsman and artisans), were honored at a festival called Chalceia on the thirtieth day of Pyanepsion. Hephaestus crafted much of Athena's weaponry, along with those of the rest of the gods and even of a few mortals who received their special favor.

Hephaestus was quite ugly; he was crippled and misshapen at birth. In the vase-paintings, his feet are sometimes back-to-front. In art, Hephaestus was shown lame and bent over his anvil. He walked with the aid of a stick. A non-Homeric version of Hephaestus' myth has that Hera, mortified to have brought forth such grotesque offspring, promptly threw him from Mount Olympus. He fell, as he tells it himself in the Iliad, many days and nights and landed in the Ocean where he was brought up by the Oceanids Thetis (mother of Achilles) and Eurynome.

Hephaestus’s physical appearance indicates arsenicosis, low levels of arsenic poisoning, resulting in lameness and skin cancers. Arsenic was added to bronze to harden it and most smiths of the Bronze Age would have suffered from chronic workplace poisoning.

Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by making her a magical golden throne which, when she sat on it, did not allow her to leave it. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go but he repeatedly refused. Dionysus got him drunk and took him back to Olympus on the back of a mule. Hephaestus released Hera after being given Aphrodite, the goddess of love, as his wife.

In another version of the myth, Hephaestus, being the most unfaltering of the gods, was given Aphrodite’s hand in marriage by Zeus in order to prevent conflict over her between the other gods.

In either case, Hephaestus and Aphrodite had an arranged marriage and Aphrodite, disliking the idea of being married to unsightly Hephaestus, began an affair with Ares, the god of war. Eventually, Hephaestus found out about Aphrodite’s promiscuity from Helios, the all-seeing Sun, and planned a trap for them during one of their trysts. While Aphrodite and Ares lay together in bed, Hephaestus ensnared them in an unbreakable, chain-link net and dragged them to Mount Olympus to shame them in front of the other gods for retribution. However, the gods laughed at the sight of these naked lovers and Poseidon persuaded Hephaestus to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer's fine.

Hephaestus' symbols are a smith's hammer and a pair of tongs. Sometimes he holds an axe.

[Syrenna]

Hera - Goddess of marriage, family, motherhood and childbirth. Zeus' jealous wife

Hera was the wife and older sister of Zeus. She also presided as goddess of marriage, the patriarchal bond of her own subordination: her resistance to the conquests of Zeus is rendered as Hera's "jealousy", the main theme of literary anecdotes that undercut her ancient cult.

Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned and crowned with the polos, the high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses, in her hand Hera may bear the pomegranate, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy.

Hera presides over the right arrangements of the marriage and is the archetype of the union in the marriage bed, but she is not notable as a mother. The legitimate offspring of her union with Zeus are Ares, Hebe, Eris and Eileithyia. Hera was jealous of Zeus' giving birth to Athena without recourse to her (actually with Metis), so she gave birth to Hephaestus without him.

[Syrenna]

Hermes - God of travel, thieves, and commerce. Messenger of the gods

Hermes was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia to Maia. As the story is told in the Homeric Hymn, the Hymn to Hermes, Maia was a nymph, but Greeks generally applied the name to a midwife or a wise and gentle old woman; so the nymph appears to have been an ancient one, or more probably a goddess. At any rate, she was one of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, taking refuge in a cave of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.

The infant Hermes was precocious. On the day of his birth, by midday, he had invented the lyre, using the shell of a tortoise. By nightfall, he had rustled the immortal cattle of Apollo. For the first Olympian sacrifice, the taboos surrounding the sacred kine of Apollo had to be transgressed, and the trickster god of boundaries was the one to do it.

Hermes drove the cattle back to Greece and hid them, and covered their tracks. When Apollo accused Hermes, Maia said that it could not be him because he was with her the whole night. However, Zeus entered the argument and said that Hermes did steal the cattle and they should be returned. While arguing with Apollo, Hermes began to play his lyre. The instrument enchanted Apollo and he agreed to let Hermes keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre.

As a translator, Hermes is the messenger from the gods to humans, a duty which he shares with Iris. An interpreter who bridges the boundaries with strangers is a hermeneus. Hermes gives us our word "hermeneutics" for the art of interpreting hidden meaning. In Greek a lucky find was a hermaion.

Hermes, as an inventor of fire, is a parallel of the Titan, Prometheus. In addition to the syrinx and the lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and the sport of boxing, and therefore was a patron of athletes. Modern mythographers have connected Hermes with the trickster gods of other cultures.

In popular culture

• Hermes has been a symbol of Greece's postal system since 1861.
  
  
• In his 1931 novel, The Night Life of the Gods, American fantasy author and humorist Thorne Smith prominently depicted Hermes (under the Roman name Mercury) as a statue brought to life, in addition to a few other figures from Classical mythology. In the 1935 film adaptation, Hermes/Mercury was played by American actor Paul Kaye.
  
  
• Hermes was played by actor Michael Gwynn in Jason and the Argonauts, 1963.
  
  
• In the Walt Disney animated feature Hercules (1997 film), Hermes was comically voiced by a musician Paul Shaffer.
  
  
• In the TV show Futurama, the manager of the Planet Express delivery service is named Hermes Conrad.
  
  
• In Andrei Konchalovsky's 1997 television adaptation of the Odyssey, Hermes was portrayed by actor Freddy Douglas.
  
  
• Ingeborg Bachmann Prize-winning author Sten Nadolny's 1998 comic novel, The God of Impertinence, tells of Hermes being freed in the late 20th Century after being trapped in a volcano for 2000 years.
  
  
• The 2006 fantasy Herald, by N.F. Houck, is a depiction of Hermes telling his own story and history. In the novel, Hermes also retells many Greek and Roman myths from his point of view.
  
  
• Many bus services in the Netherlands are called Hermes, following his duty as a messenger.
  
  
• Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD) use Hermes (whom they call "Mercury Man") as a company symbol.
  
  
• Goodyear uses a logo of a winged sandal, a symbol of Hermes.

[Syrenna]

Hestia - Goddess of the hearth and domestic life. Eventually replaced by Dionysus (one of the Variable Twelve)

In Greek mythology, virginal Hestia is the goddess of the hearth, of the right ordering of domesticity and the family, who received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain the hearth of the prytaneum or town hall functioned as her official sanctuary. With the establishment of a new colony, flame from Hestia's public hearth would be carried to the new settlement.

Hestia is one of the three Great Goddesses of the first Olympian generation: Hestia, Demeter and Hera. She is the oldest of the three daughters of Rhea and Cronus, the sisters to three brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Originally listed as one of the Twelve Olympians, Hestia gave up her seat in favour of new-comer Dionysus to tend to the sacred fire on Mt. Olympus.

Hestia figures in few myths: she did not roam or have any adventures. The Homeric hymn To Hestia is consequently brief, simply an invocation of five lines, a prelude:

Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo, the Far-shooter at goodly Pytho, with soft oil dripping ever from your locks, come now into this house, come, having one mind with Zeus the all-wise: draw near, and withal bestow grace upon my song.

In the hymn, Hestia is located in ancient Delphi (rather than at the hearth of Zeus on Mount Olympus), which was considered the central hearth of all the Hellenes.

In classical Greek art Hestia was depicted as a woman modestly cloaked in a head veil.

In popular culture

• Hestia is one of the gods worshipped in the DC Comics magazine Wonder Woman. She is the one responsible for providing Diana with the power of truth and the Themyscirian Amazons with protected homes.
  
  
• Hestia is the name given to the "tenth planet" in the comic series Judge Dredd.

[Syrenna]

Poseidon - God of the sea. Brother of Hades and Zeus and father of Polyphemus

Poseidon was a son of Cronus and Rhea. Like his brothers and sisters, Poseidon was swallowed by his father. He was regurgitated only after Zeus forced Cronus to vomit up the infants he had eaten. Zeus and his brothers and sisters, along with the Hecatonchires, Gigantes and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus and the other Titans. According to other variants, Poseidon was raised by the Telchines on Rhodes, just as Zeus was raised by the Korybantes on Crete.

When the world was divided in three, Zeus received the earth and sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea. Sailors prayed to Poseidon for a safe voyage, sometimes drowning horses as a sacrifice. In his benign aspect, Poseidon created new islands and offered calm seas. When offended or ignored, he struck the ground with his trident and caused chaotic springs, earthquakes, drownings and shipwrecks.

In popular culture

• Neptune appeared on the Family Guy episode "A Picture Is Worth a 1,000 Bucks".
  
  
• Neptune appeared in some episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants and in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
  
  
• The band, The Divine Comedy, has a song entitled "Neptune's Daughter" on the album Promenade.
  
  
• Character in the Disney animated series Hercules.
  
  
• Appears as one of the villains in the game Age of Mythology's campaign.
  
  
• There is a song by the name of "On the Breath of Poseidon" by Symphony X.

[Syrenna]

Zeus - King of the gods. God of air, thunder and lightning. Brother of Poseidon and Hades

Cronus sired several children by Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, but swallowed them all as soon as they were born, since he had learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overcome by his own son as he had overthrown his own father— an oracle that Zeus was to hear and avert. But when Zeus was about to be born, Rhea sought Gaia to devise a plan to save him, so that Cronus would get his retribution for his acts against Uranus and his own children. Rhea gave birth to Zeus in Crete, handing Cronus a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallowed. His mother hid Zeus in a basket under a tree and was raised by a shepherd family under the promise that their sheep would be saved from wolves.

After reaching manhood, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge first the stone (which was set down at Pytho under the glens of Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, the Omphalos) then his siblings in reverse order of swallowing. In some versions, Metis gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or Zeus cut Cronus' stomach open. Then Zeus released the brothers of Cronus, the Gigantes, the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes, from their dungeon in Tartarus (The Titans; he killed their guard, Campe. As gratitude, the Cyclopes gave him thunder and the thunderbolt, or lightning, which had previously been hidden by Gaia.)

Together, Zeus and his brothers and sisters, along with the Gigantes, Hecatonchires and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, in the combat called the Titanomachy. The defeated Titans were then cast into a shadowy underworld region known as Tartarus. Atlas, one of the titans that fought against Zeus, was punished by having to hold up the sky.

After the battle with the Titans, Zeus shared the world with his elder brothers, Poseidon and Hades, by drawing lots: Zeus got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, and Hades the world of the dead (the underworld). The ancient Earth, Gaia, could not be claimed; she was left to all three, each according to their capabilities, which explains why Poseidon was the "earth-shaker" (the god of earthquakes) and Hades claimed the humans that died.

Gaia resented the way Zeus had treated the Titans, because they were her children. Soon after taking the throne as king of the gods, Zeus had to fight some of Gaia's other children, the monsters Typhon and Echidna. He vanquished Typhon and trapped him under a mountain, but left Echidna and her children alive as challenges for future heroes.

In popular culture

• Zeus is portrayed to be a character in the Marvel Universe who frequently fights with his older brother Hades (who plans to overthrow him) and his disowned son Ares. He disowned Ares due to his crude nature and so did Hera. Unlike in the comics, he is capable of producing his own Lightingbolts without anybody's help, putting him at a bigger advantage over the mythological versions.
  
  
• In DC Comics, he is a lecherous god who wanted to have sex with Wonder Woman. He also threw Hades off balance due to the fact Hades wanted to rule in his place. He is also the father of the current Wonder Girl in the DC comics universe, and has given her a lasso made from his lightning to use as a weapon.
  
  
• Zeus is a stocky, clean-shaven, old man and later a slim old man with a white beard, looking younger in "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" who doesn't get along with his son, ever since Hercules learned of his paternity as an illegitimate son of Zeus.
  
  
• Zeus is portrayed as a jovial, silly (yet a loving dad and husband) god in Disney's Hercules. He is Hera's only husband. He is portrayed to have one mythological accuracy where Hephaestus manufactures his thunderbolts.
  
  
• Zeus is also one of the heroes in the popular game, DotA Allstars.
  
  
• The 1997 film Zeus and Roxanne is about a dog named Zeus and a dolphin named Roxanne.

[Syrenna]

Dionysus - the Thracian god of wine (one of the Variable Twelve)

He is viewed as the promoter of civilization, a lawgiver, and lover of peace — as well as the patron deity of agriculture and the theater. He was also known as the Liberator (Eleutherios), freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy, or wine. The divine mission of Dionysus was to mingle the music of the flute and to bring an end to care and worry. There is also an aspect of Dionysus on his relationship to the "cult of the souls", and the scholar Xavier Riu writes that Dionysus presided over communication between the living and the dead.

Dionysus had an unusual birth that evokes the difficulty in fitting him into the Olympian pantheon. His mother was Semele (daughter of Cadmus), a mortal woman, and his father Zeus, the king of the gods. Zeus's wife, Hera, a jealous and vain goddess, discovered the affair while Semele was pregnant. Appearing as an old crone (in other stories a nurse), Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that her husband was actually Zeus. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semele's mind. Curious, Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood. Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he agreed. Mortals, however, cannot look upon a god without dying, and she perished. Zeus rescued the fetal Dionysus, however, by sewing him into his thigh. A few months later, Dionysus was born.

As a young man, Dionysus was exceptionally attractive. Once, while disguised as a mortal sitting beside the seashore, a few sailors spotted him, believing he was a prince. They attempted to kidnap him and sail him far away to sell for ransom or into slavery. They tried to bound him with ropes, but no type of rope could hold him. Dionysus turned into a fierce lion and unleashed a bear onboard, killing those he came into contact with. Those who jumped off the ship were mercifully turned into dolphins. The only survivor was the helmsman, Acoetes, who recognized the god and tried to stop his sailors from the start.

The subject of Dionysus is complex and baffling. The problem is further complicated by the fact that he appears in at least four characters: first, as the respectable patron of the theatre and the arts; second, as the effeminate, yet fierce and phallic mystery-god of the bloodthirsty Maenads; third, as the mystic deity in the temples of Demeter; and fourth, as the divine savior who died for mankind and whose body and blood were symbolically eaten and drunk in the eucharist of the Orphic-Pythagorean celibates. Beyond this, almost all barbarian nations had their own versions of Dionysus under many names. And yet there is a simpler explanation: Dionysus, Bromius, Sabazius, Attis, Adonis, Zalmoxis, Corybas, Serapis, and Orpheus himself are replicas of their grand prototype Osiris; and the variations which appear among them resulted from the transplantation of the god from one country to another, and reflect simply the specific needs of his multifarious worshippers.

[Syrenna]

Hebe - the goddess of youth (one of the Variable Twelve)

In Greek mythology, Hebe was the goddess of youth. She was the daughter of Zeus and Hera. Hebe was the cupbearer for the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, serving their nectar and ambrosia, until she was married to Heracles. Her successor was the young Trojan prince Ganymede. She also drew baths for Ares and helped Hera enter her chariot.

In Euripides' play Heracleidae, Hebe granted Iolaus' wish to become young again in order to fight Eurystheus. Hebe had two children with her husband Heracles: Alexiares and Anicetus.

The name Hebe comes from Greek word meaning "youth" or "prime of life".

In art, Hebe is usually depicted wearing a sleeveless dress. There is a statue of Hebe, by Robert Thomas, in Birmingham city centre, England. Antonio Canova also sculpted four different statues of Hebe: one of them is in the Museum of Forlì, in Italy.

[Syrenna]

Helios - personification of the sun (one of the Variable Twelve)

In Greek mythology the sun was personified as Helios or Helius. Homer often calls him Titan and Hyperion.

He was a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and brother of the goddesses Selene the moon and Eos the dawn. The names of these three were simply the Greek words for sun, moon and dawn.

Helios was imagined as a handsome god crowned with the shining aureole of the sun, who drove a chariot across the sky. The best known story involving Helios is that of his son Phaeton, who attempted to drive his father's chariot but lost control and set the earth on fire.

Helios was sometimes referred to with the epithet Helios Panoptes ("the all-seeing"). In the story told in the hall of Alcinous in the Odyssey, Aphrodite, the consort of Hephaestus, secretly bedded Ares. All-seeing Helios, lord of the sun, spied on them and told Hephaestus who ensnared the two lovers in nets invisibly fine, to punish them.

The rooster and white horse were sacred to the god. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his surviving crew landed on Thrinacia, an island sacred to the sun god, whom Circe names Hyperion rather than Helios:

"You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god. There will be seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetia, who are children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look after their father's flocks and herds."

There were kept the sacred red Cattle of the Sun. Though Odysseus warned his men not to, they impiously killed and ate some of the cattle. The guardians of the island, Helios' daughters, told their father. Helios, however, had to appeal to Zeus, who destroyed the ship and killed all the men except for Odysseus.

[Syrenna]

Heracles - the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity (one of the Variable Twelve)

In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman Emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximinus, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal detail of their own, some of it linking the hero with the geography of the Central Mediterranean. Details of cult were adapted to Rome as well.

Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among his characteristic attributes. Although he was not as clever as the likes of Odysseus or Nestor, Heracles used his wits on several occasions when his strength did not suffice, such as when laboring for King Augeias, wrestling the giant Antaeus, or tricking Atlas into taking the sky back onto his shoulders. Together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae. His iconographic attributes are the lion skin and the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a playful figure who used games to relax from his labors and played a great deal with children. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have "made the world safe for mankind" and to be its benefactor.

A major factor in the well-known tragedies surrounding Heracles is the hatred that the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus, had for him. A full account of Heracles must render it clear why Heracles was so tormented by Hera, when there are many illegitimate offspring sired by Zeus. Heracles was the fruit of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus made love to her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon, home early from war (Amphitryon did return later the same night, and Alcmene became pregnant with his son at the same time, a case of superfecundation, where a woman carries twins sired by different fathers). Thus, Heracles's very existence proved at least one of Zeus's many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus's mortal offspring, as revenge for her husband's infidelities.

On the night the twins sharing the same mother were to be born, Hera, knowing of her husband Zeus's adultery, persuaded Zeus to swear an oath that the child born that night to a member of the House of Perseus would be High King. Once the oath was sworn, Hera hurried to Alcmene's dwelling and slowed the birth by sitting crosslegged with her clothing tied in knots. Meanwhile, she caused another boy Eurystheus to be born prematurely, making him High King in place of Heracles. She would have permanently delayed Heracles's birth had she not been foiled by Galanthis, her servant, who lied to her that she had already delivered the baby. Upon hearing this Hera jumped in surprise, therefore untying the knots and finally allowing Alcmene to give birth. The child was originally given the name Alcides by his parents; it was only later on that he became known as Heracles.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Great read on Aphrodite or Venus, I'm an Aphrodite buff. ;D And you weren't lying when you said there was more to come... I can barely keep up.

[Syrenna]

Persephone - the queen of the Underworld, young maiden, and the daughter of Demeter (one of the Variable Twelve)

The figure of Persephone is well-known today. Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden, a mother's grief at the abduction, and the return of her daughter. It is also cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons.

In a text ascribed to Empedocles describing a correspondence between four gods and the classical elements, the name Nestis for water apparently refers to Persephone. "Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: Enlivining Hera, Hades, shining Zeus. And Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears".

Of the four gods of Empedocles' elements it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo, for the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well. She was also the terrible Queen of the dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was named simply "The Maiden". In The Odyssey, when Odysseus goes to the Underworld, he refers to her as the Iron Queen. Her central myth, for all of its emotional familiarity, was also the tacit context of the secret initiatory mystery rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to their awe-struck participants — an immortality in her world beneath the soil, feasting with the heroes beneath her dread gaze.

Unlike every other offspring of an Olympian pairing, Persephone has no stable position at Olympus. Persephone used to live far away from the other gods, a goddess within Nature before the days of planting seeds and nurturing plants. In the Olympian telling [1], the gods Hermes, Ares, Apollo and Hephaistos, had all wooed Persephone, but Demeter rejected all their gifts and hid her daughter away from the company of the gods. Thus, Persephone lived a peaceful life before she became the goddess of the underworld, which, according to Olympian mythographers, did not occur until Hades abducted her and brought her into the underworld.

Life came to a standstill as the devastated Demeter (goddess of the Earth) searched everywhere for her lost daughter. Helios, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told her what had happened.

Finally, Zeus, pressured by the cries of the hungry people and by the other gods who also heard their anguish, could not put up with the dying earth and forced Hades to return Persephone. But before she was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked her into eating three pomegranate seeds, (or six, or four according to some versions of the myth) which forced her to return to the underworld for one month each year for every seed that she ate. In some versions, Ascalaphus informed the other gods that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds. When Demeter and her daughter were together, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for four months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm of darkness. This is an origin story to explain winter.

This myth can also be interpreted as an allegory of ancient Greek marriage rituals. The Greeks felt that marriage was a sort of abduction of the bride by the groom from the bride's family, and this myth may have explained the origins of the marriage ritual. The more popular etiological explanation of the seasons may have been a later interpretation.

Persephone, as Queen of Hades, only showed mercy once, because the music of Orpheus was so hauntingly sad. She allowed Orpheus to bring his wife Eurydice back to the land of the living as long as she walked behind him and he never tried to look at her face until they reached the surface. Orpheus agreed but failed, looking back at the very end to make sure his wife was following, and lost Eurydice forever.

[Syrenna]

admin said:

Great read on Aphrodite or Venus, I'm an Aphrodite buff. ;D And you weren't lying when you said there was more to come... I can barely keep up.

Thanks!! I'm finished with the Olympians now and I'm gonna start on the Primordials

I hope you don't mind me modifying your posts to remove the quote, it's just for consistency, as the quotes are quite large.

I'm so glad you're reading these!! ;D

[Syrenna]

Primordial Deities

The ancient Greeks proposed many different ideas about the primordial gods in their mythology. The many theogonies constructed by Greek poets each give a different account of which gods came first.

• In Homer, Ocean and Tethys are the parents of all the gods.
  
  
• In Hesiod, Chaos ("void", "gap") stands at the beginning, followed by Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, Erebus, Pontus, Ourea, Chronos, Nyx, and then Aether, respectively. (See Protogenoi)
  
  
• Orphic poetry made Nyx the first principle. Nyx is also the first deity in Aristophanes's Birds, producing Eros from an egg.
  
  
• Alcman made the water-nymph Thetis the first goddess, producing poros "path", tekmor "marker" and skotos "darkness" on the pathless, featureless void.
  
  
• The Pelasgian belief was that Eurynome and Ophion produced the Universal Egg.

Greek philosophers and thinkers also constructed their own cosmogonies, with their own primordial gods:

• Pherecydes of Syros made Chronos ("time") the first god in his Heptamychia.
  
  
• Aphrodite and Ares were the first principles of Empedocles, who wove the universe out of the four elements with their powers of love and strife.
  
  
• In Plato's Timaeus, the demiurge models the universe on the Ideas.

Aether - God of the upper air

Aether, in Greek mythology, is one of the Protogenos (first-born). He is the personification of the "upper sky", space and heaven, and the elemental god of the "Bright, Glowing, Upper Air." He is the pure upper air that the gods breathe, as opposed to regular air, the gloomy lower air of the Earth, which mortals breathe.

In Hesiod's Theogony he was the son of Erebus and Nyx and brother of Hemera, both noted in passing in Cicero's De Natura deorum, but Hyginus Pref mentioned Khaos as his parent. He is the soul of the world and all life emanates from him. The aether was also known as Zeus' defensive wall; the bound that locked Tartaros from the cosmos.

His mother Nyx (Night) drew the dark mists of Erebos across the sky beneath him to make night, while his sister Hemera (Day) drew away these mists to reveal his shining glow and bring the day. Night and day were regarded as independent of the sun in the ancient theogonies. He has several offspring but Hyginus seem to confuse him with Ouranos when saying that Aether has many children by Gaia.

Hyginus is also our source for telling us that Aether is the father of Ouranos, Gaia and Thalassa by Hemera (his sister). But another source tells us that it is just Ouranos who is his child. And like Tartaros and Erebos, in Hellas he might have had shrines but no temples and probably no cult either. In the Orphic hymns, he is mentioned as the soul of the world from which all life emanates.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

syrenna said:

admin said:

Great read on Aphrodite or Venus, I'm an Aphrodite buff. ;D And you weren't lying when you said there was more to come... I can barely keep up.

Thanks!! I'm finished with the Olympians now and I'm gonna start on the Primordials

I hope you don't mind me modifying your posts to remove the quote, it's just for consistency, as the quotes are quite large.

I'm so glad you're reading these!! ;D

Fine by me, it helps the place look nicer so... I was almost fearful of posting here and destroying the beauty of it.

[Syrenna]

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Chaos - Non-gendered deity of the nothingness from which all else sprang

According to Hesiod's Theogonia (The origin of the Gods), Chaos was the nothingness out of which the first objects of existence appeared. These first beings, described as children of Chaos alone, were Gaia (the Earth), Tartarus (the Underworld), Nyx (the darkness of the night), and Erebus (the darkness of the Underworld). Thus, at the very start of his story, Hesiod establishes the deities related to each element known to man, beginning with the primordial elements: the Earth, the starry Sky, the Sea.

[Syrenna]

Chronos - God of eternal time

In Greek mythology, Chronos in pre-Socratic philosophical works is said to be the personification of time. He emerged from the primordial Chaos. He is often mythologically confused with the Titan Cronus.

He was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a man turning the zodiac wheel. Often the figure is named Aeon (Eternal Time), a common alternate name for the god. His name actually means "Time", and is alternatively spelled Khronos (transliteration of the Greek), Chronos, Chronus (Latin version). Some of the current English words which show a tie to khronos/chronos and the attachment to time are chronology, chronic, and chronicle.

In Greek myth Chronos, also known as Aion or Aeon, was the god of the Ages (Golden to Brazen) and the Zodiac, parent, with Ananke (Inevitability), to the primordial Phanes, who hatched from the world-egg at the beginning of time; Cronus was the ruler of the Titans, as Titan god of time, born from Ouranos and Gaia, and father of Zeus.

[Syrenna]

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Erebus - God of darkness

Erebus was a primordial god, the personification of darkness and shadow.

According to some legends, Erebus was part of Hades, the underworld. It was where the dead had to pass immediately after dying. After Charon ferried them across the river Acheron, they entered Tartarus, the underworld proper. Erebus was often used as a synonym for Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. Also, Erebus was the name of the gloomy space through which souls passed on their way to Hades.

In popular culture

• In Gene Wolfe's science fiction epic, Erebus is a semi-mythological ice demon!, having his power base in the frozen south. His minions (known as perischii since their shadows rotate around them on a summer's day) are the ones that raid the Southern Isles in his name. As a god of darkness, his victory will come only when Sol is finally extinguished. Erebus is connected to at least three other terrible godlings: Abaia, Scylla and Arioch.
  
  
• Erebus is also the title of a 1984 novel by Shaun Hutson.
  
  
• Erebus is also the name of the riverine patrol boat that ferried Captain Benjamin Willard upriver in the film Apocalypse Now.
  
  
• In the film Blade the character, Blade, upon inflitrating Pearl's lair, comes across a collection of pages that he says are "from the Book of Erebus", the "vampire Bible."
  
  
• In the Video Game Auto Assault, an Erebus, is one of the selectable vehicles used for the Human faction.
  
  
• In the video game Golden Sun: The Lost Age it is possible to attain a suit of armor called the "Erebus Armor".
  
  
• In the MMORPG EVE Online , each of the four main races can potentially construct a starship known as a Titan. These monstrosities take months to build, but are the most powerful single vessels in the game - one of these four Titans is known as the Erebus.
  
  
• Erebus is the title of the opening track from the album Occasus by extreme music group The Amenta
  
  
• Erebus is also the name of a South African metal band.
  
  
• In the 1993 computer game Doom by id Software, the sixth level in the third episode is titled "Mt. Erebus".

[Syrenna]

Eros - God of love

In Greek mythology, Eros was the primordial god responsible for lust, love, and sex and worshipped as a fertility deity. His name is the root of words such as erotic. He was often associated with Aphrodite. Like Dionysus, he was sometimes referred to as Eleutherios, "the liberator".

According to tradition, Eros was principally the patron of male love, while Aphrodite ruled mens' love of women. Thus his statue could be found in the palaestras, one of the principal venues for men to associate with their beloveds, and it was to him that the Spartans sacrificed before battle. Meleager records this role in a poem preserved in the Greek Anthology: "The Cyprian queen, a woman, hurls the fire that maddens men for women; but Eros himself sways the passion for males."

Throughout Greek thought, there appear to be two sides to the conception of Eros; in the first, he is a primeval deity who embodies not only the force of erotic-love but also the creative urge of ever-flowing nature, the first-born Light that is responsible for the coming into being and ordering of all things in the cosmos. In Hesiod's Theogony, the most famous Greek creation myth, Eros sprang forth from the primordial Chaos together with Gaia, the Earth, and Tartarus, the underworld; according to Aristophanes' play The Birds, he burgeons forth from an egg laid by Night conceived with Darkness. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, he was worshipped as Protogonus, the first-born.

Alternately, later in antiquity, Eros was the son of Aphrodite and either Ares, Hermes or Hephaestus, or of Porus and Penia, or sometimes of Iris and Zephyrus; this Eros was an attendant to Aphrodite, harnessing the primordial force of love and directing it into mortals, an apt role for the issue of a union between "Love" and either "War" or "Fire." In some myths, he is portrayed as being playful, frequently causing trouble for gods and mortals; in others, he is mindful of the power he wields, sometimes refusing the entreaties of his mother and other gods to interfere in the course of some mortals' lives. In some versions he had brothers named Anteros, the embodiment of unrequited love, and Himerus.

In art, Eros was usually depicted as a nude winged boy or infant with his bow and arrows in hand. He had two kinds of arrows: one was golden with dove feathers that caused instant love; the other was lead with owl feathers that caused indifference. The poet Sappho described him as "bittersweet" and "cruel" to his victims; he was also unscrupulous, mischievous and charismatic. In his ancient identification with Protogones and Phanes he was adorned represented as a bull, a serpent, a lion, and with the heads of a ram. He is occasionally shown blind or blindfolded.

Worship of Eros was uncommon in early Greece, but eventually became widespread. He was fervently worshipped by a fertility cult in Thespiae, and played an important role in the Eleusinian Mysteries. In Athens, he shared a very popular cult with Aphrodite, and the fourth day of every month was sacred to him.